"Ice Storm 2009"

We have officially survived the natural disaster now know as "Ice Storm 2009." Its seems everyone here has their own story about how this week panned out for them. Our week went like this: We were told we were going to probably lose power due to the nasty ice falling out of the sky and we kinda thought, "nawww, not us!" Well, we lost power at 11 am on Tuesday and the coldness started. We decided to tough it out, Aidan had fun with flashlights, we played games, as we kept adding layers. Jake looked into a generator when we realized this was going to be a problem for awhile and we found out those things cost $800+! We ate some cold cooked chicken and an apple for dinner with flashlights. Zachary was diagnosed with an ear infection the day before so he was fussy, confused, and on drugs. Zachary went to bed in a snowsuit and slept the best out of all of us. Aidan wet his bed and woke up shivering and crying. We had to completely change his clothes and his bed (and had no way to do laundry) at 2:30 am with flashlights. After asking him all day if he was cold, he said "Daddy, I am starting to get cold now!" All night we heard loud crashes of trees breaking from the 1.5 inches of ice on each twig. We went to bed with our house being 58 degrees and woke up with it being 51 degrees. We had had enough and called our friends, Nick and Emily, to see if they had power. We were not the only refugees at the Ogles. At one point there were 9 adults, 7 children (4 years to 3 months), and 2 dogs trying to get home. This part was enjoyable with hot showers, hot coffee, and hot pancakes! We stayed at the Ogles for two nights. On the last day, we put all of the clothes we had brought into the washing machine and right about when the cold water filled the machine, the power went out at their house. Luckily, the power came back on three hours later (the Ogles say they had power because they live across the street from a nursing home). At one point while we were there, Aidan was played with a battery powered toy. I asked why it was not working when he pushed the buttons, and he simply said, "because it does not have electricity!" On Friday, Jake went to our house to work on some tree damage. Not long after being there, power returned to our house and we could not have been happier. We packed up our things and headed home. We looked for food to salvage in the deep freezer. It seems some things will be a waste, but not the frozen breastmilk bags that I made sure to bring to the Ogle's freezer! (It is golden and cannot be replaced!) Saturday, Darren and Robin came to help us clean up our yard and get our lives put back together. This was a huge help! We are not ready to do this again anytime soon but will not soon forget it. There are still thousands here without electricity and we feel blessed to be sitting in a warm house with lights on! It will be a long time before our town looks normal again but people are working hard to clean it up.