Power restored

We suffered through the 71 hour power outage! So fortunate to have it back before we left for vacation.

To back track, last blog left off Saturday evening. Sunday we awoke to no power, duh. We had set frozen muffins out to have for breakfast and we had milk from our cooler. Had breakfast then Isaac wanted to play. I don't blame him after all the traveling Saturday. And we had plans to go to a friends for a BBQ which was almost an hour away so less car time the better. So I ventured out with Harpo to go pick up coffee. 

Brought lunch and coffee home as we slept it so noon crept up on us. Isaac had a good nap, it wasn't too hot in the house. Over nap we figured something had to be done with the laundry. It'd been locked in the washer for over 24 hours. The manual stated there was no way to unlock the door without power. So I searched for an outlet plug in adaptor I had for my car. Ran some extension cords out the house to my car and got the washer enough power to get the door lock to release. So we hand rinsed the laundry and put our clothesline to good use. Okay one more thing taken care of. 

After nap we loaded up some more items from the fridge and cleaned out the freezer. We decided to take our coolers to the BBQ to see what we could get eaten. I also had a diaper load of laundry that was full. We had switched over to sposies on Saturday when we realized doing laundry was becoming out of the equation. I had rinsed them all in the tub but every hour was an hour closer to thinking we were going to be in the "power to be restored by Wednesday at noon" crowd. I brought the diaper load to our friends (who also cloth diapers). She was generous to let us do a loa and get that marked off our list. 

It was a nice evening to relax and Isaac had fun playing. He's clotheless here due to getting himself soaked at the water table. 

I started stressing again at the end of the evening because our power was not back. I had checked by calling the house. Our phone line is through Internet/power and if it was out I knew our power was out. 

We got home and the house was hot, the fridge was leaking from the ice that we had in there and the stress level was high. I had planned to take the remainder of the food over to a friend's the next day, but I began to think the sooner the better. It was about 9 at this point, a little light left in the sky but getting dark. I texted my friend and the plan was to come over after I got Isaac down and the food loaded. So we cleaned out the rest of the deep freeze. Things were still good and cold, but starting to thaw. And cleaned out the fridge, most of it got pitched but we kept a little bit to store at our friends. Ran that over and got back, the house was still hot. Since we sleep on the top story we decided to go sleep in the basement where it was cool. 

Monday Kyle had to go to work, luckily he pays for the gym there and can utilize the shower room. So he was able to take his shaving stuff to work (it was too dark in the bathroom so he wasn't able to shave all weekend). Isaac and I worked on getting laundry done. We took one load to a friend's and left it there to finish. Then went to another nearby friend to do another load and stayed while the boys all played. We have been very fortnuate in all the great friends we have that have opened up their homes, freezer space, and laundry facilities! I normally wouldn't have cared about laundry but since we were in the process of packing there were clothes we wanted clean for our vacation. After that was completed I felt a little better and the stress was decreasing. 

We came home and Isaac napped. The house was pretty warm, but not horrible. Any other day the fans would have kept us cool, but they don't really work in a power outage. Monday morning a friend on Zarthan (7 blocks east) got her power back, so I had a little hope. But as the day went on I just got discouraged. Isaac woke up and was sweating like crazy. His ceiling fan works the best and his room is usually the coolest so I don't blame him for being hot. 

We decided to go for a wagon ride over to our friends to pick up the load of laundry we had dropped off that morning. Here are some pictures of a tree along the way. They hadn't cut this one up (all three pics the same tree): 

And this was just across the street from that one it had been cut up and placed along the road waiting to get picked up. I guess the city is coming through at the end of the week or next to pick up all the brush. I also think the city is only cutting up the ones in the street, the tree's in people's yards is up to the homeowner. That's my understanding.

We played over at our friend's house for a bit while I let my phone and iPad charge up (we wanted the iPad charged for distraction at Isaac's haircut the next day and for the airport of course). Then we started back once Kyle was off work. He met us half way to walk home with us. On our walk home we saw the Xcel trucks working in various Alley's. They went up ours but didn't stop, but they were in the next one over. We were getting excited, they were so close!!! We dropped off the laundry and headed out to eat for supper. 

While eating I just wanted to see if perhaps our power was on, so I tried the house... it was RINGING!!! Then the answering machine picked up!!! WOOHOO!! Power had been restored!!! We were so relieved! We finished dinner and came home. 

Once we got home it almost felt like were had been gone for a long time. We closed all the windows and immediately turned the air on. It wasn't blasting hot, but it was super muggy and humid. And the fridge STUNK!  There was a horrible smell coming from behind the fridge. We got Isaac in a bath then investigated. The water had mixed with the dust that was under and behind the fridge, taking on the appearance of a dead cat! There was so much fluffy dust back there Kyle asked "was that a cat!?!" lol. We got that cleaned up and then today (Tuesday) I worked on cleaning the inside of the fridge/freezer. Not really something we had planned as we prepared to leave for a vacation, but glad it's done. 

And that is our story of the 71 hour power outage.... maybe next time we will look into getting a generator hooked up after the first 12 hours. Like a few of our neighbors/friends did.