I was VERY quick to take pictures & blog about the tons of snow that we woke up to on Thursday morning ... and how it continued to snow all day on Thursday ... our neighborhood and trees & landscaping were just sooo beautiful all covered in snow! We went to bed Thursday night ... and woke up Friday morning as 1 of the (more than) 200,000 homes in DFW withOUT any ELECTRICITY!
What a way to start this Valentine's Day (and President's Day) weekend! And we had big plans for the weekend ... my parents were coming in from Abilene to stay with us so they could keep Kendall on Friday night and Saturday morning while we went to a Marriage Conference at our church ... my sister, Estee (aka Auntie E) was flying in from Florida on Friday night to stay the weekend & President's Day with us (since my brother-in-law is deployed right now) ... (and my other sister, Rachel (aka Aunt Rach) and my nephew Mason were also driving in from Abilene for the weekend to hang out, but had already had to cancel their trip when they both got the stomach bug on Thursday ... so we were already disappointed we weren't going to see them). We had grand plans of shopping on Saturday (my sisters, mom and I while Ashley kept Kendall), celebrating Rachel's birthday and celebrating our 1st Valentine's Day with Kendall as well!
But plans change ... Friday morning ... 5am ... Ashley heard a loud boom & a huge tree limb falling down in our backyard ... we lost all power to our house (and our neighborhood, as we would find out later) ... I finally woke up at 5:45am (never heard the loud boom or tree limb crashing) and found out that we had no power ... and our house was getting colder and colder. Ash had already started a fire in our living room fireplace ... what a great husband I have!
Here's the huge tree branch that broke off during the middle of the night ... we were so thankful that it didn't break our fence as well ... it was so big that it was still hanging in the tree, landed over the fence & the top was into the pool!
We set up camp in the living room, near our fire to stay warm until the electricity came back on. We were hoping the power would be restored quickly, but then found out more than 200,000 homes were also without power, so we hoped for the best, but prepared for the worst ... we really didn't know what to expect and thought we could be without power for several days, depending on how fast they could work ... over 200,000 homes were affected ... not everyone would have power restored in a few hours of working on it. This is definitely not the end of the world ... I don't want you to think that I think it is ... I know you can survive just fine without electricity. At least we still had a home to be in, clothes to wear & bundle up in, a fire to burn all day long, and plenty of water & food ... unlike the people who are trying to survive after the disaster in Haiti or any other natural disasters that have happened anywhere in the past! We were very thankful having no electricity was our only problem!
Ashley did go into work on Friday (they had a 10am late opening due to the ice) and Kendall & I camped out! Keeping Kendall warm was my #1 priority ... my #2 was preparing & serving her bottles warm enough & on time (it takes a bit more time & creativity to warm a bottle without electricity ... especially when we are spoiled by using a bottle warmer 5 times a day!) We did venture out of the house for a Sonic Happy Hour drink in the afternoon and Kendall finally took a bit of a nap on the car ride (her 1st one of the day, instead of it being her 3rd one of the day ... not sure if the problem of her not napping was being in the living room & it being too light, or being in the pack 'n play instead of her crib, or if her teeth were bothering her, but by 2pm she was really needing some rest)!
When Ashley got home around 4p, we were still without electricity, so we packed up everything we needed and drove to my uncle & aunt's (Todd & Nita) home in Grand Prairie, that had electricity! We bombarded them and they were gracious hosts! We were so blessed to have a warm house to sleep in ... and to top it off, they were DVR'ing the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics, so we got to watch it! (Missing the Opening Ceremony was one of the things we were going to be most disappointed about by not having electricity on Friday.)
We picked up my sister, Estee, from DFW airport late Friday night and she came to Todd & Nita's to stay the night as well. On Saturday, my parents (and Jake, my parents' dog) and MawMaw all drove in from Abilene and spent the day with all of us at Todd & Nita's ... we had a house full and a great time! Ashley & my dad spent several hours at our house, working on cleaning up & cutting up all the tree damage we had received from all the snow. I never knew snow could do so much damage, since I've not been around a lot of snow my entire life! All the snow is beautiful, but it sure is powerful ... especially when you have a FOOT of snow at your house! (One foot of snow was our final accumulation measurement Friday morning!)
Here are a few pictures Estee took during our family time at Todd & Nita's on Friday and Saturday ...
I'm a bit behind on my postings due to all the events of this weekend ... so Happy Valentine's Day, today ... I will post about our first Valentine's Day with Kendall tomorrow!
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