We are One in a Million!

Over a million homes lost power in our area this week because of a wind
storm...and we were one in a million!

The storm hit on Thursday evening and took out our power around midnight.
We got our power back Saturday evening. There are still hundreds of
thousands still without power.

Thursday afternoon (before the storm started) part of our family went with
another family from church to see "The Lights of Christmas", which is a at
Christian camp that puts out over a million lights in beautiful displays
with Bible messages, carolers, train rides, horse rides, fresh donuts and a
ton of other fun. The rain started gushing while we were driving
there...just buckets of rain...and it took 3 hours to get there (normally it
would only take 1.5 hours)! There was a foot of water on the interstate
highway which slowed traffic to a crawl as 4 lanes of traffic narrowed down
to 2 lanes and then cars took turns fording the water.

We decided to keep going, since we were past the worst traffic by then, and
the ride was fun, regardless of whether we would see lights when we got
where we were going! It turned out that nobody else decided to go that
night, with a storm threatening, so there were no lines for any of the
attractions and we had a great time! The rain had stopped by the time we
arrived at the camp but whenever we would go inside a tent (like the animal
petting area) it would pour down rain, and then by the time we were done and
washed our hands, it had stopped raining! That happened 3 times! Then
around 9pm we loaded up to leave, and as we were leaving the parking lot the
electricity went out and those million lights were dark! There were downed
trees along the road home, including one that caused us to be detoured. The
winds nearly blew us off the highway a few times but we made it home safely.
What an adventure!

Once we got home we shared tales of the storm with those who stayed behind
(they had some great stories, too!)...and then the power went out! The wind
blew hard through out the night, keeping me awake for most of it. The next
morning we found one of our roof vents on the front driveway, a large
section of our fence blown over, tons of branches down in the woods and
shingles from our neighbors roof in our yard! We faired quite well compared
to others in our area.

Friday and Saturday we enjoyed the peace and quiet of life without
electricity, although we never stopped trying to turn on the lights whenever
we entered a dark room! ;) We had a space heater in our living room, so we
were warm enough. We used our camping stove to cook on, and since we have a
gas water heater, we had hot water for dishes and showers. We have a second
refrigerator in our carport, so we just moved items out there (or left them
on the porch) and they kept well since the outside temp was not above 40
anyway, and near freezing at night. We did have to empty and wash out the
fridge, but it needed a good cleaning and fresh paper towel on the
shelves/drawers anyway! Our deep freezer was fine, as was the freezer in
the kitchen. Our pantry was stocked, we had gas in the van (gas lines were
hours long) and some neighborhoods near us had power so we were able to go
to a movie on Saturday, which was a nice break and a special treat for us.

Clankeeper took the older children to see "Eragon" while I took the little
girls to see "Charlotte's Web." I was sad not to get to see "Eragon" but I
must admit that I really enjoyed "Charlotte's Web." After the movie they
had parrots for the children to hold, free treats, a beautiful ice
sculpture, huge furry mascots, coloring pages, a rat, a magician, and all
kinds of fun stuff for children. It kept the Queen and Emma Darcy busy
while we waited for "Eragon" to finish.

All in all, a wonderful set of family memories! My favorite memory was
singing songs on Friday night...all the ones we could think of with 'light'
or 'lamp' in them!