In the Dark

I usually have a moment of dread of Monday mornings because I know that John has to go back to work. Most weeks we've just completed a great weekend together and I hate to see it come to an end. Plus it means no sleeping in for me!  When I woke up today however all I could think was thank god that weekend is over!!!!!

Our weekend was kicked off on Friday morning when we woke up to no power.  The great news came when I called NYSEG and they assured me that the power would most likely probably maybe we back on my Sunday evening.  What????? It's cold outside!  After figuring out that pretty much everyone in our family was without power too we had to come up with a plan fast.  Just to make things a little bit more difficult we had to find a warm place to stay that would also welcome our very large dogs.  Our dogs have very little body fat so leaving them at he house for even a little while was simply not an option.  Unlike most people who own their own companies John is unfortunately not able to skip work in the wake of a natural disaster. In fact when power fails it usually means longer hours for John and ALOT of stress. That meant that he had to shuffle off to work while I got all of us packed up and devised a plan. I remembered that some friends of ours had a similar problem a few years ago and found a pet friends hotel. I was able to get us a reservation at the Marriott Residence Inn which let me tell you is a pretty cool place. So....me, Ethan, Raven, and Blade all loaded into the car with all the necessities and off we went. John left work as quickly as he could and since we had a kitchen at the hotel did grocery shopping for three days.  This is when it gets good...

That evening went pretty well. Our dogs settled in and relaxed as best they could and Ethan is so used to traveling with us that he wasn't surprised by any of this.  We all collapsed into bed at an early hour. Now keep in mind that my dogs haven't had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night in YEARS. They were in a new place though and a little nervous that night so of course I had to get out of bed 3 times and get suited up to take the trip down the stairs and to the dog area in the freezing cold!!!  Hotels and therefore apartments I'm assuming are not ideal for dogs. I thank god for my fenced in yard!  

I finally settled back into bed after the last bathroom trip at 4am excited for the  pancakes John promised to make in the morning. 7am came and Raven woke me up to let me know that guess what?  NO POWER AT THE HOTEL!!!!!!   Do they power gods not know how exhausting it us to move from place to place with a baby and two dogs the size of horses? It was still pretty dark out but luckily my dad had suggested that I pack some flashlights. We bundled everyone up in the cold room, and packed every thing we brought with us. We were now regretting the grocery run.  So it was off to HostRocket to make sure the generator had enough fuel and home to try and warm it somehow for the dogs so that we could take Ethan to my in laws who had finally had power restored.  Once returning home we realized there was no way to get it warm enough for the dogs. So John's parents were kind enough to hide their cat and welcome Raven and Blade.  Off we went again.  Saturday turned out to be great actually ! We ended up doing our Reyes Christmas a little early and exchange presents.

That evening we got the call from a neighbor that our power was back on. YES!!!! We were never so happy to get home!  As we fell into bed that night we thought about the amount of complaining we did and although felt it was a little justified we thanked god for our good fortune. How many people would not have been able to afford a hotel room for that night? So many people wouldn't have family close by to offer them warmth.  Many people didn't have a warm home to finally return to. Our complaining stopped there....

Until Sunday when we lost power for 5 more hours!!!!