Hale-Raisers: Well, the weekend didn't quite go as expected

As I write this, today has already been an adventure. Dealing with insurance has to be the worst part of any disaster (at least when there is no injuries and just stuff was involved). My heart breaks for those who were injured or lost loved ones.

For anyone who didn't hear about the crazy storm that raced across North Carolina this past weekend, it was bad. Over 60 tornadoes touched down and damage is widespread throughout the state. Unfortunately, we are one of the families dealing with damage and clean up. We have been blessed with the well wishes and help of some really great friends to help us through.

Here's our story . . .

Saturday started out pretty normal. We got up and got dressed to go to a wedding for some of our friends (they had matchbook favors, how awesome those turned out to be). We came home, where Mike and Liam napped and Graeme and I hung out in the living room. Mike and Liam got up and not too much later a storm system hit us. We knew we were supposed to have thunderstorms coming, but we had no idea what was on its way.

Mike took Liam outside to listen to the thunder and watch the lightning on the front porch. The power flickered, I picked up Graeme and went to the door. The wind and rain started really whipping around and we came back in just as the power went out for what would turn out to be 36 hours. Mike said grab the kids and lets get into the bathroom. Right after he said this, I saw the wicker bench on the front porch get picked up and whipped off the porch (Mike found it later behind the garage amongst the debris from our neighbor's tree). We sat in the bathroom with only a headlamp providing light . . . Graeme did not care for this activity.

We came out and discovered any plans or thoughts we had for how this weekend would go had just changed. Both of our vehicles suffered from broken windshields, siding was missing and shingles were everywhere. The friends from out of town we had planned to have over for a cookout that night would instead be helping us cover up spots on the roof where the tar paper was exposed from missing shingles. They still got a grilled meal, it was the only way we could cook.

Thankfully our friends Dave and Anna had another friend with a house nearby (thankfully undamaged) who was out of town. This friend had a generator we could borrow to power our fridge (and occasionally the hot pot for Mike's coffee :-)

On Sunday, more wonderful friends came over to help. Kristin and her boys came and helped pick up small stuff around the yard and to thoroughly make my boys day as they played outside. After another on the grill lunch, we were joined by more great friends to tackle the really big tree between our backyard and our neighbors that had fallen. To get the boys from underfoot, Kristin bravely loaded my car seats into her car and we packed all four of our boys (hers are 8 & 9 and so great with my fellas) off to see HOP.

Power was restored a full day before we expected it, so now we are just waiting for all the hoops we will need to jump through for estimates, deductibles and insurance claims.

Here are some pics of the aftermath and clean up. We were truly blessed, so many have much worse damage. Thank the LORD for such great friends and pray for those who lost more than stuff.