for the BLOG NAZI!

i blame today's events on the blog nazi! she wanted me to post something because she was bored, but i had nothing of note to blog about....until the tree exploded. let me explain...



the weather started off this morning with a down pour. i'm still getting used to texas weather, because this struck me as a little odd. in colorado, i'm pretty sure it NEVER rains in the morning. maybe i'm wrong, but that's what i remember. anyways, this morning it was pouring. i watched the weather on the austin channel for a little bit but it didn't seem too serious so i kind of ignored it.



after putting on my rain jacket to walk the 20 yards to the office, i settled into the work day by turning on my computer and getting situated like always. pretty soon, everyone starts to gather on the porch to watch the rain come down because we haven't had a good rain storm in at least a month or so. (people in texas are afraid their entire state will burn to the ground if they don't get rain for a week, so this was a big deal.) as we're standing on the porch, the storm starts to diminish, the rain is letting up and the lightning is dying away. we're all chatting when KKKKKAAAA-BBBBBAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!! there's this huge bolt of lightning and thunder right on top of each other (because of course, lightning doesn't make any noise, thunder does). i saw a big bright yellow light over to my left and matt, who was looking in that direction, just drops his jaw and says something like "holy sh*t." i look over just in time to see what was this enormous tree, splinter and fall to the ground.

luckily, it was still raining pretty hard, so the tree didn't burst into flames or anything. this picture doesn't do justice for how big the tree was - it was massive! it is a cedar tree, which is sweet because then the inside of the tree is a great combo of white wood and red wood - beautiful!

luckily, our maintenance guy gene is ah-mazing, and he and tyler took care of the tree later that afternoon. now all that's left is a giant stump. i think this picture gives you a better idea of how humungous this tree actually was.

so that was my excitement for the day. tonight i went and hung out at my favorite church for a night of multi-generational jeopardy. my team won :) maybe because we had a pastor on our team, but maybe because we were just THAT amazing.

this weekend i'm off to go camping with some girl friends! i'm super excited to hang out with them and use my new tent! i'm sure i'll have a story or two from that next week, so hang in there blog nazi :)