Ice Storm 2011

As most of you know, last weekend, it was predicted that the south would have a serious snowstorm. Because we Southerners are ill prepared, just the mention of snow causes the masses to head to the grocery store and schools to prematurely close.
Last weekend was no exception.
Before we left church Sunday morning, it was decided that our evening service would be cancelled. Later that afternoon, I received the call from Emma & Dougie's school that there would be no school on Monday. So I joined the others and headed to the grocery store that afternoon.
When we woke up Monday morning, we didn't have any snow but we were covered in ice!
Emma & Dougie got home pretty early Monday morning, it was predicted to get worse as the day went on so I asked their dad just to go ahead and bring them home. Throughout the morning, the power flickered but kept coming back on. Since we didn't have any snow, we just hung out inside.
Then about 2 o'clock, it happened. The power went out and didn't come back on.
We weren't too worried, we called the power company to report it and they said it should be back on about 6pm. We were good with that because as long as it was on by 8:30 so we could watch the BCS Championship was all that mattered to us.
In the meantime, we played the funniest game of Twister. I've never seen 2 people get so tangled up like Emma and Dougie did! Later, we all bundled up and walked around in the yard. We had to stay out from under the pine trees, seriously. Branches that were weighed down with ice were falling like crazy.
We were thrilled to see the power company truck working just across the street and were positive we'd have power before the game.
Then all of the sudden, we heard a LOUD boom!
A fairly large tree, fell onto part of our driveway and with it took down power & telephone lines. It just missed taking down the power pole. The power guys ran over to check it out and said they would be on it as soon as possible.
As the sun began setting and tummys were growling, we decided to roast some hot dogs and cook a pot of canned chili over the fire. Thank goodness for the fireplace! For dessert, we roasted marshmallows.
The closer it got to 8, it was obvious that we weren't going to get our power back anytime soon. So we got sleeping bags and settled down for the night. We scrounged around until we found enough D batteries to power a radio. And it was just like the olden days, the kids laid around on the floor and we listened to the game on the radio. One by one, the kids fell asleep. Steven was so good to get up throughout the night to keep the fire going. We knew the kids didn't have to go to school the next day, so we weren't worried that we didn't get a good night's sleep.
As I laid there and watched the kids sleep, I couldn't believe how blessed we are.
We were fed, we were warm and we were together.

God is so good.