Perfect Storm

So, we're the last to get around to blog about our "Storm of '08" Experience (see here, here, here, and ... here)

Our lights flickered out at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday and didn't come back on for 7 days and 4 hours (but who's counting). That's certainly the longest power outage we've been a part of. So here's the confession... Paul and Debbie had the fore-thought to install a permanent generator, so we were not lacking for a cold refrigerator and a few lights. Of surprise to no-one my first order of business was to get the internet up and running...next, to jimmy the water heater on the generator as well (priorities, right?). So we weren't particularly hurting until Wednesday, when it turns out the Septic system isn't hooked into the generator and only allows for 24-48 hours of reserve time...whoops. Thanks Ryan and Tracy for letting us shower and use your facilities for 4 days! We are truly grateful for the small and simple things now.

We had a few trees down in the yard.



Ours wasn't as bad as some others in the neighborhood.



The pool was a disaster.



Inspecting the septic for extra capacity...you know in case we really had to go...



At the end of the day, (well at the end of 7 days) we were grateful that we had the perfect weather for living a week without the things we take for granted like A/C or heating. We recognize that there were many people in the Texas area and even here in Cincinnati who suffered a lot more through this experience than we. We are reminded of the Church leaders who have encouraged us for years to be prepared for such emergencies. At worst we couldn't shower for a few days, at best we got to put aside many of the distractions that modern living provides and got to spend some quality time together as a family through this adventure.