Hurricane Ike

Living in Northern Kentucky I had assumed that we were safe from pretty much anything short of a blizzard or tornado. Was I ever proved wrong, Sunday morning brought heavy winds as what was left of Hurricane Ike slammed into Kentucky and Ohio and points beyond. The storm at first just rattled windows, then our power went down and shingles from neighboring houses started ripping off, several houses were damaged when the families trampolines hit them. To me this was all new and rather frighting as I was raised in Washington State, right by the Idaho border and the worse thing we seen was a Ice Storm one year, and lots of snow on a regualar basis.
Three kids and no power is a challange, lol this was made even more difficult when I discovered that the propane tank on the BBQ was empty and there wasnt a single store around us that had power. The radio was giving a timeline of up to a week for power restoration since most of the technicians for our power company and went to Texas to help with the clean up. Lets just say no one was looking forward to a week of Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches.
We managed to find enough candles to attempt to play games to keep everyone occupied, pictionary in the dark takes on a whole new twist, as simple words became as attempt to puzzle out odd drawings in the dark. The four year old thought all was great until it got dark and no amount of flipping the light switch would turn on the lights. She kept walking over to the television and pushing the button and looking at the set with an expectant manner, then turn and looked at me like "ok where is Dora".
Once the kids were settled and the four year old understood that the magic box she uses to watch Dora and other kid attractors on was temporarily out of service, the realization set in that OMG what was I supposed to do, I had a final assignment for class was due Monday and we had no Internet. Luckly I had a friend with a cell phone here that had data service still functioning. Finally I reached my school and found out they had expected these issues and was already a step ahead of me, letting all professors know that assignments could possible be late.
All in all this was a learning experience and I take my hats off to those who choose to live in the paths of these storms at full strength. There was a time when I wanted to live in Florida now all I can say is it will be a nice place to visist but not during Hurrican season.