174 Hours

That's right, we went 174 hours without power! We were hit by the Hurricane winds from Ike. They reached up to 75 mph. I've never experienced anything like it before. Trees were bending like paper blowing in the wind and snapping in half. Some people had trees on their homes, their cars, or on their neighbor's home. We got fortunate enough to only lose a few tree limbs. Although the pine tree that is back by Andersen's room was pretty nerve wrecking. Our power went out on Sunday at 2pm. Thankfully we had hot water, but who needs hot water when you can't run the dishwasher (who does them by hand anymore?), laundry, or make dinner. So Sunday night we went out to dinner w/ my mom, sister, brother, aunt and uncle. RIDICULOUS! They couldn't take credit cards, they were just about the only thing open, the wait for food was awful, and people were just hanging out there. Every night we went to my parents (thanks mom!), the in laws, and my friend's to steal electricity, water, and company. We came home by 8 every night to put the little guy down and Kevin and I would sit in the dark w/ our handy dandy flashlights reading magazines or for him, listen to the football games on the radio. By 9 we were in bed! Now I know why I hated being a kid, bed at 9, horrible! Everyday it was like what are we going to do now. Saturday and Sunday we had some things going on to keep us occupied, but when we didn't, thumb twiddling became old after a while. But Sunday night at 8pm (5 minutes after I got done showering w/ a flashlight), which I have mastered, the power kicked in. Going to bed with my hair wet was a nice surprise in the morning. I rocked the ponytail for a week at work, put on my makeup in my car on the way to work, but don't worry, I did it at every would be traffic light because they were turned into 4 way stops. At least everyone else at work looked like they were living out of their cars like me. We lost 7 regular grocery bags, one DSW shoe bag, and one large Babies 'R' Us bag of food! Can't wait for the new food bill! For the 1st 2-3 days you couldn't find ice anywhere, and if you did, you were paying top dollar for it. The gas stations shut down. People started freaking out. It was kind of weird to experience it. We didn't get 1/2 of what Texas experienced so I can only imagine. I feel soooo bad for those people. I will put a couple of pictures on here later.... We were lucky.