What's With This Wacky Weather!?

It is June and we've had rain EVERY day for two weeks! It feels more like we live in Washington or Oregon instead of southeast Idaho! It's so dreary and dizzily and even during the breaks in the clouds and the fleeting hours of sunshine the air is heavy with humidity. We go to bed at night and even our sheets feel damp!
Our yard is yellowing from too much water, our yard is infested with mushrooms and our poor garden is flooded.
We've only been able to make it to the park for the free summer lunch program a few times. Yesterday it was cloudy and over cast but not actually raining at noon So we grabbed our jackets and headed to the park. He got our sack lunches, had just sat down at a picnic table and he hear thunder and it started to pour, it was hailing before we made it back to the car. As soon as Tate heard thunder he started shoving his food back into his paper bag and started booking it for the car calling behind him in a panicked voice "I don't want to be hit by lightening!"
The night before on the news there was a story of a little boy who had been camping with his family, had been stuck by lightening and died (maybe I shouldn't watch the 5:00 news with my kids around!)

BUT we have had some close encounters with lightening lately, that might have added to Tate's anxiety about lightning.

On Sunday, May 31, one of our first thunderstorms of this rainy stretch. Ryan, the boys and I were sitting on the porch watching the lightening and listening to the rolling o the thunder. The rain got heavier and heavier and we decided to go inside and eat dinner.

I had dished up plates - the boys and I had just sat down to eat, and Ryan was standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window when there was a huge crack - a surge of energy went through us and all went dark.

The view from our driveway

Lightning had struck the transformer in the alley just behind our house - shattering the rod across the top and splintering the pole all the way to the ground. It took a while to calm Oran down - he was quite distraught!

Ryan called Idaho Power - ISU's Public Safety was the first to arrive. The two guys said they had been up at the Holt Arena when they saw the lightening followed by a fireball, then the shock wave hit them and everything electrical in their vehicle went dead. It must have sent out an EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse.)
Ryan gathered up some of the splintered, chared wood for a souvenier. Next the fire engines came - it was pretty tough to convince our kids to get their PJs on with all of the excitement. Oran kept trying to turn things of, the lightswitches, TV, VCR, DVD player, computer - but nothing would turn on! He kept saying "Doesn't Work!!" and "Broken!" He was pretty upset about it - but I got them to go to sleep once it was too dark to see anything.
Eventually the Power guys showed up to fix everything. Ryan wanted to stay up until the power came back on; to make sure that nothing was permanently damages, so I lit some candles and we waited. The lightening struck around 7:00pm and we didn't get power back until nearly 11:30pm. Exciting!