The Blizzard of 2013

It looks like the name Nemo just wouldn't stick, as even the news is calling it the 2013 blizzard now. It hit us hard up here on the Cape, mostly because it left a vast majority of the homes here without power for 1-4 days.

Were it not for the power outage, the blizzard would have been pure fun. It came Friday night, which would have left us with nothing to do but play in the snow, attend Sunday worship, and play in the snow some more. But with a power outage, it suddenly becomes much more difficult. The heat goes out in the house, along with most of the other houses, the house gets cold, you get cold, and freezing pipes become a real danger.

We first lost power late Friday night, as Emily and the kids slept and I kept a fire going. By morning, the house was in the high 50's, although we didn't notice until we got out from under our covers. The snow had piled up the night before, which you can see in the series of pictures Emily took (the captions are hers also.)

9:30am

10:30am

11:30am

12:30pm

1:30pm

2:30pm

3:30pm

4:30pm

5:30pm

7:00pm

10:00pm

10:30pm- I went to sleep!

9:00am backyard...lots of sticky snow

Front yard at 9:00am. It kept snowing until about 4:00pm!

Sarah went with us to check out the snow drift against the garage door. That is her "stay warm inside" outfit for the day- PJs on top and lots of layers underneath!

This was in the driveway after the guys shoveled and snow blowed (blew? my southern education has not prepared me for this situation!) .

Back of the house from the wood pile Saturday afternoon. It would have been quite beautiful if we had heat :)

We were surprised at how well they kept warm

Our sun room stays in the 30's for most of the winter, so early Saturday we took our food out of our refrigerator and set it out on the table in hopes it would stay fresh. Some of the church guys went around and shoveled some driveways, which helped me occupy myself during the afternoon.

With a cooling house, kids who had already spent the day wearing coats in the dark, and our phones losing charge, we decided to spend the night in the church office building. The church building was one of the few that had power, so we spent a warm night there with any number of electronic devices charging.

Sunday worship was cancelled, so we slept in Sunday. We spent the morning at a friend's house eating a hot breakfast, freshening up, and laughing. The shower was most welcome, as wearing a coat all day and never showering can get to feeling pretty gross. Also, the light from the snow and their windows made for some great pictures of Josiah's bath.

Concerned about freezing pipes and thawing freezer goods, I came back to the house to start another fire and set our frozen food out in the snow. Of course, I had to take some pictures, too.

Some friends down the street had their power restored, so we spent the night at their house with them and another couple. Each family had children, so it turned into quite the slumber party!

Monday morning I came back and checked on things, finding the temperature to be 40 degrees. The faucets had already been on a slow drip since the day before (to prevent freezing). Between the two of those, I was confident we had at least two more days before I truly needed to worry about freezing pipes. We went to the mall so that the kids could run around and spent the afternoon with our friends again.

Then, Monday night, we got a call from a neighbor saying the power was back! The house warmed up fairly quickly, although our beds were cold when we first got in them! The next day I went in to work while Emily got the house back in order. A day later, you would have never known what the house had been through.

It was quite an adventure, one that we are thankful God brought us through. I had never been so thankful for God's protective watch over our children and the warm beds He gives them. We can say on both sides of it that God was good to us.