I was thrilled going to bed last night... knowing that I would be able to sleep in as late as I wanted today!  Little did I know, I would wake up to tornado sirens this morning!  Our current rental house had no damage, as the wind/tornado damage ran from Curren - northeast to Deerfield, Centennial Park, Sims Western Acres, and some parts off of Jefferson Street.  Our new condo, which is located in Deerfield, was one of those damaged :(.  Our neighbors got it worse with pools blown completely over, gables end blown off, shingles blown up/off the roof and garage doors blown off the tracks.  It is amazing to me the damage that could be done from a 15 minute storm.  It was shocking to me but a little less for Brett because he sees this type of damage daily.  We took a ride around town to check on our condo and of course Brett insisted I drive.  We were NOT about to drive around in high damaged areas in a FARMERS INSURANCE car.  If you haven't seen the "billboard", as my friend Adam calls it, it has their Helpoint # and information on the car.  We would have been asking for trouble riding around in that thing.  Here are some of the house we came across today.  

This is our new condo.  We purchased the right side of it.  You can see where there are shingles blown up on both our side and the other side of it.  

This is in our subdivision.  This is another condo that sits closer to the road.  The whole gables end blew off and you could see right into their attic.  Emergency crews were there working on it when we drove by.  This condo actually sold a few months back, so there were people in it when it blew off.  

This is also in our subdivision.  It is a new construction condo being built on the street that backs up to our condo.  As you can see all of the siding has blown on the top portion and some of the roof was blown off.  This condo is located next to the condo where the gables end blew off.  (check out the fence laying in the front yard)

This is in Centennial Park.  This condo is up for sale, so you can imagine how much more work will have to be put into it before it can be sold.  As you will notice, the garage door is blown in and the brick has blown off the front around the garage.  That is all of it laying in the yard and on the driveway.  

Just as I was sitting at home putting away groceries, thinking about how lucky I was today to continue on with my day and not spending it cleaning up my yard or sectioning off my roof that blew off, I heard someone screaming outside my back door.  As I opened it, three guys jumped over my fence into the neighbor's yard and WALKED to a Durango parked in front of the house next to ours and sped off.  Who walks to their getaway car after committing a crime?  Seriously?  The cops pulled up about a minute later, where the Durango was parked and question Brett & I, along with our neighbor that called them.  The poor girl is now terrified because the men were so nonchalant about the situation.  She lives about three houses down from us by herself.  After scoping out the situation, we think the guys stole some things from the guy's house that backs up to ours. This was very comforting to me, considering someone tried to break into our house a few months back. It makes me wonder, were these the same guys?  Was it someone in our neighborhood or was it a group of guys like this who picked our neighbor and our house?  All I can say is that I am glad we are moving next month to a nice neighborhood where I have yet to hear about a break in.  Maybe its because there are IL State Police, Sangamon County, and City of Springfield law enforcement that live on about every street in the neighborhood?