A Tale of Two Titus Tots: January 2014

We heard the ice pellets hitting the windows all through the night that Saturday night, but we were still quite surprised to wake up on Sunday morning to see everything coated with at least a half-inch of ice! We also woke up to no power. Matt frantically tried to decide what to do about church services. The decision was quickly made to cancel church, so we began calling all the members. We soon found out that about half of the congregation did not have power! We (naively) assumed we would get power back soon. Meanwhile, we settled in and just enjoyed spending time inside.

(See that big limb on the ground? That’s where one of our cars is usually parked! Good thing we were smart and moved my car to an open area where it wasn’t in danger of getting clobbered with ice covered branches!)

After a few hours of no power, our landlord came to check on us and turn on the flat propane heater in the basement. They had installed it for situations just like this! It ran off our propane tank, so no electricity was needed. Amazingly enough, it kept our first floor at around 63 degrees! It was a bit colder upstairs, but very manageable. This was also the day that my parents were driving up from SC to stay with us for the week. We grudgingly told them we didn’t have power, but we were all sure the power would be restored before they arrived. We were finally able to check the electricity provider’s website to see an estimated time of when our power would be restored… NEXT Saturday! What?!? It seemed like everyone was getting that same message, and no one was happy about it! It was a very widespread outage, and there were crews from 11 other states that came to help restore power during that week! (I am so very thankful for the workers who worked tirelessly to restore our power!!!) Our power returned on Monday night around 7:30. We had just finished eating our (candlelit) dinner, and we suddenly heard the refrigerator and tv start buzzing. It took us a few seconds to realize what we were hearing. Matt let out the first WOOHOO and we all quickly joined in the cheering! I’ve never been so happy about having power! (Many people in our area did not get power back until that following Saturday, so we were extremely lucky!)

Ashleigh had a wonderful time “arranging” all the presents underneath the tree.

On Tuesday night, we headed to All Saints for the 5:00 service. It was beautiful, and it was so nice to be able to share Christmas Eve with my parents and brother!

When we got home, Ashleigh was allowed to open one present. Dress up clothes!!

The next morning, we all got up and had to wait on Miss Ashleigh to roll out of bed. Then we had a wonderful day celebrating Christmas! We enjoyed opening presents with my family, ate a yummy breakfast casserole, and during the day we were able to Skype with Matt’s Dad and Kathy and Mom and Bill. We enjoyed letting them watch the girls open the presents they had sent.

(The stockings were “flung” by the tv with care…)

Miriam’s 1st Christmas!

We ventured out into the snow on Friday and had a fun time playing games, pulling Ashleigh on the sled, and building a snowman (or snow creature… not sure what it was supposed to be!)