Scary Early morning wake-up

So the headlines on MSN read, "Winter storm hits California" and boy they weren't kidding!! Friday morning I woke up to the sound of a freight train coming through my house!! Only, it wasn't a freight train but the wind! I have never heard wind like that before, I seriously thought our bedroom window was going to break in on us. The wind, rain and thunder also woke Isaiah, Dylan and Landon up. It was around 5:45 am. I got up with the boys and turned on some cartoons, but unfortunately the power went out about 5 minutes later. As the boys and I sat in the dark I glanced out my back window and noticed a flickering light. At the same time the power came back on so I didn't think anything about it. UNTIL, I went into our bedroom to get a sweatshirt and smelled smoke. I went back out to the family room and looked in the yard again. I did see what looked like a reflection off the back of my neighbors jeep that looked like light flickering. I opened the back door and realized I DID smell smoke. I put some shoes on and went out front. My neighbor was standing in the middle of the street watching a fire that was burning on the side of his house. OH MY GOSH!! I made sure he was OK and that the neighbor on the other side of him was also out of the house and safe. As I headed back into my house to wake Jody I saw embers landing on our roof!

I woke Jody up, then went to get Carsen and Shane up to help get shoes and jackets on the little kids in case we needed to evacuate. Within minutes the fire department arrived and the fire was put out. It appears that a tree between the 2 houses was hit by lightening and caught fire right next to a gas line. When the tree collapsed it caught the gas line on fire as well. Praise God that the fire department was quick to respond and the fire was put out as fast as it was. And that it was raining as hard as it was, which kept our roof from being ignited!! It could have been a horrible situation!

About an hour later, we lost power again and it was out for 3 hours. It was a long, cold morning with not enough sleep! But, we were protected and are now safe and sound!