a beautiful life.: Someone ran their car into our front living room!!!....WHAT!?

So we had something very scary and interesting happen to us on Tuesday afternoon. This is something we have all seen on the five o'clock news, some crazy drunk driver or texter running into someone's home...and well I never thought something like this would happen to me? Well, here it goes...(and deep breath)..okay, so I fed the kids at about 12pm yesterday and I normally put down Ben right after he eats lunch, and well, I don't normally put Elizabeth down for her afternoon nap until about 2 or 2:30. But she didn't have a morning nap and I knew she would crash. Well, I put both kids down at about 12:15 or so and I had a quick bite to eat. I then normally watch a little tv in the afternoon, maybe to catch a 'Baby Story' or re-runs of 'What not to Wear'...well I decided to head upstairs to my bedroom and hop on-line. I was on the computer no more than 10-15 minutes and I hear this loud crashing and shattering of glass, literally like a car or something was coming through the house! I jumped up and raced down the stairs, almost like I was superwoman, at the horrendous thought that my babies were trapped or worse by whatever was happening. As I turned the corner at the top landing of our stairs, I was dumbfounded, just to the left someone had actually ran there car into my front living room, shattering my sliding glass door and caving in the wall right next to the front door. What??!!!...are you kidding me! You have no idea how relieved I was too see that sight there, instead of in my children's bedroom? I raced to check on my babies first...both were safely in their room, thankfully I always put up a safety gate, so they were just scared as to what the loud sound was. Still very shaken, scared and overwhelmed by the sight, I went to the front door to check on the person in the vehicle. I could barley open the front door, since the wall had pushed the frame of the door. So it was difficult to open. I asked the woman if she was alright, once I got outside, and she asked if everyone inside was okay. She actually thought she had hurt one of the kids since that was the first thing she heard after running into our place, I could only imagine the enormous guilt and sadness she must have felt. And just so it's clear, she wasn't drunk or texting, her brakes gave out on her, I guess. And so, one of our neighbors raced over to see if everyone was alright and we told him yes. He called 911 and no more than 10 minutes passed and the fire dept. and police dept. were at our apartment. We had to vacate the property for the time being, since they were unsure of the structural damage done, especially since we live in a 2-story town home. I called Phil at work and he came home as soon as he heard the news. Once outside and looking at the damage, we were very grateful that she wasn't driving an SVU or van, because I'm sure she would have come completely through the wall. Once the inspector came and assessed the damage, he said it was okay to stay in the apartment. Since the wall had been caved in, only 7-8 studs needed replacing and our sliding glass door. The contractor got right to work cleaning everything up and taking the broken wall down. He got a lot down in the afternoon he had. We didn't end up staying the night though, we headed up to my parents house so the contractor could have some time to finish and so we weren't in the way. Plus, we were gonna have to do some major clean-up before the kids could walk around in the living room, seeing as though there was still a lot of glass everywhere since the slider shattered. We arrived back home last night and got to vacuuming and sweeping all the floors. Overall, I am just very grateful that no one was injured and that my children and myself were not in harms way, when it happened. I still believe firmly that my worldly possessions mean nothing to me, and this reaffirms that. My home could have gone up in flames and destroyed everything that Phil and I had worked very hard for, but our children are irreplaceable. They are what truly matters and I know the Lord was watching over us that day, and not just the safety of my family but the woman in the car as well. On this day, I truly did as the song said, "Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings, see what God has done."

*And amazingly enough, these pictures I took were from my cell phone. Not bad, eh?