Crazy Halloween!

This Halloween certainly was a memorable one! I'll back up to Monday night when the trouble began. We lost power sometime between 10:30-11:00pm. We were already asleep, but Ethan woke up crying at 11 b/c his fan (for noise) was off. We woke up later in the morning to still no power and a house that was getting colder by the hour. The outside temps were in the 40s but the inside was only in the 50s! We spent part of our morning at BBC where Josh works and stored some of the fridge items there. We still had no power to the basement freezers which held over 100# of meat and veggies. It made me so nervous! Next we took lunch over to our friends' house so we could use their stove. That afternoon we just slept and read books. I'll admit I couldn't relax or focus bc I was worried abt the freezers and being cold.
I went for a walk outside and discovered the problem- a 25 ft massive pine had fallen across the power lines so much that the lines were lying on the ground! there had been no attempt to remove them at all that day. I figured it would not happen that day.
Around supper time we took more frozen food from the upstairs freezer to our friends' house and to BBC. Then we had dinner at Taco Bell. Thank goodness for free tacos!
After that we decided to drive to a McDonald's about 15 miles away so the kids could play in the play land. I sat in the van for a minute after my family went inside. I prayed about our situation again as I had a lot that day. Only a minute later the phone rang and it was our pastor asking if we still had no power ( I had texted him earlier in the day as an FYI) then he said he would bring over his generator for us to plug into. I was ecstatic! I figured the freezers would be top priority. We had the offer to stay in an empty BBC dorm but in the end we decided to stay home. I knew we could keep warm with lots of blankets and I didn't want to drag a bunch of stuff out in the dark and cold.
Josh and I put the kids to bed in three layers and extra quilts on the beds. We lit candles in the kitchen and played cards by candlelight. There was something very nice and simple about that. We get so busy with our lives that a power failure can make us stop and do basic things like playing cards and talking. Our pastor came about that time and the guys hooked the freezers to it. Yay! After 24 hrs the freezers were running again! Pastor told Josh to check on it in the middle of the night because he didn't know how long it would last. Josh did get up a few times with Ethan (who was in bed with Tommy for warmth) so he checked on the generator too. It ran loudly for 12 hrs before needing gas! The morning was very chilly-54 degrees. But something positive happened- we saw several trucks from the power company and a tree service. Josh was technically supposed to go to work that morning but his boss said not to worry about it if we still didn't have power. But he went late morning after I went to our pastors house and took a shower. I spent a couple hours at BBC with the kids and my friend Laura and her kids who didn't have power either. It was a nice time to pass the time and let the kids run around.
We are our lunch at BBC and then went to the public library. By the time we got home, the power was back on. The kids started cheering and tommy exclaimed "God answered our prayers!" We had been praying about the situation with the kids. I was happy that was his first response.
We decided to proceed with Halloween plans as we'd planned. We trick or treated with two groups of friends despite the cold and misty rain. They only lasted 90 min but still had fun! We decided to get pizza before going home.
This definitely wasn't the Halloween we envisioned, but are grateful for God's provision nonetheless. We were glad for a warmer night in bed. Tommy still doesn't have school as many people still don't have power. I'm sure they'll have to make school up in the summer.
I'm sitting here listening to the hum of the fridge and whirring of the washing machine and I've never been so thankful for all we have because of electricity! We can't take anything for granted!