And the clock struck midnight...

Friday night, the night of the storms...or in some places no storm. Matt, Ethan and I were going about our normal Friday night. We had started to watch a movie and Ethan was completely hyper, running around and talking very loudly. So, the movie got put to rest until later (it was a vod movie). We all started doing other things, well, ok, Ethan continued to be very hyper :) Then my mom called and asked if we had a place to go and I asked what she was talking about and she told us of the severe storms and tornado watches. So, we switched the channel and within moments heard the sirens going off. Matt went out and took care of our hanging plants so that they would not blow over and he took the umbrella off of our table for the same reason. In that few minutes the winds picked up significantly and the sky completely darkened. So, we continued to watch the news and Matt stepped outside to take a look at the sky, since the clouds were so ominous looking.

Ethan was all concerned about daddy being outside and then he told me that grandpa must be scared of the "funder". Which, obviously meant he was afraid, but he needed a buddy to be scared with him and it was clear mommy and daddy were not scared. When Matt came in, Ethan told him not to go outside, which was probably good because that is about the time it started to rain. So, we waited and watch for this severe weather to come through, and it lasted just a few minutes before it was gone and done. Our electricity had gone down once when the AC came on, but that was it and we thought we were good to go...we thought.

It was about 10:30 before we were able to put Ethan to bed. We didn't want him upstairs in case something more severe would happen. Matt and I then chose to wait to watch the movie until Saturday (which never happened) because I was already having problems understanding what the movie was even about and now it was about 2 hours later and I was a lot more tired. I had actually asked Matt, "is it bad that I have no clue what is happening in this movie?" It was about a half hour in, ok, give me a little credit, I have been on bedrest for nearly 7 weeks, my brain is turning into mush!

Eventually, both of us went to bed to read and watch some tv. It was about midnight when Matt heard through the open windows upstairs what sounded like sizzling fireworks. I was still watching tv and just settling in to go to sleep. Then all of a sudden there was a huge booming sound and then it was pitch black. I heard Matt upstairs so I called to him and asked him what he thought it was and we determined that it must have been a transformer that blew. Of course, without lights it was nearly impossible to find flashlights. Matt had received a Maglight for Christmas, so he started looking for it and could not remember where it was. I looked out the window to see if others were out and the street lights and everyone across the street had their lights on. Matt saw the people behind us flashing a flashlight into the trees looking to see what happened, since it sounded like it was right outside our house.

Matt found the light and then some other smaller flashlights. We made the call to the electric company, which was of course automated and no help. Then, we decided to just go to sleep and hope it came back on in the night or early morning. Whenever we have lost electricity in the 9 years we have been married, we have gotten it back within a short amount of time, so we didn't expect anything different this time.

Morning came at a little after 6 am when a little tiny voice said "mama, I want to eat". It turns out that none of us had a good night of sleep. Ethan didn't have his "vent" or as we know it AC or his "ainjoe light" aka angel nightlight, two things he has grown to "need" in order to sleep at night. Matt, ended up with Ethan hogging the bed and making things very hot. I did not have my CPAP machine, so I was up a lot as I used to be. Which all adds up to less than 6 hours of sleep.

Everything was still out and stayed out. Matt called and they said we may not get it back until Sunday afternoon or evening. Now, plans had to be made. Ethan and I could not stay without AC and we were close to losing our freezer and fridge items. We made some phone calls and found some homes for everything. Our fridge items went over to my dad's store into the one there. Our freezer items went over to my sister Erika's house and Ethan and I would go to my parent's house. We decided to eat lunch over at Matt's mom's house and we spent several hours there and then moved over to my parents. Ethan and I were going to stay the night if the lights were still out and Matt would go home and get some work done while he had nothing to distract him.

It all worked out well for all of us. It was weird sleeping in the house I had not slept overnight in since the night before our wedding. But, it was cool and we could both get some much needed sleep. At a little after midnight, Matt sent me a text message that said "THE LIGHTS ARE BACK". I was so happy and went to sleep even better than before. Matt picked us up after Ethan went to church with Grandpa and we started to get back to some normalcy. It really did teach us how much we rely on the computer, tv and electricity in general. It was so hard for me, because that has pretty much been my life lately. It was hard on our electrician son Ethan, because he had to tell us every light and tv that was broken and he was so excited when I told him everything was all fixed at breakfast this morning.

Who knew that when the clock struck midnight all of our plans for the weekend would completely change and on one of the hottest weekends!