kate and i were hanging at the beach with the kiddies, enjoying a beautiful and sunny beach day when the sky rumbled. "was that thunder?" we asked eachother then shrugged it off. it happened again, but the sky was not darkening quickly so we stayed down. a few minutes later, my dad marched all the way down to tell us that a "big red blob" was moving across the lake towards us. no, not a sci-fi monster from the fifties... a big red blob to an amateur meteorologist like my dad means a STORM. so we weren't imagining the thunder after all! as we trudged up the steps, the first drops started to fall, and the wind began to whip kate's hair. my hair is simply to short to whip into anything.
we watched as the storm leaned the trees and plastered the windows of the a-frame with leaves. the winds (according to dad's handy-dandy electronic weather station) reached hurricane force. oblivious to the havoc that was being wreaked, we stood by and watched the storm through the windows as the power flickered and then went off. too late i wished i had heeded my mom's advice to put my van in the garage!as quickly as it came, the storm was gone, and we giggled as we got out flashlights and candles. the power popped back on, proving the effort temorarily redundant. then the phone began to ring. downed power lines next door had sparked a fire... did we have any extinguishers? the neighbors on the OTHER side had three trees down on their roof... wow! had we escaped unscathed?
well, mostly, but not entirely. luckily, the one HUGE branch that fell dropped directly BEHIND my folks' minivan. whew! the cleanup effort began as power crews decided it would be best to shut off our power due to the live downed wire next door. bummer. 30 hours with no power!
baby brother got to work on the downed limbs so he could escape, and the fire department came to survey the damage to the smoldering brush next door. 
no power was not a problem... after all... we could bathe in the lake!
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