Lights Out

We lost power the other night for 3 hours. We were in the middle of eating dinner and blink...out went the lights. The fireplace was going so that was good, it gave us enough light to locate my collection of votives in the hutch, and the all-important lighter. It was so funny because all of the chatter and happy sounds from the babies stopped when it got dark, everyone sorta froze in silence, that is until Ella yelped "what's happening?!" in her ever dramatic fashion, which led to the usual - Dawson starting to cry. So once we got things settled a bit, it was actually kinda fun! When Todd and I had our 10 acres up north, power outages were a little less than fun. When you have a well, no power means no water, and when you can't do dishes, shower, flush the potty...things get stinky, and quick. Plus we didn't have a fireplace there so we froze, but who wants to cuddle with someone who hasn't showered? Anyway, we wound up huddled by the fire (thank God for gas fireplaces) and we brought a bunch of the candles to the mantle. I had so many different scented candles going - pumkin, vanilla, pine tree, floral... our house smelled schizophrenic. Our REI crank flashlight came in handy, I was able to leave it on the whole time. I propped it up in different places so the babies could see their toys. We played shadow puppets, hide-and-seek, and indulged in one of my favorite pastimes, extreme snacking. Hey, what are you supposed to do in the dark with 4 kids? So due to the snacking, and because I'm hopelessly type A, I couldn't stand to have the kids go to bed without their bath. So they scrubbed down to candle light, which they thought was a blast. We wound up lighting the ole Coleman lantern up a little later. It made me miss camping, I can't wait to take the kids, hopefully this summer we can get a tent trailer that fits all of us. It was a nice "treat" to spend the evening with the kids without all the distractions that come with actually seeing all the stuff you have to do.

The camera flash illuminated everything so these pictures don't really do it justice, it was DARK! I took one of the candles on the mantle without the flash, so that gives you a better idea...