You never think it could happen to you

Yes, that is a tree... on our roof.  Not a little dainty redbud, but a giant elm. This tree decided it was tired of it's boring life and decided to give us a little wake up call at 2:15am Friday morning. And by little wake-up call, picture someone throwing a grenade at your house.  How does a 60ft elm tree just uproot itself and fall on your house?  I knew living in a treed area had its dangers, but no one really expects the trees in their yard to attack them.

The timeline of events went something like this:
• 10:30 pm - both Scott and I went to bed, and set our house alarm. It had been raining and thundering all evening, but nothing crazy for Kansas by any means.

• 2:15 am - we are awakened by the loudest thing we've ever heard. Picture the sound of cracking getting louder and louder like thunder until finally the entire house gives a long shake.

• 2:16 am - Scott runs into the kitchen and lays into a few expletive laden rants when he sees this:

Tree branch on my kitchen floor

The impact opened our drawers. Everything is covered in insulation.

Hole #1 in the laundry room

Hole #2 above the fridge.

Hole #3

• 2:30am - I call my mom and 911. I didn't know if I was supposed to call 911 or not...apparently they only care if you world is ending if someone is hurt. Luckily, no one is hurt. They send out a small team from the fire department who all just look at the damage as if to say, "Yep, it's a tree."

• 2:45am - Why is there a man with a camera in front of our house? Crap...it's a news camera. My mom advises me to "Put on a bra."  Luckily they're gone pretty quickly and I don't have to talk to anyone. With my luck, I'd end up auto-tuned on YouTube. No one wants to be that guy.

• 3:30am - We call the unhelpful 800# for our insurance agent. She suggests a tarp. Tarp what?! We then call our actual agent. I feel bad about waking him, but we're kind of newbies to the whole catastrophe thing.

• 4:45am - try to sleep, but we both lay there with hearts pounding until we can finally call in to work and let them know we won't be in today.

• By 8:00am, we've had visits from my helpful Uncle who helped us tarp the holes so rainwater could collect in buckets, my dad, and our insurance agent who lights a fire under people to get a tree removal company out immediately.

• 1:30pm - Tree removal shows up with a general contractor

• 4:00pm - Tree is off of our house, off our property, the roof has been tarped, and the holes covered with plywood and tarp on the inside. Way to go tree removal guys!

So that's about where we stand. The adjuster is at our house today assessing the full amount of the damage. Thank God for insurance. It sucks having to pay for insurance, but it's times like these when you really need it. Needless to say, blogging might be a little light for a while until our lives our back in order!