Yeah, Daddy!

We are ALL so glad Daddy is home!  Jason spent the weekend in Daytona for the race with his brothers, uncles, dad, grandpa, etc, and they had a wonderful time and saw a great race.  On Friday I was very excited for him to get to go...but with the way the weekend turned out, I was pretty much counting the minutes until he got home yesterday.

While I know that it is nothing compared to what the rest of the country has been getting, Summerville got 8+ inches of snow Friday night.  It was absolutely beautiful, and since Charlie and I didn't have anywhere to go, we loved it.  In fact, our wonderful neighbors John and Johnny even built Charlie his very first snowman.  I was looking forward to a memorable and fun first Valentine's Day for my little guy. 

The power started flashing around 11 PM and finally went out at 1 AM Saturday morning.  I wasn't overly concerned, assuming it would be back on shortly.  Nevertheless, I decided to sleep in the hallway outside Charlie's room, because our master bedroom stays so much warmer than the rest of the house and I wanted to be sure to have an accurate gauge of how chilly Charlie's room was getting.  Once I got the crazy UPS backup to stop beeping with Jason's help (interesting that unplugging something during a power outage DOESN'T turn it off!), I settled in with a light blanket, a flashlight and my phone.

Well, by 3 AM I realized that the power wasn't likely to flash back on anytime soon and that I wasn't going to get any sleep on the floor, so I bundled Charlie up and brought him into my room with me.  After assuring and reassuring myself that there were no pillows, blankets or dogs close enough to his face to suffocate him (darn parenting magazines!), I cuddled up to him and went to sleep.  It was fabulous!  There is nothing like snuggling with your baby...which begs the question, why don't we just have him sleep with us all the time?? (I'm sure Jason is shouting the answer to this at his computer, but still...it was sooo sweet!). 

When 7 AM came around and the power was still out, I started to strategize.  I had closed all the shutters in the master overnight to keep the heat in, so it was still quite comfortable.  We hung out in there for a while, but soon realized that the rest of the house needed attention, so I went around closing doors and shutters, battening down the hatches so to speak (this boat/nautical thing is apparently contagious in our family).

Next up, a fire.  To be clear, I'm not even very good at lighting matches, but I was bound and determined to keep my baby warm so I tracked down some of those self burning log things in the garage, piled a couple real logs on top and we were in business.  I am proud to say that I was able to keep a fire going until 5 PM Saturday evening.  While this might not seem like a big deal, I would like to remind everyone reading this that I am from Johnson County and my girl scout experience consisted primarily of eating Thin Mints!

It's pretty amazing to realize that with an all electric house, you can't even boil water during a power outage.  Charlie, Otis and I stuck to the family room all day, expecting the sudden boom of the surround sound at any moment.   By mid-morning, I had Jason do a little research from Daytona and find us a hotel in town that accepted dogs, so we had a reservation for Saturday night in the event that the power didn't come on. 

So the day passed...minute by minute... hour by hour... broken up only by the need to add more wood, newspaper, etc to the fire and by the two highlights:  Charlie's belly laugh when we took turns balancing pillows on our heads and our absolutely fabulous neighbors Bob and Donna bringing me coffee from town! 

It was actually kind of nice to spend the whole day in our jammies, unable to even think about starting laundry, vacuuming or running the dishwasher.  Add to that the fact that Charlie took two good naps, enabling me to do my crossword and read part of a book, and it was almost like a vacation...for a while.

By 4 PM I was over it, though.  The sun was going down and our roasty-toasty living room was starting to feel a bit cooler,  so I started packing for the hotel.  I even figured out how to switch the garage door to manual (with a bit of guidance from Bob).  Certain that the power would come on the second we pulled out of the driveway, Otis, Charlie and I loaded up at 5:00 and headed for town.  As expected, Bob called at 5:20 while we were getting gas, the power was on!  We got to go home! 

I have never been so excited to see porch lights in our neighborhood or to hear the ridiculously loud whir of our heatpump.  I learned a number of key lessons this weekend:
1 - I am NOT a pioneer woman
2 - About 9 hours of peace and quiet is all I can handle
3 - My neighbors are even more amazing and wonderful than I already knew
4 - I am fully capable of handling a "crisis"
5 - I am extremely blessed to have a husband who does not travel regularly
6 - Single moms and military wives are a cut above the rest of us!

The rest of Charlie's and my Valentine's weekend, was pretty uneventful in comparison to Saturday.  We celebrated Sunday morning with strawberry pancakes, spent church together in the nursery (following a brief screaming fit when mommy left and about 15 minutes of hiccough/sobs when I returned), and ended up driving all the way to West Ashley in desperate search of a nap around 4:00 Sunday afternoon. 

Charlie clearly noticed and did not appreciate Jason's absence.  Of course, if I was trapped at home with just one other person who apparently broke the entire house, I would probably be pretty anxious for Daddy to get home, too!

Charlie's first snowman

I thought it was "Summer" ville?

Our own winter wonderland

Mr. Goofy

Mr. Cool