Saturday night (December 21st), we had a big ice storm. Big one! We lost power sometime between 2-5am on Sunday morning along with about 60,000+ other houses, apartments, stores, gas stations, restaurants, doctors, dentists, and movie theaters in our area. It was baaaaaad. So I packed up the boys Sunday morning and went to my Mom's thinking it'd be a short-lived outage. Maybe overnight, but nothing beyond that.
About a half hour after getting to Mom's house, her power went out too. Her gas fireplace kept the inside temperature at a very comfortable level, so we just hung out at her house for the day, along with Melinda & Sophia, who were also without power. It was a Happy-Meals-For-Lunch kind of day.
Before it got dark, Mom, the boys, and I went to G&G's house (they never lost power). We were joined by Aunt Janet. So there we were, 7 people spanning four generations, all under one roof. (Psssst... it was kinda fun!). Dan stayed at our house just to keep an eye on things.
Monday morning (Dec 23rd): after coughing like crazy for two days, Evan gets a fever. No idea what it went up to because I couldn't get an accurate temp from him, but I know it was over 101. So I called into work. Sean had a dentist appointment scheduled for Monday morning, but that was cancelled too since the dentist didn't have power. So we hung out at G&G's for the day. Sean and Nana made cookies during Evan's nap. It was actually a very relaxing day.
I did stop by the house Monday to get some things, and the interior temp was 50 degrees around 10am.
Monday night, I had a girls-night-out with Kerry: we saw Catching Fire at the theater (the theater with power). We also learned that Mom's power was restored around 8:30 Monday evening, but she was already comfy at G&G's so she stayed there Monday night anyway, as did Aunt Janet, whose power hadn't come back on. Dan stayed at our house one more night (after working like 16 hours Monday, trying to get some of his properties situated with generators & stuff).
Tuesday morning (Dec 24th): We figured Christmas wasn't happening in any sort of normal fashion, but I still needed to wrap presents at least. So after Mom & Aunt Janet left to return to their homes, I left the boys with G&G to go get the presents from our house and take them to Mom's to wrap. At some point, Aunt Janet's power was restored Tuesday morning also.
Interior temp of our house at 10am when I stopped home to get presents, was 41 degrees.
At this point, we knew we were staying at Mom's house on Christmas Eve, and Christmas morning would be there.
Last night, we all enjoyed a lovely Christmas dinner of sloppy joes and french fries at Mom's. And cookies and pie, of course. Dan didn't make it in time for dinner, but he did opt to sleep at Mom's last night where it was (is) warm and cozy. And I was thrilled he was here Christmas morning when the kids got up.
Today, we totally rocked out Christmas with presents and breakfast (sans monkey bread because I forgot about the brown sugar). It was perfect despite the fact that it was kind of a last minute thing.
As of right now -- 8:30ish on Christmas night -- we still do not have power at our house. The houses across the street have power as of two days ago. But we're still waiting. When Dan stopped home this afternoon, the interior temp was 38 degrees. He's already turned off the water and drained the pipes, and I think he said he unloaded the basement freezer as well (we'll be losing everything in our freezers, but at least we hadn't picked up the venison from the processor yet, so YAY!). It could be much, much, much worse.... this I know.
Thankfully, Evan isn't coughing nearly as much today as he had been for the past several days. He doesn't have a fever either. And Sean is totally back to normal. Tomorrow, Dan and I will both go back to work while the kids get an extra day to enjoy their Christmas loot at my Mom's (their daycare closes the day after Christmas as well).
Here's a few really cool pictures from the ice storm (I gotta admit, as much as it sucks not having electricity, the beauty of it is breathtaking sometimes -- I've never seen anything like it before!):
