The Silver Lining

I'm sure if we are friends on facebook, you already know about the "Great Power Outage of 2012."  But, I'm going to talk about it anyway.  :)

We took a little family vacation up to Caseville last week and returned home Thursday around 11:00 in the morning.  The family that watched our house had already texted me to let me know that there had been a storm and the power was out.  I was mildly irritated, but was doing a pretty good job of keeping my happy on.

We got home and unloaded, got Reagan off to start her first day of dance intensive and then I called Consumers.  "Our best estimate of power restoration is Sunday, July 8th at 11:30 pm."  I did a mental double-take.  "Sunday night?!  As in 3 1/2 days from now?!!  It's supposed to be 100 degrees for the next 3 days!!  We all need a shower!!  All of our laundry is full of sand!!  I want to make some coffee!!  Waaa, waaa, waaa!!"  Of course, the automated person at Consumers didn't care about my need for coffee and presumably didn't mind that we were all covered in beach funk.  That's the nice thing about electronic people, they don't judge.

So, I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to break the news to the kids gently.  Then, I broke out my phone and griped to the one place that might care - facebook.

We went out for dinner and when we returned, I had a fb message from a friend I had seen one time in the past ten years.  "Come over!!  We have plenty of room!  And a big washer and dryer!  And A/C!"  Now, this friend has 4 kids.  We have 5.  Did I mention I have seen her ONCE in the last 10 years?  But, no matter, we packed up our kids and dirty laundry, left the dogs plently of food and water and headed out to their house.

I can see the wheels in your brain working over-time.  "I can't believe you did that.  Wouldn't that be so awkward?  What if your kids, who have really never met, don't get along?  That's kinda crazy."  Well, maybe you have never come home from vacation in 100 degree weather and had no power.  It brings out all kinds of crazy, let me tell ya...

But, here's what happened.  We had a wonderful time with them.  They have a son who is right in between Carter and Pierce in age - the 3 of them took off like old pals and we literally almost never saw them.  Our girls meshed nicely with theirs.  Liz and I and Roger and Nic took up like we had just seen each other at church last week.  We felt perfectly comfortable, welcome and were sad to go when we got news that our power had come back on Saturday afternoon. 

It was an amazing silver lining in that cloud.  I will always have fond memories of the "Great Power Outage of 2012," and, from now on, we will certainly make the effort to get together with the Conn's more than once every 10 years.  :)