These Pictures Don't Do It Justice

 So this afternoon after I finished teaching classes Lizzy and I grabbed Lydia and helped walk Jacob to his friend Logan's car so that he could have a playdate with him. We stood beside the car while his nanny tried to strap them in for about 5 minutes. It had been raining on and off all morning but right then there was a break so we were standing there in the parking lot without an umbrella. This was a mistake. Like in a movie the clouds parted and dumped on us. Lizzy started to panic and Lydia started to cry. I felt bad walking away from Miss Bebe while she was still struggling with seatbelts in her car but my girls and I were drenched within seconds so I left her and made a mad dash to my car where I basically threw the girls into the backseat before going back to make sure Bebe was ok. By the time I got to her car I saw her climbing over from the backseat to the front and she was shooing me away. So I ran back again to my car and started home. 

I've driven in rain before. Heck, I've driven in heavy rain before. But this was a new kind of heavy rain. This was heavy rain with crazy winds. There was debris flying all over the streets. I had to drive around 3 large branches before I even got to the first intersection. Not to mention the garbage cans and who knows what else. I live only about 5 miles from the preschool but there is a pretty big intersection at Transcontinental and Veterans which I needed to get through. Today, however the traffic lights weren't working. Not only were they not working, the one that was supposed to be facing me had been blown around so now it was facing the wrong direction. (Not that it really mattered at that point.) Also, right at the intersection there was a Salvation Army truck which was lying on its side. On it's SIDE, folks. And have I mentioned the flooded roads? That was another issue. Anyway, I managed to get back home praying the whole way and feeling sick to my stomach about sending Jacob home with somebody else. It was also dawning on me that I didn't have Bebe's phone number and had failed to give her mine in the chaos after school. I got Lizzy and Lydia inside and stripped their wet clothes off and had them put on new, dry clothes. Then I tried to find a number for Logan's house. Finally I found one, talked to Bebe to hear that they had arrived safely (she only had to pull over one time), and then made lunch while I watched somebody else's beach ball fly across the back window. Oh, and there was no power at my house. Clint came home shortly thereafter and we went out to inspect the backyard. All things considered it didn't look too bad. A lot like the damage we have after hurricanes - several branches and debris. Our lousy back fence broke some more but that thing is just waiting to be torn down anyway. Here are the pictures I took a few hours later.  I saw on the news today that there was actually a tornado. That would explain a lot actually.

 The backyard mess.

 Rain in the sand table from the morning.

 The fence tore away from the post holding it up.

 Chunk of fence missing.

 Next door neighbor's yard strewn with branches. It's been so much worse on other occasions I was surprised this was the extent of the damage today.

 Not sure where that milk jug came from. It's not ours.

 See the lid to the trashcan? This morning it was on top of the trashcan. It was blown over the fence. Glad it blew this direction!

 Clint said he found several tiles in our front yard that blew off of the house across the street.

 Lydia came out to watch me take pictures of the walkway.

 My poor plant. I need to stake it up.