A Little Too Close to Home

So we had a pretty wicked thunderstorm roll through around midnight last night. It woke everybody up of course. All the kids came running into our room to ride out the storm. As all five of us were laying in our bed trying unsuccessfully to sleep, a bolt of lightning struck simultaneously with the deafening thunder. Everybody jumped, the girls started crying, Jacob buried his head under one the pillows and covered his ears, and Dan and I tried to calm everyone down.

After a few minutes passed, we got the kids calm enough to go back to their own rooms, telling them the storm was ending and the lightning and thunder were becoming more and more distant. As we were putting them to bed we started hearing sirens approaching. We looked out the windows and saw a firetruck driving into our neighborhood. I went to look out the window of the kids bathroom and saw smoke rising from a house on the street beside ours. Apparently that huge lightning bolt that we had seen/heard struck a house not even 400 feet from ours! You can read about it here.

Dan went out to check it out and talk to the neighbors. Apparently the people heard it strike their house and then moments later smoke started pouring in through their vents. They were able to get their kids and get out. Luckily no one was hurt.

Of course the kids wouldn't go back to sleep until Dan came back home, they were worried that it was the home of a couple of little boys on their bus - it was. When they were satisfied that the boys and their parents were ok, they went to bed, but it took them until well after 2am to fall back to sleep. Us too.