The Chronicles of a Brother and a Sister......: And the lights went out in Georgia

So where were you when all of Southern California went black? We (Wiggle, Monkey and me) were at the dance studio waiting for Wiggles ballet and jazz classes to start. At first we just though oh the lights went out no big deal it should go back on. The owner went out to see what was going on and then walked back in. His wife got a call from a friend saying her electricity was out, only she lived up the coast a bit. So we all looked at each other and started calling friends to see how wide this was. Being that it was so close to 9/11 our first thought is this is not good. Is this a terrorist attack? The owner went out to his truck to see what he could find out on the radio stations but they were all off line, they had not been able to get their generators up. That was really eerie too. We started to figure out how wide this was: South Orange County to Ensanada, Mexico out to Arizona. Oh man not good we still had soccer practice and we had to get there with no street lights. If you know where the dance studio is you know that's not an easy task even when they are working.... Our original plan was to drop Wiggle off and go get Monkey ready for soccer and feed him dinner, then we'd pick up Wiggles have her eat in the car on the way to soccer. No such luck we were stuck at the dance studio until Wiggles was done. Trying to get info was difficult since no one really knew what was going on. As traffic got worse and dance was ending we decided to just go home and see what we could do. Make sure things were unplugged and try to save all the food that was just bought. I had just done a HUGE Costco run since school was starting and I'd be making lunches for 3 people sometimes myself if subbing. Anyways we limped home though we were better off then most since I had just filled our 4runner up with gas that morning. Most at the studio had only a 1/4 tank of gas. Most were going to get it on the way home that night. It was a God thing that I stopped that morning, cause I too was just going to get it later that day.

We got home about 5 mins after daddy got home. When we pulled up Daddy was pulling the water jugs out of the trailer to fill them up with water before the water supply was polluted. We managed to make the situation fun. Though the kids didn't quite get why we couldn't watch tv or play the Wii. We figured out what we could eat for dinner. Chili with squeeze cheese and crackers. (Squeeze cheese is not that great in chili MHO) Since we have an electric stove top we went to the trailer to cook dinner and since the house was blazing hot we ate in the trailer. Just gotta say I'm so happy we have our trailer parked in our front yard it is so helpful.

After dinner we needed to figure out a plan for the fridge. We did turn the fridge on in the trailer but it just wasn't getting cold enough so I was a little worried. About 5 years go my Dad gave us a small generator that was to charge our trailer batteries when camping. We found that it just didn't work that great so we had put it in the garage. Well my sweet husband got it out and tried to start it with some starter fluid it started and then he ran an extension cord to the fridge. It was loud and smelly (yes, the generator was outside the entire time) We did take most of the freezer food out to the trailer freezer and some of the fridge food out to the trailer too just in case. We managed not to loose much food at all. The electricity came back on at 2:30am Friday. I know this because the backyard light was left on so we would know when it came back on. And we knew cause it popped on and shined right into our bedroom, it was like a flood light shining us.

Since you've stayed with me this long here are some pictures: