An Extraordinary Week !

When we watch the weather and they tell us there is a storm coming through it is usually not as bad as they say it is. Well this time they were right on the money!  Monday afternoon it started raining and just starting to freeze, they let the kids out of school early.  It really wasn't bad until Tuesday. School was canceled, and our power went out about 9:30 a.m.  As the day progressed we watched as the ice built up and by afternoon we were hearing trees pop and crack all over, it was an eerie sound.  

Tuesday was also Shaun's 39th Birthday and since we had no power we couldn't make him a special treat. Little blessings pop up in the oddest ways. It so happened that when checking on one of our neighbors and finding that all they needed was toilet paper Shaun promptly took some over, and as a token of their appreciation they gave him a pan of brownies. Which we in turn used as a birthday cake. It was a memorable birthday to say the least.

Wednesday the power was still out, but we have a fireplace, gas stove, gas water heater, & a generator so we were fine.  There were several families in our ward who weren't so fine, so we had 2 of them come stay warm at our place.  We had 7 (and for 2 days 8) extra children around, It was like having family at Christmas. The kids all had a good time playing together, we pooled all our food and made some good meals, no one went hungry.  The men were (and still are) kept busy cutting up trees.   Our power finally came on Thursday night. (It is amazing how excited you can get over a garbage disposal.)  One of our families got their power late Saturday afternoon, and the other family Sunday around noon.  It was interesting that their were some people in our ward that never really lost power, some lost it, had it a day or so and lost it again, and some are without power still.

THE BACK

Here is a progression of pictures of the ice buildup.  This is Tuesday morning you can see the trees starting to bend a little.  This is at the back of our property.

Here they are bent a little more and one has snapped.

You can really see how far the have bent.

All these trees you see have broken limbs.

THE FRONT

The trees don't look to bad, I thought they were going to weather it ok. (HA!)

The ice started pulling the branches down. A few snaps are heard.

Oh it looks so sad!

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

A little view of the ice build up.

This was kind of funny looking, the sun had melted the south side of this tree and it bounced back up but the north side remained weighed down.

This is why so many people were without electricity.  Do you see the little notch? that is where the electrical wire was.

Here is the front view of the electrical wire ice. Can you see the grove where the wire was?

Last but definitely not least, my friend Jeannie picked up this ice chunk and saw a little stick sticking out, She pulled it and out came this frail weed. What a comparison!

Needless to say we have had quite an eventful week.