we have power again!

Hello again!

Jess and Richard came to visit last Friday to see our house and our new kid, since they hadn't seen either.  They arrived only a few hours before we got pummeled by The Storm that swept the midwest.  I'm no weatherman, and actually haven't looked at the data on said Storm, but judging by my friends in IN, OH and WV, it started somewhere over in the IN direction and headed our way, wiping out power left and right.  Regardless, we, along with hundreds of thousands of other West Virginians lost power.  

I tend to be optimistic with power outages-- considering most of the time we have electricity again in an hour or two-- so I didn't see this as a big deal.  The storm wasn't that bad, even though a tree was down over most of the road right by our house, and both girls had been bathed that night, so I was set.  And the last two sentences prove how naive I can be.  

Jess and Richard were troopers not to cut their trip short, and toughed the no electricity bit out with us until they had to leave Monday.  Since Jesse was the only one who knew what to expect, Jess, Richard and I got a crash course in power outages, country style: no power = no water when you're on a well pump.  Fortunately, Jesse and I had been prepared for this and had 9 gallons of bottled water in our pantry to get us started-- which was perfect since everywhere in the area got hit by the unprepared who left nothing on store shelves.  Unfortunately, this water was NOT to go towards flushing the toilet or showering, which fell to our creek to provide toilet water and the Y to provide the showers.

A note on the water: we bought an incredible water filter system a few years ago [called Berkey], so we were able to feel comfortable drinking creek water ourselves.  Since this water was free and plenty, I did end up washing dishes with some of the filtered water.  A funny note about water: Jesse told us he overheard a guy mentioning how he had gone to the store to purchase water and how all the bottled water was sold out.  So he solved his problem by buying beer.  ...since that's the same.

It was definitely an adventure, and not one I care to repeat with a newborn.  I think Jesse secretly had fun living this way for a few days to see how prepared we were, even if he had to deal with a grumpy wife [disclaimer: I didn't think it was too unbearable..but I apparently have an incredibly short fuse when I am uncomfortable, so I was kind of snappy and evil].  Jess and Richard were gracious enough not to complain, and the girls probably didn't seem to care too much, though they both had some heat rash show up.  I was incredibly nervous about the girls in the heat, and after I got over the fact that I wouldn't be able to clean too much or wash dishes until we had power -- which took a few days to wrap my mind around-- I was able to calm down, sort of.  

I realized how truly blessed we are here, beyond our normal conveniences and comforts of electricity.  Jesse and I have incredible friends in the area and found ourselves being offered space in our friend's homes until our power was restored, or at least a place to hang out in air conditioning and with water.  Our Partin's had their power fairly quickly restored to them, so we packed everything in the refrigerator freezer into our small deep freeze and Jesse and Richard took it to their house to run so we did not lose everything (praise God).

Uncle Richard and Aunt Jessie brought Lily a wading pool

indoor picnic in the basement.  where it was cooler than a bazillion degrees like the upstairs.

I didn't have anywhere in the basement to put Emma during our picnic.  so I made a laundry basket work for our purposes.

goobers

Since Jesse had the Fourth off of work, and we still had no power, we spent some time down in our barn.  Jesse worked on converting the back half into the chicken coop, Lily and I watched while Emma slept in the stroller.  It was sweaty fun.

Lily handed nails to Daddy

That's about it!  I will try and update pictures tomorrow..