Halloween weekend started off with some fun and relaxation time. Gavin and I spent Friday afternoon at the museum and came home to make dinner. The rest of the night was fairly typical, dinner, playtime, bath and bed (for Gavin) and then Scott and I hung out before I headed to bed. With the forecast of snow for Saturday (and all kinds of crazy predictions on how much, when and what damage it could do), Gavin and I got ready and out of the house first thing in the morning to see if we could find him some boots, mittens and a hat. I had browsed a little in stores and online and hadn't really found anything yet but I figured I still had some time before we would need them. Based on the forecast, I was wrong. Thankfully we already had found his snowsuit and winter coat and that arrived a few weeks ago. So, Gavin and I set off for the mall to see what we could find.
We went to several stores and spent a lot longer there than I thought we would since Target and the department stores were the only stores open before 10 (since when does the mall not open until 10)! We managed to find a really cute Lightening McQueen hat, some waterproof mittens (harder to find than I thought... what good are knit mittens in the snow, they just result in soaking wet and cold hands) that are a little big, but better than nothing and some cute boots. All of which coordinate fairly well with his snowsuit. So we headed home with a quick stop at the grocery store for milk, potatoes and bananas (woah, total chaos there... glad we have plenty on hand at all times that we don't need to be a part of the panicked filling their carts with food and essentials).
When we got home, Gavin took a nap while I got lunch ready and we sat back and waited for the supposed snow to start. Before Gavin woke up, we saw the first flakes. I was shocked, I was half hoping for snow, half hoping they were wrong and trying not to get my hopes up for the half hoping for snow so I wouldn't be disappointed if there was none.
Well, it certainly started to look like they weren't going to be wrong with their huge predictions of snow. It started coming down heavy and fast and everything was white. It was beautiful but it certainly didn't feel like October. It made it feel like December or January as we sat and watched the snow. After Gavin woke up and ate his lunch we hung out, played and watched the snow until there was enough to go out and play in. We got all suited up (Scott complained about how long it took, but getting myself and Gavin ready while finding Scott's hat, gloves and boots too takes more than 5 minutes... then trying to get Gavin to stop squirming so I can get him dressed... it was quite the undertaking) and headed outside.
Gavin wasn't quite as thrilled as he was with the little bit of snow we had a couple of days before. He didn't seem to know what to make of it when the snow was covering the ground and still coming down. It didn't help that he was having trouble walking in his new boots. He had finally gotten pretty good at walking in his snowsuit the other day but throwing the new boots at him made his life pretty difficult. He wasn't interested in walking after that, he just wanted to be carried around.
Despite not wanting to be down in the snow, he was really happy to be outside. He was laughing at Scott and I throwing snowballs, he liked the snowman we made and he liked watching and trying to catch the snow coming down (and being shaken from trees). We walked around trying to knock some of the snow off of the trees because it was such a wet heavy snow and not all the trees had dropped all their leaves, some were really sagging and if too much snow piled up it could destroy them. The only actual tree loss we had was a large branch that came down from the Magnolia. It tried to take me out with it. I was doing some finish work on our snowman and it came down right next to me. It came down so fast that I barely had time to move away and see what was going on. I am very grateful that it missed me! Scott learned after the storm was over that it was a really good thing it missed because we didn't really know how big and heavy it was. Scott wasn't able to move it right away because it was so heavy!
After we had been outside for a while, it was time to head in and get warmed up and dry. Gavin and I played and made dinner (quickly because although we were hopeful about not losing power, we weren't sure what would happen) while Scott went out again to knock snow down from trees because it was still snowing hard and building up fast. We had a few flickers so we made sure that our flashlights were handy and ready with batteries. We stuck to our normal nightly routine with Gavin. We had dinner, played and he took a bath before bed. After he was in bed I ran around a bit trying to take advantage of us still having power. I wanted to get some things taken care of, just in case we didn't have power much longer. Scott went out and knocked snow off trees one more time and then we hung out in bed with phone and computer chargers so that everything could remain at full power for as long as possible.
I went to sleep and woke up around 11:30 when the house went silent. I got up for a minute to check on Gavin since his white noise was obviously gone now and then went back to sleep. So much for making it through without losing power. At least we were lucky enough to have kept it long enough we could warm up the house more than we normally would and cook and eat dinner.
Since we had warmed up the house to the low 70's, it had only dropped to about 64 by the time we got up in the morning. Although that is typically where I keep the house during the day, it felt a bit colder than it normally would but not too bad. I just made sure that Gavin was warm enough by putting him in socks and some flannel pajamas. He didn't even notice much difference. He just pulled out toys as usual and he ate some waffle for breakfast that had been defrosted (I always freeze the extra pancakes and waffles so that I can pull one out for a quick easy breakfast for us). The only difference Gavin probably noticed was that the phone no longer made noise when he played with it and light switches were now boring because nothing happened when he pressed them. Other than that, he went about his day like he always does.
Scott took care of clearing off the driveway and checked out to see if we had any other damage. Other than the branch that came down while we were outside, nothing had been damaged. We were amazed. Scott took a measurement of 9 inches of snow. A lot of snow considering we don't typically see much until at least December and very often January.
We decided after Gavin had napped and we had all had some lunch that we would get out of the house and go for a drive. We were also hoping that we might find a place where we had cell service since we had nothing at home. We moved Gavin's car seat to Scott's truck because we didn't want to open the garage door to back the family truckster out and lose all that heat. We were hoping we would get power back soon but we didn't want to count on that and lose the little "warmth" we still had in the house.
We drove around the neighborhood first, to see what things looked like, and it was very interesting. There were quite a few trees down and people out working on things and checking out damage from the storm. We found the spot that a tree came down to finally take our power out. Then we headed over to my parents house. Since we didn't have cell service, we couldn't call them to see if they had power or if they were home. We figured it was worth it to just drive over and get out of the house for a bit, even if they weren't there.
On our drive over, we saw much worse than was in our neighborhood. It was incredible to see how much damage the storm had done and how much more snow there was only a short distance from us. When we got to my parents house, they were not there, but on our way over we had been able to find cell service and Scott was able to reach his dad. What a huge lifesaver that ended up being. Scott had been wanting to get a generator and just hadn't done it yet. He had already done the research and decided what to get, it was just a matter of getting it. Since getting it locally was out of the question (not much available and not the one Scott had picked out), his dad offered to pick it up by him, if it was available and would meet Scott half way. We were able to get through to a local store in Washington, PA and they had it in stock.
So, we went home and Scott got ready to drive to Carlisle, PA to meet his dad. I decided that I would rather stay home with Gavin because it would be easier to let him play and try to get him to bed as close to his normal time as possible instead of having him strapped in his car seat for 8 hours. So, Gavin and I played (while I tried to keep him layered and warm) and Scott hit the road. It turned out to be a good thing Gavin and I stayed home. My parents stopped by after church to see if we were home and whether or not we had power. They had lost their power Saturday afternoon and decided to see if the church had power and went over early.
Gavin and I played until we needed flashlights and then we ended up putting on cars on my laptop and hanging out in the bedroom until about 7 when I finally decided it was time to just get Gavin to bed. He was getting restless and frustrated by the darkness so it wasn't worth trying to keep busy until 7:30. He went right out and I just hung out and stared out the window. It was interesting because everything was dark, until you saw the next street over because they still had power. They are only a few houses away! Crazy how that can work out.
I went to bed early too and drifted in and out waiting to hear Scott come home. He got home sometime after 1 (I don't remember exactly) and was working on getting the generator box opened. I got up to bring him a flashlight and to see what I could do to help. I pulled out the tools it listed while he got some other things ready and we waited for a friend to come by and help. What a huge help that was too, there is no way that I could have helped lift this thing, it is heavy, 200+ pounds! After I got all the tools out and did what little else I could, I went back to check on Gavin and be closer so I could hear him if he woke up. I listened to Scott and Andy work and before long, they were opening the garage door to take out the assembled, oiled and gassed generator outside to get it started. It was amazing how fast they got that done and had it wired to the boiler to get the heat up and running. Scott had planned to back feed into the main panel, but he didn't have everything he needed to be able to do that and was getting some strange readings on his meter, so he decided to just get the heat working and would deal with the rest in the morning.
I got back up and Scott and I chatted while we waited for the heat to warm up the house to a normal temperature (it was down to about 53 by the time Scott got home) so Scott could shut off the generator and go to sleep. I went back to bed before the house was fully warmed but it felt instantly warmer and we were very grateful!
It was nice to wake up to a house that was a bit warmer than it had been, even though it still lost some of the heat. Scott got up and warmed the house up again and we just relaxed. Scott took a shower so that he could get the oil changed in the generator and decide what else he wanted to do with it that day. My mom stopped by (there was no school for their district) and hung out in the warmth with us. After I showered, Scott checked the power (he still had the main breaker off) and saw that we had gotten power back. What a nice surprise! We had figured it would be a lot longer than that before we got power back. It was about noon, so I heated up some lunch for all of us. It was nice to have some warm food to eat!
We were so grateful to have our power back. I know so many people had it much worse. Locally, many didn't get power back until Tuesday and Wednesday night and in Massachusetts and Connecticut many waited until the following weekend before their power was restored. Although we are now prepared for any future power outages, we are very grateful this one wasn't more than the almost 2 days it was.
We hung out and relaxed for most of the day. Scott had a few items to take care of to prepare for the trick or treaters, like getting the light bulbs replaced in the lights outside and I made dinner, started some laungry and got Gavin in his monkey costume. We were going to go to the mall and go "trick or treating" with Gavin, but with everything that happened we decided to just stay home and hand out candy. Gavin had a good time playing with the bucket we had the candy in and was dancing around with us to the fun Halloween music we had playing.
Gavin also loved the trick or treaters. He had fun checking out all the costumes and especially loved the little boy dressed as Lightening McQueen. Before long it was time for his bath and bed. Gavin's second Halloween was a definite success despite the crazy snowstorm. I am sure next year will be even more fun and maybe we will actually make it out for some trick or treating!
No comments:
Post a Comment