It was a dark and stormy night...

Literally, it was. The Houston area gets some pretty good thunderstorms throughout the year, so when it started thundering and raining last night we didn't think much of it. Suddenly we start hearing very loud CLUNK sounds above and seemingly all around us. Michael jumped up and said, "Get in the closet! No wait, let's go to the bathroom!" He basically thought it might've been a tornado ripping stuff off the house or hurling things into it. That same thought also crossed my mind when the crashing sounds first began. So I leapt out of bed, fell to my knees and shrieked, "TAKE ME TO OZ!"

Not really. But I should've.

Before we got anywhere though Michael realized that it was just hail. Wait, not "just" hail, but massive golf ball and bigger sized hail replete with howling winds, driving rain, and thunder and lightning. I've seen a number of hail storms in my life but never hail of that proportion. It crashed down, sounding as if someone was taking a sledgehammer to our roof and throwing fastballs against our windows. After just five minutes or so though the hail stopped and things quieted down a bit. We went back to bed and Michael suddenly says, "Our cars..." Oh yeah. Well, there was nothing we could do at 11:30 p.m. about it, so we just went to sleep.

This is what we awoke to - several large cracks in the truck's windshield, a number of cracks in the siding on our house, about a kajillion dings and dents all over both the truck and my car, and oh, what's that? Yes, a massive hole in my car! Poor Max. His butt is broken.

It's all a bit of a bummer, but it was also a bit of excitement in our boring lives. We had no idea such a severe storm was going to roll through. Plus, guess what we received in our bank account today? Our tax refund! It'll more than cover everything, including enough for a down payment on a new car sometime over this next year. (Oh Max, you are dying and I am powerless to stop it!) See? God provides. I was also reminded of how thankful I am to have shelter and a roof over my head. There are so many in the world who cannot say the same and who would've suffered much more serious damage in such a storm.

I guess I should start checking the weather forecasts more often...