BLACKOUT

{started 7/19}So, you might have heard about our storms last night. Driving home, Steve thinks he may have seen a tornado. And I'm not surprised. The trees were literally turning circles.

The electricity went off pretty early--the last time I looked at the clock was 7:01 and I was about to make dinner (quick dinner--salmon only takes 10 minutes to cook.) Suddenly the lights went off, which was a big surprise to Carson, who wanted, of course, to know "why?" Almost immediately, we heard knocking, no, pounding, on the front door. Steve couldn't open the garage door.

Our beautiful salmon dinner quickly became chips and salsa for me, fluffernutter sandwiches for Steve and Carson (though Carson helped himself to a lot of chips), and babyfood for Wes (luckily, I just bought his favorite applesauce!) Very romantic over candlelight.

As the blackout continued, Carson became aware that the TV wasn't working. Well, that was about the worst thing in the world. And instead of accepting that it just wouldn't work, he insisted that Steve fix it. Again... and again...

We ended up having a wonderful night. We all went into the basement and played for a while. There was very little natural light, but it was cooler down there and we had a great time doing gymnastics, rolling and tickling, and crawling in and out of tents and tunnels. (a big fave activity in this house.)

After getting the boys ready for bed, we turned in early. We were a bit worried about the food in the fridge and a vacationing friend's cats (we later learned that after 4 hours, an unopened fridge's food begins growing bacteria--so we had to trash all the dairy and defrosted meats, but items in your unopened freezer are good for 48 hours) but were relieved to know that the lights came back on around 3:45.

{continued 7/24} We were lucky, the next day at preschool, most people didn't have their power back on. Many dropped off their kids, went home to pack, picked up their children and left to go to their family's houses. One of Carson's friends didn't get power on until Friday night.

After a beautiful weekend of temps in the comfortable 80s, we hear the heat is coming back on--really strong!