My Journey- Part 8

The Storm...

When I say massive, I mean 90mph winds, tornadoes everywhere and just a little rain (they really need rain, but not much came with the storm). It lasted about 20 minutes.  We were the stupid people watching out the window, but you could barely see 2 ft from the house! It was CRAZY!  It was the strength of a Cat 1 Hurricane, but without so much water.  Of course, with a storm like that, you expect power to go out.  And it did.  For 5 days.

Yep, 5 days the power was out.  Friday night we were fine.  The storm had brought with it a very nice cool front.  We opened up the windows and enjoyed the evening, even taking a walk and meeting some neighbors.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best time to meet neighbors as many barn roofs were wrapped around trees, power lines were down and tons of other damage we saw on our walk.

By Saturday we began to wonder if our power would be out longer because we were in such a rural area.  Our fears were confirmed when Jim, our farmer neighbor, came to check on us and gave us the bad report.  His son worked for the phone company and another daughter worked for someone else.  Both were predicting no power throughout the week.  He did show us that we had a hand pump for the well (VERY handy!), but beyond that we had nothing.  It wouldn’t have been such a big deal (especially since we had water from the well for stuff), except that the forecast was not looking good.  They were reporting record highs of 99-103 for the entire week—something that, according to Jim, “never happens!”. 

So off we went to Matt’s parent’s house for a few days.  (First we stopped at our first ever Waffle House… we were starving and all I wanted was a waffle!)  His parent are still 2+ hours away, just like Lexington (but now we’re north, not south), so they didn’t get what we got.  We got in Saturday night, put Caylee to bed and stayed through Monday morning.  They had all the great-grandparents over Sunday evening.  We headed out Monday to a friend’s house.  We were just stopping in to say hello, but ended up staying 2 nights with them too.  (When I checked in with Jim, power was supposed to be on Mon evening or Tuesday, but later that changed to “possibly not until Saturday”)  This week was getting REALLY long and we were running out of clothes!  (I know, we could have done laundry, but the point was that we had just moved in and I wanted to be home unpacking and organizing).  As a bonus, we were able to see fireworks on July 3rd from their house.  I LOVE fireworks and they set them off a day early in Springfield.  They live just across from the fairgrounds and we had a great view.  Caylee stayed up for them and seemed to enjoy them too.  I was glad we didn't miss fireworks this year, I always look forward to that.   

Anyways, after staying with family and friends each a few nights, we headed home… this time prepared… with a generator!  (THANKS!) The power did return eventually, and we were SO thankful!  We had to re-stock our fridge (again), but we’re so lucky we can afford to do that.  It really made us thankful for what we have and that we aren’t in dire want, also made me thankful for power and I realized how much we rely on it for everything!!      

Well Pump

Waffle House-- the waffle was pretty good, but it's not a super nice place to eat.

Playing with friends... Caylee LOVED being here because they gave her space and showed her all sorts of toys.

Riding the mechanical horse at Texas Roadhouse

Swinging outside... he was so sweet with her... my favorite quotes from him were:
1. S: "Let's play hide and seek with her"
Me: "How are you going to do that?"
S: "We will put her in a closet and count and go find her"
Me: "Well, maybe when she gets older, but I don't think she'll like that right now"

2. S: "I think she's tired and needs a massage, I'll give her one"

So funny :)

Exhausted from a very long, unexpected traveling week.  We were glad to be home!