When it rains, it pours.

Literally and figuratively, that was true yesterday. Yesterday the Chicagoland got hit pretty hard with strong thunderstorms. There were points in the day when the sky looked black and rain was falling in sheets, but driving home Friday evening from work things actually seemed better. I was looking forward to the dinner that Bob was going to have ready for Reed and I when we arrived home. Then when I was about 1 minute from Reed's daycare (about 2 minutes from our house), the phone rings and Bob informs me to get home quickly because he discovered that our basement had taken on some water. This isn't the first time this has happened, but from the urgency in his voice I could tell it was worse than before. Well, there goes dinner.

Our neighbor Adrienne graciously came over to tend to Reed while we reorganized the basement, throwing out damaged items, drying off damp items, and getting anything not in a plastic tub out of there so no further damage could be done. We were running multiple fans, a dehumidifier, and 2 shop vacs when the power suddenly cut out. Another wave of storms had just kicked up. My initial thought was that the whole neighborhood lost power. Bob thought maybe we had blown a fuse or something. I thought he was crazy when he said he was going to go outside to check if we were the only house with power out. Why would we be the only one out, I thought to myself (okay maybe out loud). Bob came running back inside yelling, "HOLY CRAP! A TREE JUST FELL ON OUR HOUSE!"

Sure enough, a huge upper limb from the tree in the parkway was laying across our front stairs up against the house. Miraculously, the house was undamaged. When we opening the front door to access the damage, this was the view....leaves and branches!

Reed was thinking, 'hmm something is out of place here and I can't quite figure out what it is.'

Our early accessment of the damage, with backlighting provided by an Elgin fire truck. I guess a live electrical wire dangling in our front yard was enough for them to wait at our house until Com Ed showed up.

A better view of our near disaster.

We really were lucky that our house wasn't hurt in the mishap and I always try to think of the positives to get a through a tough situation. Here's what I came up with:
1) We got a free load of firewood
2) Bob sharpened his abilities with a chain saw
3) We have one less limb that can fall on our house in the future
4) We got a really good workout this weekend
5) We are all safe (and that's what really matters).

Ah what a day!!!