How I wish I had been better prepared. I should have had more ice, I wish I had purchased more canned goods. I lucked out and had just enough diapers for Agnes.

The power outage taught me a few things though…

• Your eight year old will be the first one to freak out.
• It is spooky in town at night when you can hear people and you can’t see them.
• The town will go into a frenzy if there isn’t Wal-Mart available.
• Yearly air shows are creepy if you don’t have power. We started thinking zombie apocalypse a little too quickly.
• Night falls quickly, so don’t procrastinate.

Seriously, I really wish I had been better prepared…

• All day on Friday I was thinking I should bake some cookies and bread. That would have been helpful on Saturday.
• We need to own more candles. With the little toddler in the house who hates candles, I only have four. That isn’t quite enough when darkness falls.
• Always charge your cell phone (which I hadn’t) and have enough gas in your car (which I didn’t).
• I really need to keep more non-perishable items in the house, and powdered milk too.
• You can never have enough juice boxes, granola bars, and crackers on hand. They will be the first thing to go with three hungry kiddos.
• Make sure you have an ample supply of crayons, coloring books, reading materials, puzzles, and board games on hand.
• Seriously use every bit of daylight you have.
• Oh, and one more thing I NEED COFFEE!!! I’m not cheerful without it.

I was surprised though…

• We pulled together quickly, stayed calm, and kept the kiddos calm too.
• We rationed our supplies that we had on hand.
• We were prepared for the outage to last much longer, and we were not worried.
• We spent quality time together, and the kiddos had fun playing together.
• It really wasn’t that bad, it was a nice break from my addiction to all things electronic.

We were really lucky though.  The weather was nice, and the power was back on late Saturday night. I’ve never seen everyone so happy. I have to say that even though it was a long weekend, it was a lot of fun. The kiddos played well together, and James and I got to spend a lot of time reading. We even snuck in a nap too. It was quiet in the evening, and nice to have all of the windows open in the house. We turned the power outage into an indoor camping adventure, and it was pretty fun.

I cleaned up the yard a bit on Saturday, and got the freezers cleaned out on Sunday. The kids even got a day off from school, so they were pretty happy about that. It will be good to get back to normal again, and seriously, I’m stocking up on candles.