An Eventful Weekend: my first clue should've been...

the Northern Water Snake that Carol & Kristin spotted on our boat lift. I've never been fearful of snakes, but this was the biggest snake I've ever witnessed in the wild...at least in Omaha. This thing was at least 3 feet long and about the width of my forearm - no joke. We borrowed a shovel from our neighbors and they took a good shot at it, but the thing got away too quickly. We didn't think it'd come back, but within 30 seconds it was back on the boat lift. This time they clipped it, and thankfully it didn't show its face again.

That was my second run-in with a snake within a 48 hour period. On Saturday I was picking up sticks in our backyard, and almost picked up a snake thinking it was a stick until it started slithering away! Needless to say that ended my cleanup in the yard...I resorted to reading a magazine safely on our deck instead. Let's hope I've had my fill of snakes for awhile.

Kristin's cat, Peanut seemed spooked all day yesterday. She was hiding under the bed and we couldn't get her to come out...we figured out why when we had a nasty storm roll through last night. I have always loved the thrill of a good storm, but I'll be honest...this one was frightening! We were all outside playing blongo ball, when we noticed some mean-looking clouds approaching from the South. It started raining a bit and we kept playing, but once it started lightning, we packed stuff up and started heading inside. We made it as far as the screened-in porch, but before we could even get into the cottage, the wind started howling. You've heard people say that when a tornado is coming close it sounds light a freight train? That's what it sounded like. It was really freaky, and I couldn't get over how quickly it came...it was peaceful one minute and literally within seconds we were being blasted with tornado-like winds...I have never experienced weather so intense. Apparently there weren't any tornadoes spotted in our area, but wind speeds were easily 70 mph - plus! Surveying the damage looked like tornadic activity...huge trees were completely uprooted, boat lifts were ripped out of the ground and thrown across the lake, large branches were flying through the air, boats were tossed onto shore, some were tipped and started sinking. The scariest part for me, though, was that Dave had just gotten on the road to head home only minutes before the weather got ugly. He wouldn't have left had he known how bad it would've been. We thought he could get ahead of the storm, but it moved too quickly. He said that there were a couple times he felt as if the wind was beginning to lift the vehicle. We just kept praying and praying, and after looking at all the damage and where the majority of it hit (all within our side of the lake), we're convinced that the Lord answered our prayers to keep us (& Dave) in a bubble! Below are a few pics of how things looked after it calmed down.













































Thankfully Will was already fast asleep by the time the storm hit. He always sleeps with a loud fan on for white noise, but we lost electricity during the storm, so I thought for sure he'd wake up to all the booming thunder...miraculously he did not.

I have a feeling we'll never forget Will's first Memorial Day weekend ;-)