Snow Storm: Part 2

I realize that there is another storm on the way right now.  I guess I better blog about the last one we had before new storm stuff starts to happen : )  My Dad calls me whenever there is something big headed my way (as if I don't listen to the weather reports).  He just wants to know if I have bought myself a generator yet.  They only cost 1,300.00.  We just need one with 500 watts to run our heater he tells me.  One thing we did manage to get during the last power outage was more firewood.  Half a cord to be exact.  What's a cord you ask?  I couldn't really say but we have a half of one sitting out on our back porch just now if you want to take a look.  What we need next is a rack to stack it on.  Maybe next year.  Hopefully we will use enough of it this winter to be able to put our patio furniture back where it belongs come summertime.

The interesting thing to me about this years outage (which was twice as long as last years) is that it didn't seem nearly as bad.  Perhaps because we weren't snowed in,  we didn't actually go anywhere but the fact that we could have made a big difference I think.  Also, the next day was bright and sunny.  We spent a fair amount of time sitting outside soaking in the rays.  We played in the snow, having snowball fights and making a snow fort.  We shoveled for the needy neighbors, and had some good old fashioned family time.  Then T warmed up some water for cocoa on the camp stove and it tasted so much better than the cocoa we make straight from our water dispenser.  We have a hot water option on the water dispenser that gets the water pretty darn hot, but this camp-stove water was so great!  Possibly because we were so cold.  We spent time playing games inside and building Big Girl's Lego house that had been half finished since Christmas.  We sat around the fire and played the game "would you rather."  You play this by taking turns asking questions like "would you rather... slide down a slide full of razor blades or climb up a rope full of prickly burrs."  or "would you rather always wear earmuffs or nose plugs."  Stuff like that.

After we finally got our neighbor to come by and move his car out of our driveway T and Big Boy went for firewood.  We formed an assembly line to transfer it all from the van to the back porch and played another fun game.  T would say to Little Boy as he passed on his small stack of wood "tell your mother I love her."  So my son would relay that message down the line to me.  I would then hear another message a minute later like "Dad thinks your pretty."  I gotta tell you, there is nothing better than the happy look on your son's face when he is giving you a message like that from your sweetheart.  I, of coarse sent a few messages of my own reinforcing the knowledge of parental love in our home.  Some of them were kinda steamy and I thought they would fly over my kids heads.  I was wrong.  Oh well.

By the time we finished that chore the daylight had ended.  We were forced to order pizza instead of making hamburgers in the dark of our kitchen.  We had planned on cooking them outside on the grill.  We were pretty sure the pizza place had power when a lost delivery guy showed up at our house with someone else's pizza.  But it gave us the idea I guess.  After dinner we sat around the fire reading from My Father's Dragon.  It's a family favorite from way back.  The power came on in the middle of our reading and we actually decided to turn the lights back off and continue reading by the fire.  My oldest was so content and feeling the love of our family unit that he vocalized the words "I love our family" with a sigh.  Now how often does he say things like that?  Never I say!  So maybe a little power outage here and there is just what a family needs to stay close these days. No distractions of the world to confuse us.  Was it a perfect day?  No.  Were there meltdowns?  Yes.  But in the end we all looked back on the day with fondness.  So I say bring on the next storm.  We can handle it!

The day after the storm was lovely!

Big Girl working on a fort