It has been an interesting week. Friday night I came home from a work conference in Denver, CO. I picked up the kids and urged R to hurry because it was going to rain! A made it home about 10 minutes after us. Around 5:30 a storm came through and knocked out our power. We decided to go out to find some dinner food, as the power had not come back on by 6:30. We ended up at Grinders and it took 40 minutes to get a sandwich! Ridiculous!!! I was tired from traveling all day and just wanted to go home. Well, we did go home to a hot house. On Saturday we went to the lake with our friends, as already planned. My parents urged us to stay in Medina, as our power had not come back. No, we said, it will come back on - we will be fine. The power did not come back and we figured out that there had been a very serious accident on the main road - Hamilton Road - during the 20 minute storm on Friday night. Lightening struck and hit one pole that created a domino affect to 13 other poles and the road was closed between old 161 and Thompson. Many drivers were actually trapped on the road because of the downed power lines. Scarily, this could have been A or me - as this is the main road that we travel.
Saturday night we slept at our house, but it was really warm. By mid morning Sunday, we determined that we needed a new plan. We could not "wait it out" in a house with no AC and no working fridge. The AEP website said power would hopefully be restored by Sunday, July 8. That would be 9.5 days without power - no way was that going to happen.....right? I packed up the kids and headed to Medina to stay with the grandparents, it was going to be a weird work week with the holiday mid-week so I could work from home for a couple of days. Certainly the power would be back by the time we returned on Wednesday, right???? Nope. On Wednesday we headed back to Columbus, even though we had no power. Meanwhile, A had been sleeping at the hot house, taking cold showers, eating alone and going to work.
Wednesday and Thursday night the kids and I continued our nomad ways, and camped out at a friend's house. The three of us shared one room, R and I shared one bed. It was GREAT (not really). When the power STILL had not returned on Friday, we moved our party to yet another friend's house. On Saturday night, after the kids went to bed - the power finally came back!! We were supposed to go on vacation on Saturday, but we had a hard time leaving with the situation uncertain at home. We ended up leaving on Sunday, thankful that the power had returned but with plenty of work to be done at the house when we returned.
To add insult to injury, the weather this week was unbearably hot -- 100+ degrees. Andrew stayed at the house and I came to the house occasionally to pack for the next day - it was awful. Each day we would pull into our development hoping for power - but we were always disappointed, hearing the hum of generators as we approached the house. The kids did a great job adjusting to each new location. It wasn't all bad, as Riley did get to go swimming, see her uncle Jordan, attend a parade, eat dinner and play 4 nights in a row with friends. Although she did ask when we would be coming home to sleep in our own beds. Trust me, I wondered the same thing. This is definitely something I do not want to repeat anytime soon.
