My weekend as a vagabond.

I had such grand plans for this weekend.

I was going to relax, get a bunch of wedding things accomplished, and overall just enjoy a whole weekend of nothingness. 

I was doing just that Friday night. 

Watching some I Found the Gown and designing our invitations, enjoying a Strawberita, the usual. 

We were told there were going to be "severe storms" passing through the area on Friday. Either I wasn't paying attention, or they weren't being emphatic enough, but I had no idea just how severe they meant. 

Around 8:00 it started to rain.  Typical rain. It started to come down a little harder, and our satellite was cutting out- nothing new, stupid Dish does that all the time in rain. Then it really started coming down. SO hard, in such heavy sheets that I couldn't see the cars or trees on the street. I remember putting the computer on the coffee table and saying to M, "holy crap it's coming down." 

The trees were whipping around pretty severely.

Then we heard it. 

The unmistakeable creak of a tree bending to its breaking point, and suddenly a CRACK followed by a loud heavy BANG on our roof. I was 100% convinced in that moment that the huge tree in our backyard had just fallen on the house and our roof was partially gone. TJ BOLTS from the living room, which of course sends me into a panic- I'm honestly more scared in a disaster (fire, tornado, whatever) that TJ would run away and I'd have to leave him and get out of the house. I start getting hysterical to get downstairs, thinking the windows were about to get blown out (this is how hard it's raining and how intense the wind is), when we hear more creaking/snapping and the power goes out. I peek out the side window between our house and our neighbor's and see foliage..where there is not supposed to be any, and start to lose it.

We wrangle the cat into the basement, grab a lighter, and start lighting some candles. M is checking the utility room to see if we're getting water in, and there was a bit in the corners but nothing too bad at this point. Within 30-40 minutes, it was over. Rain and all, done. Super eerie, super fast, and knowing how quick it was makes it that much more incredible when you see the damage that was done in such a short amount of time.

I swear I'm not trying to hype this up more than it was, I just want to relay what it was like in the moment. I can't fathom people who experience a tornado.. my heart goes out to them that much more, because what we experienced pales in comparison. We don't have power (still, as I type this on Sunday, and they're saying it could be THURSDAY now. ugh), but our home is still standing. That doesn't mean this wasn't the most terrifying weather-related experience I've ever had.

So us, along with our entire neighborhood, went outside to survey the damage...and this is what we found...

out the front door:

Between our houses.. you can sort of see it- at the very top center of the photo, is where this 40-50 foot limb came from. It's positioned perfectly between our houses. Any more in either direction and it very well could've put a hole in our roofs. It was embedded about 6-7 inches into the ground, that's how big it was and how hard it hit: 

Tree snapped off at the base across the street: 

 

Another, this is about 7 houses down on our side of the street still: 

 

Across the street, on the corner of our block: 

 

 

This pine tree was behind the tree in the above 2 photos, they fell parallel to one another:

 

And the main culprit, and the reason we're not expected to get power back until Wednesday or Thursday now: 

 That's our alley, looking down towards our house (our house is on the other side of the tree, farther down). When M and I left to come to my parents tonight for dinner, it still looked the exact same. Nobody has even started to cut the dang thing down yet. Blah.

Including this, we had 5 trees down on our block alone. It's estimated that there were 100 down in our city. 

More from our deck, looking at the neighbor's house:

(you can see the neighbor's slate tile patio table table got destroyed) 

 

M and I stayed at his best friend's place near downtown Minneapolis Friday night to charge our devices and plan for the weekend, since we were initially told it could be Monday at noon until power was restored. More rain came through after midnight, but thankfully it wasn't much.

Bitty checks out our new tree..

I had promised Leah earlier in the week that I'd come help her set up for a bridal shower/bachelorette party she was throwing for a friend of hers. I LOVE decorating, so when she said "crafting" I was all over it. I checked to make sure she still had power, and headed out early in the morning.

Her kitty, Jack the cat model: 

I monkeyed myself up on the buffet and hung these, and made the tissue poms you see: 

Hung these photos of the couple on twine with clothespins: 

and I made the pearl belt for this cupcake-cake that Leah made herself and totally dominated: 

 

Jack rested up before the ladies arrived

 

Since I was in St. Paul, and near my parents, I decided to swing over there and chat with my dad. We had severe weather Thursday night- early Friday morning, too (although it wasn't bad where we live). St. Paul got hit harder Thursday because when I pulled up I saw the tree that crushed a car on my dad's street.

Visited with my 2nd favorite kitty, squish. 

Headed home and helped finish cleaning up.
I will say, a storm like this is an amazing opportunity to meet your neighbors. We met more people Friday night and Saturday than we had the first 2 years living there. The lady across the street even bought coffee for a bunch of the guys cleaning up our house and our neighbors, since she didn't get any trees down.

TJ braced himself for more purported weather, too. 

 

Saturday night M and I used a gift card we got in the mail to check out Rojo's new location in Edina at the mall. My friend Molly and her boyfriend Andrew met up with us for a drink. We then headed to M's dad's place to spend the night, and once again charge our devices. 

Headed home Sunday morning to check on the house, and kitty. We got some more rain (notice a pattern?) but again, nothing like Friday. Then we headed to Brueggers to charge our things, again, and have some breakfast. 

Yay for AC and electricity! 

One bonus of having a bare fridge, usually? (since we buy a LOT of fresh veggies for just the week, our fridge is usually pretty bare).. we had minimal stuff to salvage from our freezer/fridge. It's currently on ice in the garage and holding up pretty well, actually. We went back this morning and still actually had whole ice cubes!

We came over to my dad's tonight for dinner. I'm staying here (since unfortunately my hair is not kind to me when it air dries, and we have clients in the office for depo prep this week) so I can blow dry and get ready in the morning. M went to check on his mom's house and stay at our place. That office redo from a few weeks ago is coming even more in handy now..since I have a nice clean room to stay in!

As for tomorrow... who knows. M's mom said if they're not back on they'd be getting a hotel in downtown (which would be an AWESOME commute for us! haha). I have a bag packed with a few work outfits/casual outfits... so I'm prepared to go wherever if we need to. This will be my 3rd night of sleeping in random beds. Nothing disorients you like waking up and taking a few minutes to remember where you are.

Anyway, hope your weekends were less eventful than ours! :)