Winter Weekend

We had the most unusual weekend. It started out normal enough. Matt and I spent all day Saturday working on taxes and playing with Ellie. We had heard tell of the "big storm" that was going to come into town, but we weren't too worried about it. We had survived freezing cold winters in Cambridge, MA. In fact, a year ago Matt's car was still buried under a pile of snow from the biggest snow storm I've probably ever seen. (No joke, check out this pic to the left) So we were sure that while there would probably be a little snow, it wouldn't cause too much disturbance to our weekend. We even chuckled a little when we got the call Saturday night telling us that church would be cancelled the next morning. "Hee, hee these Northern Virginians don't know what to do with a little snow..."

At 4am Sunday morning Ellie woke up for a feeding and it was my turn to feed her. As it is always my habit to check the time when I feed her, I was irritated when I glanced over at the night stand next to Matt and couldn't see the clock. Why had Matt covered up the clock? Was it because the light of the clock was too bright, which is just a silly thing to think. Then it dawned on me, the power is out. Now I was worried. Here I was in my warm bed, under my cozy comforter and little Ellie only had her fleece sleep blanket to keep her warm. I fed her and made sure she was warm and covered her with an extra blanket for safe measure and hoped that the power would come back soon. The houses across the street from us had power, so I was sure that we would have it soon too.

By morning, the house was cold and still no power. We spent the morning taking turns shoveling the walk and digging my car out of about 9 inches of snow. The snow was actually perfect - light, white and beautiful. If only we had power, I would have loved it. That is what I kept saying throughout the day. But the power never came.

I had signed up to feed the missionaries lunch but with no power, the wonderful meal I had planned to make with my crockpot and electric stove wasn't going to work. We tried unsuccessfully every hour to call them and let them know not to come. But they showed up right at 1pm, smiling ready for lunch (seems their power was out too and their phone didn't work). So we had PB&J, granola bars, apples and luckily some hot chocolate that my sweet sister Lissa brought over.

By the time the missionaries left, it was really cold in the house. I finally told Matt that we needed to go somewhere to get out of the cold. I called some friends who did have power and made them an offer they couldn't refuse - we'd bring over dinner and cook it at their place (the fantastic meal that I had been planning to serve the missionaries) and they would let us hang out with them for the rest of the afternoon and evening. The deal was accepted and we had a great time, even getting in a couple games of Settlers.

By 8pm I was ready to get back home and hoping that our power was back in service. When we got home, we found a house that was dark and cold. It was almost spooky really, every block in our subdivision had power except our little block. What had happened?

Matt figured he could still stay the night at our house. "I'll have the comforter," he said "I'll be just fine." But Ellie doesn't have the comforter. I kept imagining what my mother would say if she found out I had let my 3-month old daughter sleep in a house with no heat when the low for the evening was going to be 15 degrees. (My mother is a true Arizonan who gets cold as soon as the temperature goes below 60 degrees)

We called some friends, who generously allowed us to stay with them. They even kicked their 9-year-old out of his room so we could have some privacy and Matt carpooled with the husband into work Monday morning.

As we sat on Cole's bed, playing with Ellie just before we put her asleep, we laughed about the weirdness of our weekend. It was so not what we had planned on. It wasn't bad, it was just different and ironic. Ironic in the fact that all of those cold winter days and evenings in Cambridge we never lost power, even during the horribly cold nor'easta last January. But here in Alexandria, Virginia we were shacking up with friends because our house was uninhabitable.

Today (three days later) the high is 55 and the snow is well on its way to melting. Our power was restored sometime late Sunday evening (our neighbors said sometime around 11pm). Everything is back to normal, except just like last year - we haven't bothered to shovel out Matt's car and it is the only car in the parking lot of our street that still has snow on it. By the end of the week, even that snow will be gone.