I don't even know enough words to describe how I feel about things that happened this week. I don't have enough ways to say "thank you" to the people that helped us so much. I look back now and I think "people used to do this their whole lives" haha, but they also all had fireplaces in their homes ;) .
As many of you know, we woke up to a cold house Wednesday morning. There was a snow storm on Monday and it was pretty heavy snow, and then Tuesday night it rained and then froze on top of the snow, and a lot of trees couldn't handle the weight. I had to drive Tyler to The Eye Institute for clinic Wednesday afternoon and every direction we tried going we had to turn around because of a fallen tree! In all my years living through Iowa's ice storms I've never experienced such a storm with so much lost power. The ironic part is that as dangerous as it is, I've never been more amazed by mother nature's beauty as I have when an ice storm occurs. It's so beautiful! Across the street from our house there was half of a tree dangling on the power line, and another one on the roof. We spent most of Wednesday at home but then it got too cold to keep warm so we went to the Adam's house and let the girls play. The Palmer's were also there, also out of power, and they called dibs on staying at the Adam's ;) so we went to another house to sleep. Tyler thought we could tough it out that night at our apartment, but I said no haha. With small kids involved, it changes the game. I'm so glad we didn't try to stay because it was 44 degrees inside the next morning when we went to get clean clothes! The first and second night we stayed with the Butt's from the ward that have two girls the same age as our two girls. Lyndi kept saying "It's time for a sleepover with Ellie!" To this day, I'm still not sure she entirely understands the concept of a sleepover haha. The girls slept remarkably well that first night. Lyndi's friend Ellie is in Joy School with her and she loves to play with her. The second night wasn't so great with them, but still, for not being at home, they did great!
The next two nights we spent at the Clark's house. We felt like two days was pushing it with overstaying our welcome. I know everyone was so happy to help and they probably didn't feel burdened by us being there until the power came back on, but I felt bad for staying so long. I felt so helpless! I couldn't cook anything, do laundry, entertain kids, shower, charge my phone, without the help of someone else and their warm, well-lit home, even changing clothing at our apartment wasn't an option after the first day, so cold! The girl's again slept pretty well for not being at their own house, and they also experienced a "real" babysitter for the first time ever and they did great! We usually just swap kids with another couple for babysitting, but we had a Valentine's activity for church Saturday night so we combined kids with a babysitter and they went to bed when they were supposed to, and were pleasant for the sitter!
I kept checking the power company's website to see if anything had changed. I kept hearing more and more people get their power back, and I kept thinking "ok, we're next, we're next". Even people out in the middle of nowhere were getting power back before we were! Wednesday night I checked the website and they estimated Sunday night at 11:00 pm. Thursday I checked and it estimated Thursday night at 11:00 pm. Friday I checked and it estimated Friday night at 11:00 pm. Saturday I checked and it estimated Saturday night at 11:00 pm. Haha. I woke up at about 4:30 Sunday morning and the thought ran through my head that our power was back on, and I got too excited I couldn't go back to sleep. Tyler had church meetings that morning but he forgot his sunday shoes, so he went back to the apartment to get them, and he said "our porch light is on!" Made. My. Week. I'm an easily stressed person and fairly analytical, so when things like this happen, I have a week's worth of worry run through my head in an instant, and it just replays over and over. So I get tired and frustrated and cranky ;). At one point, we had friends 2 blocks from us on both sides of the apartment with power AND the people living 300 feet across the street from us and we still had none! I kept thinking, "am I supposed to be learning something from this?" haha. We were the second to the last ones to get power back in the ward. Lyndi was actually disappointed to be ending our sleepover streak, because that night we were going to go to the Palmer's house and have another sleepover when we found out we had power back. So we scheduled a pajama party with them for another time haha.
Three weeks previous to this the same thing occurred, but it was just our heat that was broken and not our electricity. We went about 10 hours without heat on one of the coldest days of the season, but at least we had a way to provide heat with space heaters and our oven and stovetop without leaving our home. So when we woke up cold on Wednesday, I was like "again? really?" haha, I had no idea at that point just how many hundreds of thousands of people were in the same boat as us. I read Hurricane Sandy that we experienced right after Emerie was born put almost a million people out of power, we never lost power for that one though, but this storm was a close second with numbers in the 700,000's. SO CRAZY! Mother nature, we have had enough snow, and ice for that matter. Please send some out west where it is very much needed. But on the bright side, our power bill will be awesomely low this month, and we have made more plans for necessity's in our future house, such as a fireplace ;).
But my main thought when coming home is just how lucky we are to be in this ward with our second family. We have NEVER experienced a ward that's so close knit. Don't get me wrong, our past wards have been great, but living where most everyone has no family close by it makes you rely on each other. I know people still have their issues with each other on occasion, but when the need arises, everyone is there for each other. I can count literally dozens of responses to our time of need this past week. At one point, it felt like people were saying "pick me! pick me!" haha, because they all wanted so badly to help someone! Dozens of offers were made for laundry, showers, meals, a place to hang out during the day, somewhere to sleep, somewhere to keep our food from the fridge, a place for my kids to take a bath or to play, giving us food when ours finally went bad in the door of our freezer and fridge, etc. THIS is the only reason I'm not super worried about Tyler getting a rotation or two somewhere else while us girls live here while he's gone. Our ward is our second family, they are the BEST! No thank you's will ever be enough for helping us out this past week. You know who you are :)
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