Thar she blows!

Last night Derek and I were in the living room and heard the rain and wind start to pick up outside.

For some reason, we get some pretty decent wind storms where we live.

I usually rush outside to pull our patio table and chairs closer to the house and make sure there aren't random toys that will be blown away.

Derek usually stays where he is and laughs at me and my paranoia when it comes to the wind.

It really stresses me out.

So, last night when I heard the wind I hurried outside.

I stepped out the door and was immediately hit by the rain that was blowing sideways.

There was constant thunder and lightning.

Seriously, one right after another.

It was insane.

As I pulled a couple of the chairs in closer, I heard a noise.

It was pretty dark and it took me a second to register that when I looked over between the two houses to the east of us, I was seeing a trampoline flying through the air.

I looked over where our trampoline had been.

It was gone.

I ran back inside, threw some toys on the floor and in a panic said to Derek,

"Our tramp just blew away!"

He jumped up and we both went and stood on our patio and stared at our trampoline down the way.

We talked about trying to go and get it.

We decided that dragging a large metal object down the middle of the street during a lightning storm was probably not the wisest thing to do.

So, we helplessly watched our trampoline.

The wind was still crazy and I was certain that it would blow into someone's house.

After a while, we decided to go to bed and wait for the storm to pass so we could safely get the trampoline in the morning.

We were up bright and early and this was the site from our back porch-

(see the tramp between the houses and across the street?)

Thankfully, the neighbor saw us and asked if we wanted help getting it back to our yard.

At 7 a.m. he and Derek were dragging the poor, beat up trampline down the street... poles scraping and screeching the whole way.

I, of course, was busy taking pictures.  What's new?

And now she rests here.

We're not sure if she can be fixed.

I was so bummed when I kept thinking about how we had just seen $300 fly through the air and be so quickly destroyed.  I thought about how sad the kids would be.  I thought about all the fun times we had jumping and playing on the trampline.  I thought about how we had just gotten it a few months ago. 

I felt devastated.

I am weird.

But, then I started thinking about how much worse it could have been.

What if a car would have been driving down the street when the tramp blew through?

There are poles sticking out everywhere... it could have done some serious damage to a car, house, or person.  Even though I'm bummed, I'm so glad no one was hurt and/or it didn't destroy the side of someone's house.

And, I also thought about how people have seen much more important things destroyed by the wind... like their home.  It was a big deal to me but in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty minor.

Of course I did the, "Why didn't we weight it down?" business to Derek.

His reply....

"I didn't think we lived in Florida."