For our family it started Friday, February 12th. School was cancelled because of weather advisories but other than a tiny bit of snow we didn't see anything too crazy. Amy and Brian were in Arizona so Brian's parents were planning on coming to Hazel's party with Payton and Autumn. However, sometime in the afternoon we got a call saying that they were not going to make it. We still didn't have much weather to speak of at our place but just a few miles north in Salem apparently they were starting to see some freezing rain. Next we heard that the dairy and Ryan and Katie's place had lost power but we were still good so we proceeded with Hazel's party. We made it to the very end of the night, literally just a few minutes after finishing cake the lights flickered a few times and then went out completely.
We called the power company and they said that they were aware of our outage and expected power to be back on Saturday by 8:00 p.m. So we made plans to go the the dairy Saturday for breakfast and to hang out there for the day since they have a generator.
We had no idea how crazy things would get over night. We all went to sleep and then woke up around 4:30 a.m. to the sound of trees cracking and crashing to the ground. It was so strange!!! There wasn't much to do so we just stayed in bed hoping all the kids wouldn't get up too early. When it finally got light and we did get up the ice was UNREAL. Crazy how something so beautiful can also be so destructive because it really was both.
Saturday, February 13th
This tree landed about 2 feet from the boy's bedroom window! According to them they almost died!
As we headed to the dairy we were met with tree after tree fallen across the road. A couple of them Brandon got out and moved but many were much to big. Thankfully after 3 detours we finally found a back way into the dairy. It only took us about 45 minutes instead of 10.
After breakfast I drove Brandon back home so that he could keep the fire going at our house and get his chainsaw. He spent the rest of the day helping some of our neighbors clear trees off of the road while I went back to the dairy to manage the rest of our crew.
I tried napping the babies at Grammy's house for the first time and it did NOT go well! Aubrey promptly fell out of her pack and play and then they both just cried. So, after about a half an hour I decided it wasn't worth it and just let them skip their naps. This never happens at our house by the way. Naps are MANDATORY but this was not a normal day.
Not to worry though, they caught a very late afternoon nap in the car when I went back to pick up Brandon.
We headed back home for the night and at this point I think it said power was estimated to be back on sometime Sunday evening :(
Sunday, February 14th
Church was canceled for Mom because their power was out so she offered to watch the babies so that we could go. So we got to the dairy first thing in the morning, ate breakfast, Brandon and I showered over at the modular, Wyatt and Sadie went to church with Robert, and then Brandon and I got to go to church together for the first time in a LONG time. Happy Valentine's Day to us!
At this point the estimate time for our power to be restored was Monday at 8:45 p.m. The times just kept pushing back every time we called and we kept hearing more and more about how wide spread the outages were. Honestly we were starting to loose hope that we were going to get our power back any time soon.
Monday, February 15th
Monday was President's Day and Brandon had already taken the day off to go to the snow with the kids so we decided that as long as we could keep the house warm enough for mom and the babies to nap we would go ahead and still go. At this point our fridge and freezer had been off for 2 days and we had lost some things but were about to loose a lot more if we didn't take action. So I woke up early and loaded as much food as I could into the car and drove it over to the dairy. Thankfully the fridge and freezer in their garage had lots of space, as did the fridge at the modular. All things considered we really didn't loose nearly as much food as we could have.
Then it was off for a day in the snow which ended up being kind of windy and miserable but the kids were all good sports. We checked our power one more time on the way home and it said they were unable to determine the source of our outage and that there was no estimated time of restoration. So at this point we decided it was time to just move over to the modular at the dairy. We'd been holding off on doing this because it's a lot of work and we didn't know how the babies would do but with no estimate it seemed like it was the best of our options. So we spent the afternoon packing up some clothes and snacks and baby things and getting settled over at the dairy which included moving toddler beds over for Hazel and Evie and tearing apart and reassembling a crib for the babies. We were pretty spent at the end of the day but thankful for a warm place to stay and a shower as we looked ahead to Brandon heading back to work.
Over the next couple of days I did some laundry and made trips back and forth from the house to feed the animals and to haul dishes back and forth. It was kind of eerie coming home at first as the dishes from Hazel's party were still in the sink and everything was just how we'd left it. However, after a couple days of hauling things to the dairy to clean them and then back home to put them away the house was feeling and smelling a little bit better.
Wednesday, February 17th
Danny is willing to stand outside and push these kids for as long as they want to swing. All while they talk his ear off and he gives them his attention. They love him!!!
Aubrey with Target and Boo!
This generator is seriously saving our sanity right now. Soooooooo thankful for a place to stay that has power!
Waiting for Daddy to come home.
Thursday, February 18th
The kids finally got to go back to school after almost a week off!!! Yay!!!
Friday, February 19th
The power finally came back on at the dairy!!!! But it was short lived. It was on for maybe 30 minutes and then the transformer blew and we were back in the dark. We were actually just about to sit down for mom's birthday dinner when the power went out again. Deja Vu!!!
Then Ryan turned off the generator for a few minutes to change a filter but didn't warn us so our hearts sunk as we thought it had finally given up the fight and knew that even more than us wanting the power the dairy actually really needed it to keep running.
Saturday, February 20th
We spent some time over at the house today with Daddy, taking care of the animals, and just giving everyone over at the dairy a little break from all our chaos.
Evie and Aubrey
Cooper and Maddie
Maddie
Aubrey and Evie
Sunday, February 21st
It's been 9 days since we lost power and there was still no estimate. The PGE website said it could be up to 7 more days. That's INSANE!!!!!
Roxie is due with puppies any day!
Monday, February 22nd
My favorite little dancers!
Wednesday, February 24th
It's fun that these little girls are getting to be outside a little more. They LOVE it!!!
Finally this afternoon after a grand total of 12 days without power our power finally came back on!!!! We will stay at Grammy's until Friday because it just seems easier to stick with what we were doing than try to make the move home mid week but it's back on!!!!
Although this has been a crazy couple of weeks it has also been such a blessing. I've been reminiscing about our first year in Oregon with just Sadie, Wyatt, and Cooper. We lived in the modular then too and they got to spend so much time at the dairy feeding cows with uncle Robert and playing with Grammy and now the younger ones are getting their turn. Not to mention it's been really nice for me to have other grown ups around to talk to and to be able to put the babies down for a nap and run an errand because there are people around to stay with them. It was a big adjustment moving over here and it's going to be a big adjustment moving back home which means... I have a lot to be thankful for and now that they babies are able to sleep over at Grammy's we have a new flexibility that I didn't think we were going to have for a long time yet.
