Blizzard of 2010

This blizzard had the potential to be great fun, a whole weekend with the family snowed in watching movies and playing Wii while the snow fell peacefully outside. What it turned into was probably one of the most stressful weekends I have ever had. You see...we lost power. At about 3 am Saturday morning we saw a flash and heard a boom and realized the beeping in our house meant the baby monitor was no longer working because the transformer box outside our house had just exploded. We then proceeded to hear about 3 more booms of the transformers down the street exploding. Probably the worst thing that could happen during a snow storm of this magnitude.
We spent the next day in layers and layers of clothes with the gas fireplace on playing endless games of Candyland, Hi-Ho Cherry-O, and Chutes and Ladders. Reading endless library books, and listening to Daddy and the neighbors shoveling the driveways and cars out of the snow. I have pictures but everyone reading knows what it looked like.
At about 4pm the neighbors got together and started shoveling the actual street because the BGE truck needed to get down it to get our power back on. We stuck out the night and slept under piles of blankets with two sets of PJ's on, and when we woke up and the thermostat read 57 degrees, I knew we couldn't spend another day in the house. We drove up to a hotel by the mall and took baths and naps and watched TV while Daddy came back home to dig out his car. At about 3:30 the power came back on and Nick came and picked us up to come back to the piles of dishes and a refrigerator and freezer full of spoiled food. But we were glad to be home with heat and it warmed up by bed time.
Now I know we were pretty lucky (my parents lost power too and they were down to 48 degrees before they got heat back) we have a gas stove so I could cook and a gas fireplace with a battery pack to start the fire, but knowing that my parents and Nick's parents were without both of those luxuries was stressful, no they don't have babies in the house, but they are our parents and we couldn't help them. And people are still without power and food or a place to go.
What makes things worse is that they are now calling for 10-16 more inches of snow tomorrow night! So now while I type this I am listening to Nick shovel our deck outside so that it won't collapse (I don't think it could take another foot of snow), the washer and dryer going so that I know I have enough warm clothes and PJ's for my kids if the power does go out again in the wind they are predicting, and the dishwasher going so that my dishes don't pile up if the power goes out. The trash in my garage is getting smellier and smellier as the remains of my refrigerator and freezer are rotting away and I am renewing library movies on the computer so that I don't have to pay fines if I can't get them back on time.
Again I know we are pretty lucky, and we have a plan if the power goes out again (back to the hotel immediately) but this all still stresses me out. Hey a year ago I would have been in HEAVEN!!! A week off of school with the HUGE possibility that the days won't have to be made up because of the state of emergency!!! What school teacher wouldn't love that?!?! But instead I am worried about losing another $100 worth of food and getting driven insane by a 3 and 1/2 year old that has been stuck in a house for 4 days!
Thanks for reading my rant I hope everyone is staying warm! We are...for now!!!
Oh yeah! And my baby girl took her first steps today!!!