Baby "Pistachio" Blog: And then the snowstorm turned out to be not-so-fun….

At first experiencing the first snowfall just before Halloween was fun and entertaining, but it quickly changed as we lost power around 3:30pm on Saturday, October 29^th. At this time we didn’t realize that so many people in Connecticut lost power and that this storm would cause us to call a state of emergency. To celebrate the home inspection, Jason and I decided we would have a movie night and make some cookies (cookies I figured fit with the cold, snowy weather outside). Just seconds after we ordered Bridesmaids to download onto TiVo, the power went off. And of course, Jason was in the middle of cooking lunch. Well, thankfully the power returned quickly and he was able to finish making lunch (we did have at least one hot meal that day). But then minutes later, the power again shut off and this time it didn’t resume again. We were without power. At first, we assumed that the power would return shortly, but as the hours ticked by and as we came closer to nightfall, we began to think differently. This was beginning to feel like the power outage after Hurricane Irene (we were without power for 4 days). Jason went on a mission to find a hot meal (don’t ask me why he wasn’t okay with eating deli and PB&J sandwiches for lunch). He called several restaurants in the local area, most of them rang busy or didn’t pick up. We thought we hit the jackpot when a person from Subway answered the phone, but then were disappointed when we found out that Subway didn’t have power and this person told us that most of Glastonbury was without power, but we could perhaps try closer to the East Hartford/Manchester side. Since it was pitch dark out by this point and the roads were difficult to maneuver, Jason relented and we ended up eating cold sandwiches that night.

I was fine going to bed that night, until Jason said “uh oh, that doesn’t sound good.” To be honest, I didn’t even hear what he was talking about, but when he said that, that triggered anxiety in me as I then later heard a tree branch creak and crack. The entire night, we were surrounded with a symphony of tree cracks (not very soothing when you have a 3 month old child in the back room). Needless to say, I got very little sleep that night as I was woken up by dreams of a tree falling on our house and demolishing Jason’s car. Oh on a side note, Jason decided that he wanted to winter-proof my car as he had some coupons that were set to expire on Halloween and because I will have a 50 minute commute coming up here once we move into the new home. We dropped my car off on Saturday after the inspection and the car mechanic lost power too. So my car is just sitting in their parking lot. We don’t know what they did to the car or what they didn’t do, so we’re down to one vehicle (not fun). The next day, we woke up and found out that we still didn’t have power, but we were able to see the damage that the storm had caused. Tree branches littered the yard and our entire complex. Some trees had split down the middle, and one tree in a nearby farmer’s market had fallen over and was only being held up by power lines. Branches were all over the power lines and several lines were down. I could tell at that moment that this was going to be bad. The good thing with the power outage with Hurricane Irene was that it was nice and sunny outside in the low 80’s. So yes, we had to worry about our food in the refrigerator and freezer going bad, but I could take Bree outside on walks around the neighborhood during the day. Problem now was that we had day time temperatures of 40-50’s and night time lows of 26 degrees. A whole different story when you need heat in the home. Our home typically sits at a comfortable 70 degrees inside and we watched it fall to 68, then 65, the 60, then 59, and finally 58 degrees. On Sunday, we decided to drive to Manchester where they had some power so that we weren’t sitting in a cold home. We did some shopping at the mall and Kohl’s while we decided what we were going to do for housing, either grin and bear it or attempt to find shelter elsewhere. Our decision was helped by the radio which informed us that power would likely be out for at least a week, that the evening temperature was to be 26 degrees, and that many people were sitting in line waiting to get gas for at least 30 minutes! We decided that we should probably take a look at finding a hotel for a few nights. Since Manchester had power, we started there. We went to an Extended Stay hotel. The receptionist told us they were sold out of rooms until Wednesday of that week. We then drove to another hotel (had to turn around and go a different way because a tree and power lines were blocking the road – I swear it looked like a jungle). The second hotel was sold out until Thursday. We then decided to call Jason’s mom to have her look up a hotel that my parents recommended. Unfortunately, that hotel was also sold out. I don’t know why I thought of this, but I suddenly asked Jason if we were eligible for Navy Lodging since Jason is a reservist and since he works for the Navy as a civilian. So onto the phone we got with Jason’s mom, who made the call to see if the Navy Lodge had any openings. We were in luck!!

Knowing that we had a place to stay, Jason and I drove home and immediately started packing bags, getting baby bottles cleaned and ready, and taking care of the cats. I will say I am impressed by how well we worked together. We got everything packed and ready to go in an hour, and not to mention Miss. Bree was screaming her pretty little head off the entire time. But as soon as we got her into the car, she fell asleep for the entire ride. She must have had perfect timing, because as we pulled up, she opened her little eyes and was ready for a feeding. So we’ve been spending the last few days in the Navy Lodge and will be here until Friday morning, which hopefully by then we will have power again. I checked the power outage map this morning and it does look like they are making progress, so fingers crossed we’ll be in our warm home by Friday. What a time! I swear Miss. Bree must have special magic powers when it comes to electricity because ever since she’s been in my tummy, we’ve had 3 power outages (1 during the blizzard, 1 during Hurricane Irene, and now this one). Prior to conceiving her, we hadn’t experienced one single outage while in Connecticut.