phew. (or... then friday happened)

well well well.

my parents arrived safe & sound at about 6:30pm on wednesday.

it seemed like forever since i had seen them.

thursday, we went out to lunch and then went to see...

it was so awesome.
munki was already interested in archery...this movie put her over the top.
so next year, she wants to add archery to her 4H projects.

surprise, surprise.

the heat while my parents were visiting was ridiculous.
in the 90s & then over 100 degrees
 with humidity to boot makes for some misery.

but we were having a blast despite the heat!

then friday happened.

we were having a nice day...

went to munki's 4H meeting...

had a nice lunch...

went for a bit of a drive then headed home to wait for matt,

so that we could do our friday night pizza & a movie.

he got home a bit early (yay!) but had a few things to do in the garage.
at about 3:45 the sky got dark & we started getting a little bit of rain...

the winds knocked the temperature down about 20 degrees though...nice!

then the wind started blowing...

i mean blowing. 

like really blowing.

like "stand outside and darn near knock you on your butt" blowing.

mother nature had a little temper tantrum.

turns out the winds were clocked between 90 & 100mph.

at exactly 4:09pm

the lights flickered 3 times and then everything went out.

and stayed out.

within hours...
ohio was declared in a state of emergency.

there were branches of all sizes strewn everywhere down our street.

we were incredibly lucky that all we lost was our power.

we had a lot of wonderful meals at some great local restaurants...

thank goodness they had power & a/c.

the temperature didn't stay low for long.

i'm not going to detail every day...

(trust me, you don't want to know the gory details 

of how pleasant i can be when i have no way to cool off.)

but there were more movies, 

air conditioned drives in the car whilst surveying damage in our area...

& looking at crazy skies...

(note the traffic lights are out)

...and eventually matt taking a trip down to his parents house

so that we could pick up & borrow their generator.

(which saved us all in more ways than one)

we had gone grocery shopping friday morning

& had quite a few things that wouldn't have survived 

without that generator to run our fridge.

or the fans and window a/c unit which cooled us down a bit

(and saved a wee bit of my already threatened sanity =] )

we had been told 5-7 days before our power would be restored...

i lost track of days & storms and weirdness

as it all seemed to blend together.

we had more crazy skies 

(these below being some of the strangest clouds i've ever seen)

mom & dad left early monday morning
(which was their plan anyway, regardless of our power situation)

thankfully, yesterday at 5:45pm we were one of the lucky folks that got power back.

oh, the daily things we take for granted.

i'll end this for now & i'll write more about time spent with my mom & dad, 

which was awesome even through all of this...

and they're awesome because they dealt with my

"i'm hot and sweaty and things aren't going the way i planned" mood swings.

i just had things i wanted to do during their visit that never happened & it makes me sad.

hopefully they'll come back soon and mother nature will be a bit gentler on all of us.

one thing i do know...i miss them...a lot...

& so does the munki. 

have an enjoyable tuesday

& let's all hope that mother nature settles down...

she's been moody all over the u.s.

xox.