AFTER THE STORM

This evening we had a thunder storm. Now, earlier we got some hard rain and when it stopped Rick wanted to go on a walk. When we headed out we heard thunder off in the distance and the protective mother in me came out because, as you know, where you can hear thunder there is the potential of lightning. So back in we went. And wouldn't you know, the storm circled back around and we got hit hard! We even had lightning strike across the street, sending us jumping out of our seats and the house vibrating. Rick was actually willing to admit he was glad he listened to me - go figure!

After this storm, we felt safe to head out, take a walk and let Malia jump in the puddles. We even had her wear her rain boots.

As we headed down the road we found this tree showing the results of being hit by lightning.

This charred strip ran the entire length of the tree - it was incredible. And shards of wood littered the grass. As we marveled at the sight, the neighbor across the road (you can see their house in the above picture) came out to talk and said there had been shards in their yard! As you can see by the piece of wood on the left (picture below) they were literally sticking out of the ground like someone had stuck knives in the ground!

We finally moved on and found a lot of big puddles for Malia to jump in. She had so much fun kicking, splashing and jumping.

And after awhile we began to hear the water in her boots sploosh around. She kicked and splashed so hard that we literally poured water out of them when we got home!

On our way back home Rick took this picture. It's a little too provocative looking for me, but Rick thinks it's adorable.

When we got home, Daddy got out the "nok-lers" as Malia calls them. She has a toy pair that she plays with a lot. These, however, are the real-deal.


Not really sure what she's looking at, but it kept her occupied for awhile.