The Big Blow

The last few days we've been somewhat discomforted by the vacation of our luxuries due to the loss of electricity caused by the Thursday night storm. Power has been restored to some parts, but because we're further out now, we're still waiting. We'll likely not get power until Wednesday at the earliest. So, we've been using the fireplace, quilts, warm clothes, candles, lamps, and batteries to their full advantage. It's been tough. It doesn't bother me much. I rather like the quiet (other than the constant drone of generators) and don't mind the cold so much. But the kids struggle with the cold and boredom. They get cranky and that makes me cranky.
However, Saturday night as we were sitting around contemplating our navels, someone came up with the idea to play hide and seek. The new house has more dimensionality, so it's not so easy for "it" to find everyone. In fact, it's quite difficult and often, "it" only found one or two before everyone was safely back at "home" on the couch in the music room. The fact that we had to use flashlights only made the game more fun and for the little ones, more scary. Jenny wouldn't go more than twenty feet from home base. I'm still trying to decide if she was "homesitting" or just too chicken to venture into the bleak unknown where scary dads and brothers love to jump from dark corners and yell "BOO!"
Meals are kind of fun as we cook on our large camp stove with propane and eat by candle light. Fortunately, we had just gone shopping to stock up the shelves with food before the storm hit. Large trees, we're talking 100 foot long trees, fell all around the sound, taking with them power lines, pieces of homes and cars, and in some rare and unfortunate cases, people. Most of the stores around here are closed. Today they seem to be opening up a bit. Gas was near impossible to find because none of the pumps worked. Those stations that were open had long (3 hour) waiting lines or just ran out of gas. Yesterday, Lindsey and I drove to a nearby gas station we'd heard was opened. We were able to get gas in the Kia and Mazda. Earlier, I was able to find gas at a station in Kirkland, about 20 miles away from our house. I don't anticipate too many problems going forward though as crews seem to be getting the power lines up pretty quickly.
Anyhow, we're doing OK. We're hoping for power soon, but should be alright in the interim.