Hail, hail, go away

Very rarely do I ever get nervous in the face of nature. The last time I was scared of the weather was on the drive to California from Phoenix, and Daddy and my kids and I got stuck in a rain storm that made the road invisible. Before that, it was a raging snowstorm in Massachusetts, where I had to travel the highway at 20 miles per hour because the road was gone and the world outside the window was nothing but white.
Today's series of storms didn't scare me, but they certainly did make me nervous of damage to the home. When the hail stones started falling on the skylight, I swore that the skylight itself might break. The stones hitting the windows were a real danger to the integrity of the glass. Some hail actually broke the glass globe over the light fixture in the backyard. The stones were, no kidding, about the size of golf balls. And hard. (I collected seven of the biggest bits of ice in the backyard and saved them in the freezer for Brian to see.)
The hail woke Sydney from her nap, which is crazy unfortunate because she just fell asleep, and after waking up, never went back to bed. Oliver, who has never been a fan of noisy weather, circled my feet and stuck to me like glue until I finally sat on the floor in the living room, and he quickly set up camp curled in my lap. Daisy, who has experienced very little weather in her life, didn't know what to make of the rain and hail, so she stayed close to both Oliver and me.

PHOTOS: All the hail in our backyard after the worst of the storm had passed (top). A tennis ball is only a bit bigger than the hail surrounding it (bottom).