December Ice Storm - Day 1

This is what we woke up to on Tuesday Morning. Ice covering everything... this is our first branch down.

When we woke up 5:00 ish in the a.m. we were not alarmed. Well -- our alarm DID go off, but we had no fears.

My husband did make an early start to work because of the ice. He called me after a bit of driving and listening to our local WHO News Radio Station and said, "I just drove around a tree on our road and wouldn't have made it up the hill if that truck load of something heavy hadn't of torn up the gravel going down the hill yesterday." He was able to drive up our road in the truck tracks. The gravel roads were a sheet of ice. He mentioned that several cities around us had already lost power. Perhaps I should get ready in case we lost power. He then drove by some power lines on a highway close to our home. "Oh man - these lines are sagging - a big truck wouldn't be able to drive through here."

OK -- I'll prepare. But isn't the ice beautiful?




So I started making a good hearty warm breakfast. Melissa's Breakfast Burritos. D-Lish. We decided to play Monopoly. We played the short version since I have little kiddos to attend to -- I can't dedicate 3 days to playing a Monopoly game like I'd like to. LOL So we play for an hour. While we were playing, 8:45 a.m., the power went off. Well -- it was daylight out, so I'm not sure what our first clue was. I think the furnace fan quit running. The furnace fan runs all the time because our wood heat furnace in the basement, is tied into our house furnace heat ducts. So it pushes the heat through the entire house. I didn't have a fear of getting cold. I thought if worse came to worse, we could all huddle around the wood furnace in the basement. "At least we will stay warm," I thought. So I got up and fixed the furnace to run with out electricity. I had to remove a filter.

Then we finished the Monopoly Game. Mansel won. That hoarder. He hoards in real life too. He wants me to put his cash on a "credit card" so his wallet will be slimmer. I said he could take all those 1 dollar bills and change it into a $20 dollar bill and it would be slim. He didn't like that idea. Hmm... sounds like we'll need to do some educating. He gets gifts cards for birthdays and Christmas some times. I think that is where he is getting that idea. Julia and Milo were on my team. Julia counted the dice. Milo was the mover. I was the thinker. Maybe I should have changed that up a bit, since I got beat. As you can see -- Wayne was the cheer leader.

Well -- who could look at all that ice from the window and not want to play in it. I had them promise - scouts honor - that they would stay in the backyard away from the power lines, and not camp out under any trees. They did promise... so we started the bundling process. I think that took an hour -- or three.

We decided to forgo our library trip that day. We'll play outside instead and just read some library books at home.

Even the babies were going outside.

Isn't Sophia beautiful!?! She looks like a little peanut. She fits so nicely inside her mother's coat. Becky is a great mother. She didn't let the idea of having 2 babies and no electricity bother her any. I will say -- having her and her children around during this deal made it a lot more fun! No chance to get bored with nothing to do when you have cousins to play with!

When they were playing outside, I ventured out and took some photos.


Tori was being a good big sister/cousin and making the ice fun for the little ones.

Isn't it beautiful? Did I already say that?

We had lunch meat sandwiches for lunch. Easy to prepare, and quick clean up with paper plates!

I think during nap time the big kids played outside some more. That's when I gathered up the candles.

Dan came home from work early with an inverter. He hooked it up to his truck, then ran the truck all night long to keep our wood heat furnace blower running. We noticed that hot air rises. Our upstairs got so warm, that I took off the comforter during the night.

But very quickly - it got dark, and we started supper. We had grilled hot dogs, mac-n-cheese, and something else. Maybe it was veggies. I don't remember.
Almost the only reminder that we didn't have power was the dark. We had heat and we had gas to cook with. When we didn't have the water heater plugged in to anything, we ran out of hot water. I had to ask my dear husband why we ran out of hot water with a gas water heater. He explained that we have a NEWER gas water heater. Instead of using a metal chimney for the fumes out the top of the roof, it has an electric something or other and it blows the fumes out of a PVC pipe... so when the electricity goes out -- our water heater does too. We had enough hot water to take showers with the first day. Then we boiled water the 2nd day for dishes. So Kris... does that explain it?

THEN - after supper we all gathered in the living room and wrestled in the dark.
OK -- not all of us... they eventually settled down and we sang Christmas carols by flashlight and some candle light. Those candles sure don't give off much light. No wonder the folks in the olden days went to bed early... and Becky said, "no wonder they had so many babies." LOL What else was there to do? It sure gets dark early. °Ü° Of course Becky and I sat up and talked by candle light...

That was the first day.