Daily Diary – January 22 2010

Friday started just fine. Except that there were several more feet of snow and a lot more icicles in our balcony. As Jake and our friends were discussing when to go boarding, the Big Bear website said that due to rolling blackouts Big Bear was going to be shut all day. That meant that if they wanted to go skiing, they had to go to Snow Summit which is a drive. Except that the cars were under 6 feet of snow (so was the driveway.)

Hence began a day of plowing. All three of them plowed for hours and hours. And the big plow never actually showed up so after a day of plowing, all they got was nothing.

Nathaniel was in good spirits

and crawled all around the house.

the kids and I stayed inside and they played together and had a lovely time.

Nathaniel is thoroughly fascinated with these cars and I love watching him.

And then snapped a shot with Holly.

At the end of the day, we put the kids down to bed and five minutes later the electricity went out. On Thursday, we’d lost electricity a bit but not all day today. So I felt hopeful that it might come back but two hours later it was still not back and we called the electric company and they said it might take up to 48 hours to fix it.

That’s where the day turned ugly. The cars were still not really able to get out, all the roads were closed, and there was to be no electricity for a long long time.

The men went to get a lot of firewood and we even turned all the burners on for a bit.

The condo had come firewood but no paper and no kindling so it was a major challenge to start a fire but Kendall managed it. Since only that room was going to be warm, we brought the kids in there, bundled them up and decided we would all sleep in the living room. David went right back to sleep but Nathaniel was fascinated with the fire and watched it for a long time before he finally went back down.

I told everyone I’d stay up all night to feed the fire (remember all three of them had plowed for the previous 7 hours) since we wanted to make sure the kids stayed warm.

So I did. Jake slept right near me and I woke him up a few times. Once because I dozed off for 15 minutes and the fire almost went out and I panicked and didn’t know how to fix it. At 3, 4, 5am, I kept thinking I might doze off but I managed to stay up, sit in the dark and watch the fire. At six, I finally thought I might pass out so I woke up Jake to take care of the fire and passed our for 40 minutes. Nathaniel and David took turns waking up all night and it kept me a little more focused.

In short, it was the most horrible day ever. (Which is amazing since I felt that way yesterday AND the day before. It’s like each day was trying to break the previous day’s record.)

But we made it. We made it to morning with the fire burning and the kids nice and warm.

Note to Self:
I am never going to Bear Mountain again. I decided this time that Nathaniel is still too little to travel. I don’t want to put him through this and I can tell he’s so very uncomfortable in the pack’n’play. It was just sad watching both my kids struggle so hard to sleep. This, for me, takes all the fun out of the vacation anyway. So we might as well stay home.

Three things I’m grateful for today:
1. Firewood. If we didn’t have any firewood, I can’t even imagine how horrible things would have gotten.
2. Kendall and Holly and Jake who spent the whole day plowing which turned out to be the essential step in us finally leaving Big Bear. The plow never came and the only reason we were able to get out was because the three of them plowed.
3. I am just thankful we survived the day with the least damage possible.