Power Outage

Well, we are surviving another pounding snow storm.  We knew that round two was on its way, so we ran some quick errands on Monday, then hunkered down to see what would happen.  Monday night it was difficult to sleep because we kept hearing thuds on the roof.  The snow coming down was so wet and heavy and anything that stuck to the branches kept clumping and falling on the deck and roof.  We awoke in the morning to continual buckets of what seemed like slush being dumped on us.  The sun tried to peek through for a couple of minutes and we had a very eerie glow.  Eerie, but beautiful!

The yard looked like the kids had been tromping all over it because there wasn't a nice smooth blanket of snow, but it was just from all the clumps falling onto the ground.  We had a few branches down, but nothing major.  Chris and I cleared a bit of the drive again and helped Grandpa H get a limb off his roof.

I love my feathered friends, and I think they love me, too.  The cardinals are stunning against the white backdrop of snow.  The Tufted Titmouse is so cute, and I even didn't mind the obnoxious blue jays coming in on such a snowy day.  The funny thing is that the geese are migrating back north and I kept seeing and hearing them throughout the day!

The electricity kept flickering throughout the morning and we knew that with such a heavy snow, it was likely that power lines were going to come down.  Sure enough, about noon we lost power.  We didn't just lose electricity, we also lost Internet and our cell service.  Ugh.  Our road hadn't been plowed, and we also had a downed line crossing our road so there was no way to get out period.

We lit our ample stock of candles and made the most of it.  Ami had a flashlight set up so that she could crochet.  I love how the "HOPE" sign is shadowed on the wall!

 It came supper time and we decided to break out the camp stove.  Chris set it up in the garage and we heated up cans of soup.  Then we had a dessert of s'mores over our fire.  

We all ended up going to bed early with extra blankets piled to keep us warm.  We hoped that the power would be back on by morning, but it wasn't.  We awoke to another couple of inches of snow.....and it's still coming down as I type now.

 The fire kept some chill off the house, but we were still ready to seek out somewhere warmer.  The roads had been plowed during the night, so we got all packed up and ready to head out for some warm coffee and the library.  We heard that the city had power, so we were going to get some school work done and take advantage of the wi-fi.  Just as we were about to walk out the door (around 8:30) the power came back on.  We sure whooped and hollered!  The second round of whooping and hollering came when Internet was restored shortly thereafter.  :)  We only had to deal with 20 hours without power, but we are all the more grateful for the modern times that we live in.

Last picture...poor Ami has come down with a fever.  She is resting quite nicely with Tangled, though.  :)

So we did do a little bit of school this morning.  Chris is working from home.  We did manage to go out for our weekly lunch date.  Our excuse was that we needed to check the roads because Michaela had a babysitting job to go to this afternoon.  Now it's time for me to head back out and shovel some more.  The snow just keeps coming and I'd rather keep up with it.  We were so sore from shoveling the first 10 inches from last weeks storm, but we have faired much better this time.  But, oh my, that 6-8 inches that we shoveled yesterday was SO much heavier than last week's.