So the weekend before last, we drove up to Maine to spend a nice week away visiting my parents. I love going up there, even more so now that The Little Girl is old enough to get what it means when we say we're going to Maine. She loves it up there.
We set off on that Sunday with a stack of DVDs and our portable DVD player for the four or so hour drive to Portland. Confession time: The Hubby and I used to scoff at the very notion of putting DVDs on for kids in the car. There is plenty of beautiful scenery to look at, books to read, pictures to draw, and so on. I didn't need videos to keep The Dark Knight (aka, my 20 year old son) happy in the car, so I shouldn't need them for any Little Girl. Turns out, we do. She is, after all, only 2 1/2, and the happiness that fills our car as she quietly watches an episode of Curious George is worth any amount of humble pie.
We were having a wonderful vacation; things were going well until I heard about the earthquake. The Dark Knight did not join us on this trip, so I called him to make sure all was well. It was, although I think he was disappointed that he didn't have the opportunity to break the news in some dramatic fashion designed to scare the living crap out of me.
In the background, we knew a hurricane was coming. All along, The Hubby and I planned to leave on Saturday, but we decided on Saturday morning to make sure we were home before the storm hit. As the week progressed, we got more worried about it. We wanted to be home because we didn't want The Dark Knight all by his lonesome during the storm. Also because my parents were all but certain to lose power at their house. Five people + one toilet + no power = disaster. So there was no way we were sticking around, for everyone's sake.
We left for home Saturday morning and got home as rain from the very outer edge of the storm was starting to fall. I invited my sister over to hunker down with us as we waited out the storm. It started to pick up Saturday night and Sunday morning we woke up with no power. Wait, what was my equation again? Five people + no power + three toilets = not such a great time. The extra toilets helped, but when you have well water and no power for the well to actually run, well...then you have to be very diligent about water usage to conserve what water you have. In a total burst of extra awesomeness, The Hubby filled the bathtub with water on Saturday night for just this kind of emergency, and the tub slowly drained the water. We still had some on Monday morning when we woke up, but not much at all.
Considering how others fared, though, I'd say we did OK. Sure, it was a pain to lose power on Sunday morning, but it was back on yesterday morning. We lost a few large branches (one narrowly missed my sister's car) and a tree in the back, but no property was damaged and, more important, no one was hurt. I had to take Freya to the vet yesterday for her dental surgery and when I picked her up there was an elderly lady there to board her cat. Turns out that a 75 foot tree crashed through her house during the storm and she and her kitty are displaced until her home is repaired. I can't imagine how horrifying and stressful that is for her.
So it has been a whirlwind of a week and weekend. But I am very grateful that everyone is safe and sound.
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