holy hail...

last night we experienced something i have never seen before. i'm quite certain that our small town in the middle of nowhere-not-close-to-the-beach-town had the pleasure of the quickest hurricane on record. in a matter of seconds our house was shaken to the core by violent winds and  beaten down by golf ball size hail. you could see the "golf balls" swirling in circles at extremely high speeds. once we heard the glass shatter upstairs, the husband grabbed all three kiddos and rushed them into our room downstairs. and then, after about 15 minutes, it was over. but in that 15 minutes we lost two windows, the back patio lights, and who knows what else on the roof. we were lucky to have only minimal damage. the neighbors...not so lucky. the house down the street looks like a gang riot took place in his front yard, the cars that were parked in the driveway look the same, and the poor bird we found in the yard was the only casualty. 

unfortunately our insurance deductible is so ridiculously high that we'll be paying for repairs out of pocket, but i'm thankful it's just the windows that need replacing...