Last week we had an awful storm. Our power went out around 2am. Our neighborhood usually does not lose power. Everyone in our house sleeps with a noisemaker on. We all listen to rain while we sleep. Well the moment the power went off 3 of the 4 kids were at our door all freaked out because their noisemakers had stopped and their nightlights were out. The 3 of them climbed in bed with us and as you can imagine that didn't last long. We have a king size bed, but they aren't super little kids anymore and I could tell no one was going to get any sleep if we were all in one bed. I kissed them and sent them off to their beds. Within 10 minutes Owen was knocking on our door and he said, "My room is freaking me out". The wind was really blowing and hail was hitting the windows so I told him to bring his covers into our room so he could sleep on the floor. Zeke woke up around 6am and started crying because he wanted the lights on. Michael had to go out and explain that the electricity was out and he just needed to go back to sleep. It ended up being a really horrible nights sleep. Michael's alarm went off a little bit after dealing with Zeke. He just got ready to go and left. He needed me to lock the front door behind him since he doesn't have a key and he didn't want to go out the garage door since the power was out. I decided to go back to bed because I know we only have 1 flashlight and I wasn't about to try to get 4 kids ready with 1 flashlight. I know it's possible, but it would also be stressful! I did some checking on Facebook to see how bad it was....my BIL & SIL had a tree fall into their house! A little while later I texted Michael and asked if he had power at work. He did and he said the school did as well. The reason our power was out was because a tree just outside our neighborhood had fallen over the road and took some power lines with it.
I waited until around 7:45 when it was finally light enough to get ready. The kids had breakfast and got ready and they were only later for school by about 20 minutes. I wish I had taken a picture of the tree over the roadway. By the looks of it I knew that our power wasn't going to be on for at least 5 hours. Zeke and I came home and all I really wanted to do was take a shower. We have a gas water heater so I would have had hot water, but then I would have had soaking wet hair and no way to dry it and the house was already pretty cold. So this is what we did....
we spread LEGO out all over the living room floor and put LEGO sets together. Thankfully we have a huge window in our living room so it lets in lots of light. I also used my I Heard Radio app so we could listen to Christmas music. What felt like a few moments later I looked at my phone and noticed it was already 11am. I thought it might be fun to head out and get something warm to eat and charge my phone in the van at the same time. Plus I thought Zeke might enjoy watching a DVD in the van.
We went to MCD's and I got Zeke some chicken nuggets and I got a Sausage McMuffin Sandwich. It was the first time I've ordered breakfast since they started serving it all day. I love Sausage McMuffins! I was just going to park somewhere, but I decided to drive around a bit. I made this big loop that went from Federal Way into Kent and back up to Des Moines. I got to drive over roads that had water rushing across them and on another road that was surrounded on both sides by lakes....literally they had waves! I crossed over the Green River and got to see how huge it was. It was really fun! After a half an hour of driving around we got home, but my phone wasn't fully charged and Zeke's show wasn't over so just sat in the driveway for another hour. My phone had charged before that, but I wanted Zeke to be able to finish his show and it was so nice being all toasty warm. I was not looking forward to going into the house. I did accomplish something when we were sitting in the van....I cleaned out my purse and my wallet!
It was about 2pm when we went inside. It was so cold I just headed up to bed and snuggled in bed while Zeke ran around and played. at 2:50 it was time to go to the bus stop to get Ella and then at 3:50 it was time to drive to the school to pick up the boys from their ELO classes.
Back at home we continued to play with LEGOS for just about a half an hour and then the sun was gone. I used a flashlight for the last little bit. I had called Michael and he was picking up Red Robin for us for dinner. Then the kids and I went around the house lighting candles. That is when I realized that we were seriously lacking in candles. I ended up light the decorative scones that hang on my living room wall. We literally didn't even have enough light to play board games! Of course the kids were BORED! We sat around the table and had dinner and chatted. Then Michael had a great idea...he told the boys to go have a light-saber battle. Those things put off so much light! I'm sure our house from the outside must have looked so funny with all these different colored lights flashing back and forth all around the house. At least the boys were happy and not complaining anymore.
Earlier in the day I had told my mom that if the power was not back on by 7pm that me and the kids would be coming down to stay with them. It was just too cold to spend another night without heat. I had been checking the PSE website throughout the day to see if they had an estimated time the power would be back on. At first it said 3pm, then it was changed to 5pm, then 6pm and then 7pm. Around 6:30 I got a call from the WIC office reminding me that Zeke had appointment the next morning at 8:45am. I knew that if we went to my moms we were not going to get up early enough to get to the appointment, we'd probably skip school altogether and I would miss out on volunteering since it was Thursday. I know how much the teachers enjoy the help and they are counting on me coming so they set stuff aside for me to do and if I didn't come in that would mean more work for them. So I texted my mom around 6:52 or so and told her we were going to stay home. A few minutes we heard a beep from my alarm clock and the power was back on! YAHOO! I texted my mom and told her the good news and then I announced..."I'm getting in the shower!" It felt so nice having that hot water wash over me! I even asked Michael to plug in our little electric heater so the bathroom would be nice and toasty when I got out. Then I tried to blow dry my hair and still have the electric heater on and I blew a breaker! Oops!
Lesson learned...don't use the electric heater at the same time as my blow dryer! Also we will be investing in more flashlights and candles so we'll be better prepared next time. So what do you do when the power goes out?
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