We had planned on going out last night.

We were about tuck the little ones in bed and head out when this began. So we kept the kids up as we watched to craziness, until it was too scary to be that close to the windows (Alex actually ran from the window laugh-screaming) and then all huddled in the living room while the lights flickered a few times until they were out for good.

When we did finally get the kids down, and the storm had calmed, we ventured out to assess the damage. Many people from the neighborhood slowly made their way out, all kind of tiptoeing in the quiet after the storm as if it was some post-apocalyptic event. It was quite a mess outside, and frightening to see the massive trees that uprooted so close to our home. The fireflies didn’t seem to mind what had just happened as they entertained us while we chatted with neighbors (one of which had his recently installed generator running loudly for us all to be jealous of—and he was quite proud of himself, let me tell you. And stingy, without any offer to help anyone out. In fact, when someone joked if he was having a party that night, he matter-of-factly said NO, cause he was assembling something in his living room. C’mon Mr. Where’s the compassion?! Okay, I don’t think anyone was desperate at that point, but still!) Anyway, we didn’t want to leave the kiddos with the power being out, so we lit our emergency lantern, and took the opportunity to do some cleaning. Then we laughed to tears watching Better Off Dead on a mini dvd player. A fun “date night” after all.

But with the power being out, we were quite warm, making sleep difficult, and I was very worried about my freezer freshly stocked with a variety of expensive meats. All night I kept having dreams the power was back on, or we’d taken the food to someone’s house and all was well, and then I’d wake up to find no change in the power status. It made for a horrible night’s sleep, and I tried to make myself tired by reading at 2 AM. At least I made some head-way on my book.

We went out to breakfast to pass the time (and brought a cooler with us to fill with ice to salvage any freezer items), during which we heard from Lili that the power was finally back on. Hooray! Breakfast tasted all the better after that news.

I spent the morning throwing away most things in the fridge (what’s a better way to really clean the refrigerator out?), and checking on everything in the freezer. Turns out our never even peeking in the freezer door paid off, cause although some popsicles and frozen fruit were a little soft, everything seemed to stay in a semi-frozen state. Money wastage averted! Even after 13 hours in the dark.

It’s sad that people are still without power, even with the dozens of electric company trucks we passed on our way through the neighborhood. So many working so hard. It will take a while to clean up all the fallen trees. Hundreds of them! Apparently, our little neighborhood was one of the hardest hit by this storm. We are feeling very lucky right now to not have more that a few huge branches in our yard. Oh, and our garbage can made it a few houses away. What a crazy night.