Wed pm (12/3) started an adventure. There was a wind storm, and the power went out about 11pm. We werern't worried, since we have underground wires, and have never lost power for more than a few hours. OK. WRONG!! So Thur it was still out, and the wind kept blowing all day, hard. Many trees and things got blown over. Kipp called about 10am and asked if it was back. No. Luckily the garage door opened easily once I pulled the latch, so I could still drive. By the afternoon it was starting to get pretty cold in our house. And dark, as the day progressed. We do have hot water (a gas tank), and can manually light our stove, although you can't defrost anything, and not much fancy cooking on a stove. So Thur eve Kipp took the kids to McDonalds. Turns out that I had a dinner party in the next neighborhood, and they still had power. So I was warm and ate well. Kipp was pretty bored once the kids went to bed. He tried to read, but the candles weren't very bright, so he went to sleep at 8:30pm! I had planned to meet with some friends after the party to finish a craft for MOPS. We decided to come over here anyway. They did my dishes while I rounded up all the candles I could find. We put all the tall ones on the table and kept our coats on, and finished the craft by 11:15. We didn't start until 10:30, so that was pretty good.

Fri Kipp was taking off anyway. We were going to go to the snow, but the idea of getting wet and cold and coming back to a dark, cold house was not appealing. Our food was getting soft by then, so we called the friend where I had the party and took all our food over there. We tried to get ice for an chest with milk and eggs, but Safeway was all out. They had ordered more ice, but it wasn't there yet. He said every 5 min a bag comes out. So we waited and a few minutes later got 8 lbs of ice. We ate lunch at home in the dark. Fri was drizzly, so it wasn't the best weather. We decided to go out where I might be warm. We went to Ikea first, then Starbucks, then Fry's Electronics. The first one up here is really nice and big. We called a friend to see if they had power and if we could come over for pizza. They did have power, and Marcia was gone, so David was glad to have us. We got there about 4:30pm and stayed until 7:30, when we all went down to the Covington Christmas Tree Lighting. The pizza was great, and their house was warm. After the ceremony we went home. We had bought the kids their own flashlights at Ikea, and we put lots of extra blankets on their beds. It was pretty chilly by now. Our thermostat has a battery backup, and it was blinking at 55 deg, meaning it was colder than that inside. We couldn't tell any difference from outside to inside. Kipp and I bundled up too, and got some tall candles, and I read a book out loud in bed. After a little while Kipp said, "You know, I can see your breath when you read!" It was not fun! Luckily the power came on early Sat morning, about 3:30am. It was warmer in the morning!!! Quite a time!

That's pretty much why I haven't responded yet. Sat was Kipp's birthday, we had a breakfast for both kids at church, and had to decorate the whole house and tree, and cook for a wine tasting party that night. It was crazy, but it got done. Sun we cleaned and went to Red Robin.