It's always pretty windy around here (we have a Hawthorne tree in the back yard that is bent because of wind) but the other day it got really windy.  Windy enough to tear parts of the siding off the house:

Damage in the back (you can see the original "money saving" rain gutter)

I guess that is actually called flashing? Or maybe it's fascia? I can never keep the terms straight. Anyway, we had damage on the front and side of the house as well:

Damage on the west side	Damage in the front

We've been wanting to extend the raingutters (when Ivory Homes built the house they used some "money saving" techniques such as not fully extending rain gutters to the ends of the house) along the back of the house for a while.  Now that the wind had taken liberties with the place we decided to get the siding fixed and take care of the rain gutters all at once.  I called a couple of guys in the phone book and had a guy I liked come out and give me a bid. His bid seemed pretty reasonable so we had him do the work.  So much for that item on the checklist.  Now if we can just take care of the next item (the little rust spots on the stucco) we'll be happy.