Last spring a big storm came through ripping up trees in our neighborhood. We were out of power for a little over 24 hours. It happened during parent-teacher conferences for me. Nothing like an ice cold shower that morning so I could at least look and smell presentable to parents. We spent the first night in the cold house, but the second evening I took the kids all the way to Troy after my conferences. Our power came back on two hours later...
This year, we had an "ice storm" Saturday night-Sunday morning. Our power was on and went out about 15 minutes after we woke up. Sean had spent the night at his cousin, Adelaide's house. We got up and took Evan out to breakfast at Leo's where they had power. We were going to go grocery shopping before picking up Sean, but we didn't want to with the power outage and I'm glad we didn't. We picked up Sean, came home and took the last of the hot water to get everyone dressed and ready to drive in the pouring rain and sleet to Auburn Hills to celebrate Nana's birthday with some fowling and lunch.
At least we had fun fowling to take our minds off of the power outage. And the lunch buffet at the Hub was amazing!
We came home and used the last of the daylight to get things ready for work and school the next day. I luckily was able to make the boys some PB&honey sandwiches, an apple, and a bag of chips for lunch since none of that needed refrigeration. Scott ran out and got some ice for us to move the food in the refrigerator to coolers and a few other essentials for our power outage. The kids helped pick up broken sticks and branches in the backyard. And then, it was pajamas, books, and a candlelit dinner of Taco Bell before bed. Both boys opted to sleep in our bed with all our camping lanterns set up and a sound machine app playing on the iPad.
Monday morning came with no power, a freezing cold house, and no option for a shower. Yuck! I dressed for work and packed up the contents of the freezer to take to work. Scott had the day off since his school district was out of power too - lucky! He got the boys up later and took them to school. By mid-afternoon with no estimate of restoration, we made the decision to book a hotel in Plymouth. Scott took the dog to my parents' house and packed an overnight bag for us.
The boys were so excited to be greeted by both of us at pick-up after school! And Sean got to skip Catechism. We ate dinner out at Zack's Coney Island and went on the hotel. Our neighbors, Tim and Annie, got a room there too so we had a little pool party. Shelley brought Nevaeh up to swim (their side of the street had power) and I invited some friends from the boys' school, Andrea with her two boys. We made the most out of our Monday night hotel adventure!
We got the boys in bed after a hot shower by 8:30pm. We read some books and they had some snacks and then it was lights out...for all of us! Tuesday morning we enjoyed the free breakfast at the hotel. They even gave us warm chocolate chip cookies as we were leaving for work and school. We had another thick layer of ice on our cars in the parking lot overnight. Where in the world are you, spring??
We were excited to hear by Tuesday around lunchtime our power was back up and running! I ran out during my lunch and prep hour to plug in our fridge, clean it out, and move back the items from the cooler. It was a busy evening of grocery shopping, unpacking, and getting our house back in order. We lost about 30% of what was in our fridges and freezers, but I know it could have been a lot worse. It was definitely an unexpected expense with the hotel and all the eating out.
We did the best we could and it was actually kind of fun to sleep at a hotel with our friends on a Monday night! When else would you do something like that?!
The best part was realizing our fish, Flame, survived! His tank was pretty cold when I got to the house on Tuesday afternoon, but this guy is a fighter!
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