wild weather where we live!!

for those of you who don't know the history of where we live, our house was built in the early 60's by my Dad's family. My grandmother and her oldest son (my uncle, an architect) designed the house and my dear Opa and his two sons built it from the ground up. It has gone through MANY changes over the years, going from housing a family with 3 adult children (my Dad's family) to a family with 5 children (my parents bought the house from my grandparents in the 80's and we grew up here with my grandparents living in the granny suite) and then after my beloved Dad passed away in 2001 it underwent major changes again to accommodate Kevin and I and our growing family as well as my mom and the 3 teenagers living upstairs. Since then 2 of my siblings have married and moved out but we still have Mom and 2 siblings still upstairs (including Michele, our new youngest sibling :) ) ...ANYWAYS, all this to say that Opa had a passion for gardens and planting and all of the big beautiful trees on our property were lovingly planted and cared for by him. :) I absolutely love enjoying them in the summertime!!

this picture (above makes me laugh b/c although its not very clear you can tell how stoked Steve -5yrs-is to be driving the lawn tractor around, and it shows what a sweet opa he was to let Steve get such a thrill of his life (turned sour pretty fast though when Steve drove it smack into a tree!! haha)

such a sweet sweet Opa. and my Dad was that kind of Opa too, i still get so sad that my kids can't enjoy him on this earth. He would have LOVED them!!!

my sweet Opa passed away in 1990 I think, but his legacy lives on. His & Dad's fingerprints are all over this place, and while we know that God alone deserves the glory for giving these men the ability and blessings to accomplish what they did, we fondly remember them when we enjoy the beauty of the property we have been blessed with.

so anyways, it is especially sad for us when things like this happen, and thing like this have been happening more often lately. These two huge trees were uprooted in a matter of seconds during Saturday's storm. There was a lot of damage like this in our neighborhood!

We have much to praise God for, thankfully no one was hurt and there was not more damage!