DECEMBER: IN LIKE A LION...

Wait...isn't that supposed to be March's thing?  Well, this year December most definitely took that title.

Disclaimer: This is going to be long and wordy.  Don't feel like you have to read all of it.  Just know that I will know if you don't and I will surely be offended.

In the wee small hours of this past Thursday, a much anticipated wind storm blew through the area.  A little bit before 4:00 a.m. Hudson came and crawled into bed with us after having a bad dream.  The three of us were lying there listening to the wind when and extra strong gust of wind came through and the whole house shook.  I commented that it was certainly a strong one and Max then shot of out bed and ran to one of our front windows.  He hollered back, "It came down!"  I had zero inkling as to what he was talking about so I asked him just what it was that came down.  His response?  The giant pine tree in our front yard.

The pine tree...much happier and alive back in May 2009.

It landed across the front lawn and came to rest right against the house next to my office window.  No wonder the house rattled!  Amazingly enough, Claire slept through everything, including being moved to our room for safety (her bedroom window is on the windy side).  She gradually woke up and joined the rest of us and our rapidly beating hearts.

Max headed out front at about 4:30 a.m. in the scary winds to assess the damage.  Incredibly enough, the only damage to the house was a bent gutter.  No broken window(s), no siding gone or problems with the roof.  In the process of checking things out, Max slipped on some ice and put a nice hole in one of his shins (not kidding...missing a lovely chunk - stitches not a possibility).  I also joined the ranks of the injured (though far inferior to the aforementioned impressive leg) when I was holding open one of our side gates for Max to bring the garbage cans in.  The wind blasted said gate, throwing me back and sandwiching my lower leg and ankle in between it and a low brick wall.  Ouch.  After our fun outside, the rest of the morning was spent trying very unsuccessfully to go back to sleep.  The kids were pretty wound up - especially Hudson who asked, "Why is Mother Nature doing this?!"  Finally around 6:00 Max took the kids downstairs to play a video game while I slept a bit off and on.  That lasted until the power went out around 8:00...it stayed out the whole day.

We had already determined that we were keeping Hudson home from school and later found out that they cancelled shortly after class started anyway.  It's crazy...I know people here who have never seen the schools close for snow, even when huge storms hit.  But Thursday the whole district was closed due to wind.  The day was filled with building Legos, doing a few chores, hand washing Wednesday night's dinner dishes, forgetting that the power was out and trying to turn lights on when entering dark rooms, making phone and receiving phone calls (thank goodness for our land line...our cell phones were sketchy at best most of the day), folding a bit of laundry and keeping the fridge and freezer closed as much as possible.  I also ventured outside with Max and Hudson on separate occasions to snaps some pictures of the tree and our yard.  When I took Hudson out the winds had calmed a bit but were still strong enough to make it hard for him to keep his footing.  You should be able to click on the collage below to get a closer look...

I could hardly believe my eyes looking at that monstrous tree lying in our front yard (we measured last night...it was 45 feet tall without the tops that snapped off when it fell).  As you can see in the pictures, he roots that were ripped up easily stick up 12 feet in the air.  There were aspen tree branches all over the place and some were tangled in the branches of the pine tree.  We also had PILES of dirt, aspen and pine branches, and pine cones on both sides of our backyard (it's basically split by the living room addition that sits in the middle).  We feel so fortunate and blessed that greater damage wasn't done.

When the winds died down even more later in the day, I took the kiddies out on a ride to see what had happened around our neighborhood.  I couldn't believe how many pine trees and fences were down, how many roofs were missing shingles and how much debris was littering the streets and yards.  As far as damage goes, we got off pretty easy.

One of the phone calls I made over the course of the day was to my parents in California.  While we were on the phone, my mom hopped on the internet to our local news page and read a couple of articles to me.  One of them stated that there were 100+ mph winds not far from our area (= to a category 2 hurricane) at various times.  A tanker train carrying cold asphalt had been derailed by the wind, several semi trucks had blown over on I-15 and trampolines, trees, and trash cans were all over the place.  Later in the afternoon I was told by my sister-in-law that she had driven through Centerville (hardest hit) and that it literally looked like a war zone.  No wonder our mighty tree gave out!

As previously mentioned, the power went out in the morning and stayed off the entire day.  The news stations and emergency management were advising that everyone should be prepared for 48 hours without power.  Our heater had been on at times for about an hour before the outage so we were glad to have started the day around 65 in the house.  However, with the cold and wind outside, our inside temperature didn't stay warm for long.    By afternoon we were down to 57 or so...a touch too chilly even for this warm blooded California girl!  I built a fire in the kitchen fireplace and turned on the gas fireplace in the living room.  Between the two of them, the center section of the house stayed quite comfortable.  Come later afternoon I pulled out candles and flashlights and made sure we were set up for the evening and night.  My brother was fortunate enough to get power back on at his place by dinner time so the kids and I joined them for dinner and a good defrosting.  We then enjoyed our lights-out time...Hudson built Legos by the light of a battery-powered lantern, Claire went into the darkest portions of the house over and over with a flashlight, and I read by the fire and kept taking Claire's flashlight away when she wouldn't stop playing with it.  When I tucked the kids in that night (Claire in her room and Hudson in ours) it was 54 back here...a little too far down the hall from the fires to keep warm.  Brrrrrrr!  Fortunately we didn't have to pull out every blanket in the house to stay warm for the night.  Thanks to the city and emergency management crews, our power was restored around 10:00.  The heater immediately kicked on and we were downright cozy.  That was only when we were inside, though.  Within a few minutes of the power kicking on, Max was up on the roof to fix the Christmas lights that had been hurt by the tree and I was out there with him, standing below to toss new lights up to him (and to monitor his craziness and attempt to catch him if needed).

I think it goes without saying (and yet I'll say it anyway) that Thursday was one heck of a day.  And a long one at that.

P.S.  As was forecasted for tonight, the wind is blowing again as I have been typing this.  I can feel a cold draft under my desk and my window is closed tight.  It's kind of freaking me out.