Surviving the Storm (and I don't mean Thanksgiving)

Well, it was the storm of the year, so far. But we made it through like true Northwesterners, with the Glory of God and the power Yamaha. 

Early Monday morning it started to snow and by Monday afternoon we had an impassable, amazingly scary TWO inches of the slippery stuff on the ground and school had called to let us know they were letting the kidlets out HALF AN HOUR EARLY!! (the END of the WORLD, I tell you!)

Of course, by about 4:30, things had progressed so that we were without electricity and we now had about THREE inches of the stuff on the ground. To be fair, it was covering a fair amount of ice that was making driving quite hazardous and scary. Jeff left work early and it still took him over 3 hours to get home, but with God's blessing, he made it home just ahead of the horrible accidents on I-5 that kept hundreds on the highway and in their cars for hours and hours and hours. I was, and am still, so thankful.  Gary was on the road for over 4 hours just trying to get home from Bremerton, normally a 20 minute drive!  We had a dinner of cheese, crackers and pear by the light of a candle while Jeff hooked up the generator. I don't think the kids thought it was all the romantic.  Things continued to progress and by bedtime the wind was a real distraction. Even over the din of the generator by our back door, the sound of the wind beating our poor house to death and whipping the boat cover against the siding, not to mention the sounds of branches and pine cones raining down, made for a rather sleepless night. About 3 am we were both propelled out from under the covers by a HUGE noise that seemed to last forever and end with a sonic boom. Jeff, being the wonderful caring neighbor that he is, immediately was out of bed, with his boots on and his stocking cap to try and see what it was. He came back in 5 minutes later, defeated by the wind and the noise and the branches flying out of nowhere. But the next morning, we noticed there was an inordinate amount of sky that could be seen over our neighbor's yard.

Above is the new view from our neighbor's front porch.

Unfortunately, the other end of the tree landed on his neighbor's house.

That window looks into their 3-yr-old daughter's room, and this is the amazing part, they had just laid her down on the couch in the living room minutes before this monster crashed through her bedroom ceiling.  GOD IS AMAZING!

This tree actually laid down the full length of their house and no one was hurt. It still gives me goosebumps. I am so glad that no one was physically hurt, though watching the shock on his face the next morning as he surveyed the mess was heart wrenching. It made our mess look much less horrifying though I was still amazed by such scenes of power.

 The branch lying across our back fence was over 20 feet long and 8-9" in diameter. However, no damage to the fence or either our house or the neighbors. This branch, however, had to travel quite distance to land this far from a tree!

This was our first view of our yard from our bedroom door. It is even stranger when you stop to think that we don't have any trees in our yard!

Inside, however, was a different story. Thanks to the generator, we were blessed to be able to run our pellet stove, refrigerator, crock pot and hot water kettle. The kids, Noah and Lydia, stayed busy playing endless rounds of Uno, Go Fish, and Rummy. The trains made it out a time or two as well.  Notice the cords snaking all over the house. Yes, Jeff did attempt to run the router and his computer through the generator. He even had a satellite phone system that he had brought home to work on. Thankfully, things were not that bad.

Manis, being his own cat, had his own ideas about who the space heater was set up for.

When all was said and done, we were without power for three days, getting it restored the morning of Thanksgiving Day. Other than discovering that we were horrendously messy cave dwellers once the lights came on, I was quite pleased with how we did. I am almost ready to move "off the grid"!

HA HA HA

But honestly, we were so minorly touched by this storm. SO many more of our neighbors were quite literally crushed and have many days of struggle ahead and I just pray that God makes His comforting presence known to them. Jeff and I went for a drive on Wednesday and discovered several neighborhoods where giant trees laid across power lines, porches, cars, trucks, barns, driveways and houses. PSE workers were out in full force and that was gratifying to see, even with the upcoming holiday, they were out in the freezing temperatures doing their dangerous jobs as fast as they could.

This storm gave a whole new meaning to Thanks-Giving this year, and for that we are truly thankful.