Lights, Camera, Action! (a.k.a. The Blizzard of '10)

As I am sure everyone who reads my blog who lives anywhere close to here knows, it snowed. A lot. I thought we were supposed to get about a foot, which around here usually means we end up with 2 inches. Panic set in to most citizens around here and they all ran to the store to get milk and toilet paper. I did not. Let it snow. All I had to do this weekend was catch up on laundry and vacuum. Neither of those activities ever got completed. It is amazing how much your life is affected when you are without power for 53 hours.

It started snowing around noon on Friday. I didn't pay too much attention to it, just casually watched it accumulate out the window. It snowed constantly but never really seemed to be coming down that heavy. I took the pup out for a walk around 8 pm and we had probably 8 inches. At 9:45 the power went out. I am always thoroughly confused when our power goes out during storms here since all the power lines in this neighborhood are underground. Greg called the power company and a recording told him that power for our area should be restored by 11 pm. We made sure the wood burning stove in the basement was full of wood, threw a spare blanket on the kids, and went to bed.

We woke up Saturday morning to find that the weather prediction was a bit off. Instead of 12 inches of snow, we got nearly 2 feet! My inaccurate measurement of the snow clocked in at 22.5 inches. It was one of those "wet" snows that stuck to everything, pulled down trees and power lines. I put all my snow gear on and took the pup out for a walk. My oh so generous neighbor had plowed our driveway the night before so there was only about a foot a snow on the driveway. Maya made a mad dash into the fresh powder and all but disappeared.



Our house is a little ways from the road. The pup usually isn't on a leash in our yard but I can still only trust her to come when I call about 80% of the time. I wanted to check out the road and didn't have a leash for Maya. I figured I would risk it. There was no one at all around. The township hadn't been out to plow our roads yet but someone took it upon themselves to do a little plowing. If I turned left out of my driveway, things were looking pretty nice. Whoever had done the plowing apparently couldn't make it the rest of the way up the hill because right after my driveway, there was a wall of snow where the plow stopped.


And just because we could, the pup and I headed up the street a little bit and played in the snow in the middle of a three way intersection.


Back in our yard, I thought we should stop and have a little swing... but that didn't work out so well.


Please take your time and enjoy the following few pictures because my short legs had to climb through the massive amounts of snow up a hill to get these pictures. It was rather exhausting.

Weeping Willow Tree was weeping despite its lack of leaves






Check out all the snow on the swings.


Despite (my) fears that our back porch roof might collapse since it is almost flat,

the only damage that we noticed was that part of the garden fence fell down. The fence ripped away from the support poles so it is just a matter of attaching it again.


Still without power, we attempted to go on with our day normally. Greg made coffee.

The kids seemed very understanding of the fact that our TV was "broken". We all goofed around together and I found myself savoring life without the distraction of television and checking email and catching up on blog reading/writing and doing that laundry and vacuuming that really needed done. Perhaps that is why I like camping so much. The only things we had to worry about was staying fed, warm, and enjoying the time we have to spend together.

Mid-morning time we headed outdoors. The kids could hardly wait. Marcus went down the first two steps of our front porch and jumped into the snow. He disappeared face first and came up screaming. Being the awesome mother I am, I was laughing hysterically. Maya helped us out by bounding through the snow and packing down a few paths. The kids were content digging and digging some more. They weren't all that happy when we requested they try to walk. I wonder why.




By evening, the temperature on the main floor of the house had become close to unbearable. Our game room was still somewhat toasty. Just to be clear, "game room" is quite an overstatement. This is no nice looking "man cave". It really is just a basement - concrete floors with an area rug on one part, cinder block walls on three sides, some Styrofoam insulation and wood studs on the fourth wall, a ceiling that consists of exposed pipes and duct work. There is one window that lets in a little light, a couple of couches for comfort, and a spare bed. Most importantly, our wood burning stove that became our mode of survival is located down there. We began our decent into the game room.

My parents live a couple miles away and their house still had power so we headed over there for warm showers and a warm meal. After we sucked up their hospitality, we headed back to our house. The main floor of the house was 53 degrees. The game room was cool but definitely tolerable. We decided to "go camping" downstairs. The kids were on air mattresses and Greg and I (and sometimes Maya) were on the spare bed.
(That's Marcus, not the Old Mother Witch book with arms)




Greg, Marcus, and I experienced a lengthy power outage in the summer of 2007 that was the result of some micro bursts (tornado like things) that occurred near our old house. In addition to extensive water damage to our basement, we also lost all our food in our freezer. That wasn't a problem this time around.

I guess that is one advantage to being without power in the middle of near zero temperatures. I told the kids that we were going to put our food outside. Marcus was a bit worried and shouted out, "We can't Mommy! The deer will eat it!" Thankfully there are no flying deer in the area that were able to make it up to our deck.

Sunday we woke up to find we still did not have electricity. We attempted to eat breakfast upstairs with coats on and decided that all meals from that point on would be consumed in the basement.

Marcus and I spent some quality time together washing dishes (in cold water) by hand.

There was more playing in the snow. There was some cuddling time with the pup.

As much as we were enjoying all the quality time we were getting to spend together as a family, it was apparent that we were all done with the cold and dark world that was void of technology. My parents took us in for another evening of dinner and showers and we spent a second evening camping out in our basement.

At 2:45 this morning, I was awaken by something quite mysterious. It was a light not produced by fire or battery power. At last! We endured 53 hours of power outage and came out of it only slightly dirty, mildly cold, and with no frozen pipes. We did have to throw out some of our milk since I am convinced the inside of our refridgerator was actually warmer than our house at one point. Although I am in no hurry to do it all again, I have to admit that getting to spend all that time just being together will be something I will miss. Got to run. Got to pick up some milk and toilet paper at the store. Another storm that is projected to drop 12 more inches of snow is supposed to hit tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed that this time 12 inches actually turns out to be 2 inches instead of 2 feet.

I've Got the Power

Electricity was restored at 2:45 this morning. Time to move the family from the basement into the rest of the house. Normal (sporadic) blogging should return soon.

Darkness

It started snowing here around noon on Friday and didn't stop until some time Saturday afternoon. Two feet of snow later, the kids and pup are loving it. It really is quite beautiful. But there are consequences. The next town over is rather completely without electricity. As of last night 46% of our county was without electricity. I am sitting here with the family eating breakfast in coats in the dark while blogging on my phone. Our power went out on Friday at 9:45 and there hasn't been flicker since. The power is spotty in our neighborhood. So spotty that if you make a left out our driveway, everyone has electricity. If you make a right, darkness for half a mile then bam, lights again. My parents 2 miles away have power so we spent time over there yesterday (and had hot showers!). We are spending most our time in our game room where we have a wood burning stove. It is somewhat toasty. The rest if the house us currently 54 degrees. Reports say our power should return between Tuesday and Friday. Update again when we are warm.

A Year Ago

Although a day late, it has been a year since we brought Maya home. Our little fluffball who was scared and confused and oh so sleepy, has turned into a big furry lap dog who is most certainly loved by every member of this family, big and small. Really the only issue that we have with her now is that she loves everyone, sometimes a little too enthusiastically. Do I miss those few short weeks when she would crawl into my arms and fall asleep? How can I not?


Now there is just more of her to love is all.

Photo taken a week after we brought her home 2/8/09


She has put on a couple more pounds since this photo was taken on 11/29/09

Big Boy Bed

If you are ever in dire need of getting your kid to take a nap, I have just the solution. Get them a new bed. When we moved into our house, both of the kids' bed rooms had built in loft beds. We removed the one in Will's room but ended up leaving the one that was in Marcus's room. His toddler bed fit nicely underneath the loft bed so there was really no reason to remove it. At some point I got this genius idea that we could use the loft bed from Will's room to turn the loft bed in Marcus's room into bunk beds. It took weeks of Greg and I bouncing ideas off of each other and shopping around. Finally we were able to find a solution to make the whole family happy.



Marcus was so excited that he was in his bed before I ever got a chance to put the sheets on. We still need to pick up one more set of drawers for under the bed. For now the kids love to crawl under the foot of the bed and come out by the head of the bed like it is a tunnel. They might not be so excited when we finally get that last piece and block off their tunnel.

The bed was finally fully assembled just before nap time. Marcus hasn't been napping much and instead has just been permitted to play with toys in his room during nap time. Not with a new bed. I kept telling him he could play with toys. He kept telling me he just wanted to nap in his new bed. He drove his point home by taking all the toys in his room and putting them in his toy box so I understood completely that nap time would consist of him doing nothing but napping in his new big boy bed.

I'm not sure if he was ever able fall asleep in his big boy bed since he was so excited. Turns out that his big boy bed is excellent for pretending to sleep in.


And some days I am able to tire him out enough that his big boy bed actually does work great for sleeping.


The only negative about his bigger bed is that he has discovered that the wallpaper border is perfect height for picking at. Really, why do kids like to destroy things so much? He is just too cute and lovable for me to care all that much though.

Speaking of cute and lovable sleeping kiddos...

Sleeping Dogs

I don't know if it is a dog thing or just a lab thing, but both of the labs that I have had love to lay on things. They use pillows. Anything soft is great for a bed, even if it quite lumpy. Actually, the lumpier, the better. (Maybe this is why the pup loves laying on my feet.) Of course blankets are quite fabulous to lay on. Personally I prefer to lay under blankets and that is something that the pup and me have in common. She is obsessed with finding her way under this throw we typically have thrown over the arm of our couch.

Maybe sometimes the lights are just too bright for a nap.

Will and his Guys

Ever since Will was a baby, he would get one thing in his head, grab onto it, and hold tight. The first indication I had of this was shortly after he came home. He was cruising like a champ at 11 months but had yet to take his first independent steps. He quickly discovered if he held on to this push toy that we had and pushed it sideways on the linoleum floor, there was enough friction for it to move at a good pace for him. He would spend an hour at a time in our kitchen just pushing his toy around. You couldn't convince him to do anything else and if you physically removed him from his push toy, life got ugly. He learned to walk and eventually abandoned his push toy. Little did I know that all the activities he tried were just in hopes to find his next obsession.

It is really no surprise at this point what that obsession it.

Football.

We are working at bringing this kid up right so of course he is well aware that the best team in all of football history is the Steelers. (Yes, I did watch them this season but I am also trying to put that out of my mind.) Everything in Will's world can be reduced to football. We often find ourselves saying things like, "The Steelers eat their vegetables," or "The Steelers use big boy voices to ask for things."

There is really not much in Will's world that doesn't involve football. I assure you, this is his doing. If you give the kid some crayons to draw a picture, he turns them into football players and starts making them tackle each other. Sometimes when he has no toys at all in his hands, his hands begin to tackle each other. Our entire house is actually filled with invisible defensive men who will randomly tackle Will and make him come crashing and rolling onto the floor at any given time, usually without notice. With my very own eyes I have seen Will get tackled by the couch.

It is nice to see that he has something that he clearly enjoys so much. Other times it is frustrating. The whole family will sit down for a mean game of Candyland and Will decides he doesn't want to play because he wants to play with his "guys". Often times no amount of subtle suggestion or near coercion will convince him to try any activity that is not somehow football related. We just hear, "I'm gonna get my guys."

He has several sets of "guys". Most of the time he plays with his "baby Steelers" which is an old electric football game that Greg has. He sets up all his "guys" and then usually yells something about tackling and all his "guys" end up in a pile. Repeat. Over and over and over again. For hours.

"Baby Steelers" are definitely great for playing football, but Will does not discriminate. Football is a game for everyone - race car drivers, construction workers, and even Diego can all play the game. And just one more set of Will's guys line up to show exactly how it is done.


Tackle!


Touchdown!