BilikFamily.com

With credit to Vanilla Ice…

Weather - As predicted, yesterday's weather was pretty nasty. Temperatures hovered around freezing at the ground and any rain that landed often froze. The deciduous trees all had glistening branches from the thin skin of ice that formed on them. The pine trees sagged under the weight of their heavy branches. Local newscasters were saying to avoid travel if you could.

My boss and I both opted to work from home yesterday. Michelle still had a step class to teach, but she only took the boys with her. The girls kept themselves busy at home with me. School was already out for MLK day, but gymnastics was also cancelled due to weather.

Outage - In the late afternoon the thing I feared most happened. We had a power outage around 3pm. Little Timothy kept walking around the house checking various light switches. We kept trying to explain that there was no power. We even tried telling him that the house had no batteries, thinking maybe he could relate to that.

Our house really gets useless in a power outage. Unlike a city home, we lose water as well — there goes the toilets. Our fireplace continued to burn for a short spell as the handful of pellets in the burn pot extinguished themselves, but without a fan to pull the air across the heat exchange, it puts out almost no heat.

Michelle tried calling a few friends to get a handle on how extensive the outage was. I guess most folks have cordless handsets without battery backup because only one household answered their phone. I think the fact that our phones worked and the Gameboys worked was what confused Timbo. He couldn't separate why some things could be turned on, but others not.

Restored - About 45 minutes into the outage we saw three fire trucks come down the street. It was starting to get dark and we were getting worried. Michelle started to light a few candles while she could still see them. About an hour into this, the power was finally restored. Man did the house come back with a vengeance! Timothy's curiosity had turned on a bunch of light fixtures during the outage.

Feeling relieved we all got back to business. The lights often flickered for the next several hours. Once they went out for a good five seconds or so, causing us to have to reset a bunch of clocks again.

After dinner, giving the boys baths, and putting them down to bed, the girls and I watched a television sanitized version of Robin Hood: Men in Tights. It's nice now that the girls are a little older. They can understand the humor and laugh along with us.

Today - I go back into the office this morning. The twins have a dentist appointment today. The kids are on a two hour school delay, which basically cancels Timothy's morning class. Michelle's a bit bummed because it means she has to take him along to the dentist and keep him busy and out of trouble.

I guess we're supposed to have much colder temperatures over the next few days. This is good news for the ski resorts. They'll be able to hold onto any snow that they create. This season is going to be a bad one for them since it started so late. How odd that they haven't been able to maintain snow, while California citrus growers have a ruined crop due to freezing conditions.