Back to work

Our power is still out and will be for a bit. Since our trees tore down our powerlines and tore the main power thingabob off the house, we have to have an electrician come make repairs before the power company can hook us back up when they make their way out to our neck of the woods.

Power is back on in town again, and Jack and I were both able to come back to work today. This has been quite the experience for this little raised-in-the-desert city girl. I miss having power, and I miss having the internet, but I really have no major complaints. We have a generator to power our little heaters. (We turned the upstairs den area basically into a studio apartment.) I have a little crockpot and a propane cooktop to cook food so the food in our fridge didn't get wasted. Our satelite, amazingly, is working, so once we had a generator hooked up the kids could watch TV. I got to spend all week with the kids just reading books, doing crossword puzzles, and watching NCIS together. (It is a family show for us... lol... all the kids love it.)

We have good friends who took in the kids the first couple of nights before we had a generator for heat. Friends are letting us shower at their house, which makes life much more pleasant all the way around. And last night several of them came over to watch the Superbowl on our generator-powered TV, eating a feast we prepared on the propane cooktop.

It is a bit eerie to see National Guard troops drive through town, but they are here to make sure everybody is okay. The president declared our area a federal disaster area. I have heard this was the worst storm of this kind here that most people have ever seen. And it was bad. But I thank God it wasn't a tornado or something of that ilk that could leave us without shelter or basic necessities.

I am taking Chet to St. Jude on Wednesday, and we will be there a couple of days. I will post pictures as soon as I can. I think the kids are supposed to start back to school tomorrow. Life is working its way back towards normal, and it may take some time to get there, but for now we are just grateful for the blessings and grateful to know it isn't nearly as bad as it could be!

Jesse and Sam's baby, Sophia, was born a few days ago. I can't wait to get to Vegas for a weekend to snuggle and love on her. Congratulations, you two! We love you!