On December 11th school ended in a half day in anticipation of an impending ice storm. Who would have thought that this would be their last day of school for the remainder of this year? In fact they will return on January 5th! That night was a night of terror for us as we listened to tree branches breaking around the house. Like gun shots sounds rang out through the night from the nearby river bank. I worried about the tree branches that overhang our house.
By morning we were without power. I told the kids ... no power ... no school. So they went happily back to bed. We stayed warm in bed for a while and then went about getting the wood stove going. Rumors were that we wouldn't get power for at least 3 days! We tried cooking hot cocoa and macaroni and cheese. The woodstove worked great! The kids were thrilled by this whole procedure and I was pretty impressed at how quick things cooked. Why haven't we done this before?
We moved a comfortable chair and a few rocking chairs in front of the wood stove and the top part of one of the bed mattresses from upstairs onto the floor near the couch. The kids had a lot of fun though the lack of technology was always on their mind. My oldest daughter couldn't put the cell phone down as she txt msged her friends and played sudoku. For me it was a little stressful as there never seemed to be enough daylight. And candlelight was much dimmer than expected. Washing dishes by hand in water warmed up on the stove and searching for candles and camping gear in the dark basement. In any case we were one of the lucky ones to get our power back sooner. Many were without power for over a week. Shelters were set up at the school but with the cold weather and snow this was a difficult week for them. I was worried about water pipes freezing so I am thankful that we got our power back sooner than later.
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