Thursday, February 20, 2014

ice, ice baby

I know, I am a dork, but I couldn't resist.

Well we thought our January snow day in Georgia was sooooo novel, and then Mother Nature got some sort of silly idea she would send us an ice storm to follow up in February.  Not as fun.  First of all,  our power went out for 24 hours, then was on for a day, then back out for 8 hours (through the night at least, which is simpler.)  Next, you can't go out and "play" in the ice and slush that followed. And finally, the kids ended up missing an entire week of school because of the power outages!  Here are a few snapshots of us passing the time.

While we had power, this is where we'd find Toby... with his two newest best buddies Mario and Luigi.  Interesting development: our sweet, kind, gentle little man is AWFUL at playing video games with others.  He left Charlotte behind so many times (which caused her guy to die,) and snagged all of the goodies that would pop up, so she stopped playing with him.  Total surprise alter ego.


I found a mix & match monster pattern online and printed it out.  Charlotte made this felt monster almost entirely on her own during her week off, and everything is sewn (not glued.) I tied knots, helped stuff him, and gave instructions.  He turned out really cute! Now she is working on different ones for Toby and Jake.


When the power was out, the kids enjoyed sitting by the gas fireplace, using flashlights, playing board games, and just generally being homebodies.  They got along surprisingly well.  We had plenty of food on hand with leftovers, sandwiches, and salads and were able to move fridge items to the garage to keep cold so we didn't lose any food.  Also, since we are on city water and have a gas water heater we even had hot and cold running water!  So nice.


Everything outside was coated in thick ice.


It was very beautiful, so we had to take some pictures before it melted.


Trees with leaves on them were most likely to have limbs break and that is what caused such extensive power outages.  On Saturday after the storm, Rob had the opportunity to go out with a "Mormon Helping Hands" clean-up crew.  They cut up fallen trees and limbs at homes of the elderly and disabled and dragged them to the curb for the county to collect.  He loved being out of the house and doing something to help others... and manning a chainsaw for the day was a fun perk too.


I loved the quiet, dark, stillness of the ice storm.  No sound at night, no street lights, no cars driving by. Finally, just when things seemed they were getting back to normal, we had a 4.1 earthquake!  Rob and I were sitting on the couch watching a movie when the house rumbled loudly and shook.  Neither of us had ever been in an earthquake before and it was so surreal that we just sat there through it... and then laughed and ran to check facebook to confirm our suspicion.  What a nutty world we live in. 


And here is a question for our science-nerdy friends... this is the grill of Rob's truck.  On the top two bars the icicles hung down, but on the bottom bar they stuck straight out.  How is that possible?  So strange.  

3 comments:

Mim said...

Sounds like you weathered the storm well. I remember being horrified during our first ice storm. We lost power for three days, but we went and stayed with Rob's folks. It's so pretty, but hard to deal with.

Aubrey said...

Oklahomans are much more familiar with ice than snow. I love the crystalline beauty even though I know the trees suffer. So glad you appreciated the family time and the stillness.

As self-proclaimed science nerds, Nick and I are baffled by the horizontal ice! Wind?? Sadly that's the best we've got. :)

Suz said...

Oh wow! That storm looked CRAZY! Glad you guys were all okay and had what you needed. And PS - you have the cutest. family. ever!