Interesting evening without power

So last night, we had a cold front come through the area...which was good, because we have had the hottest and humidest (??) days EVER in the past couple of weeks...well, maybe not ever, but it's been pretty darn hot!

I got home before the storm hit, even got to spend a few minutes playing with Leda before it got so dark at 6PM that it felt like 9PM. So, while feeding Leda, the wind is blowing pretty good, but the storm hasn't really gotten to us yet - the electricity goes out.

Well, we sit there for a little while, couple minutes, wondering if it's gonna come back on. Brock decides to go out and investigate. A tree from the golf course has broken and fallen across the power lines and have pulled them down onto the street, for a good 100 yards up the road! Yeah, we are in for the long haul!

Brock checks in on the neighbors, I put Leda down for a nap. The rain begins and stops in about 15 minutes...I'll tell ya, the build up for this storm was pretty impressive...we expected a pretty intense storm - nope, a few flashes of lightening, a few rumbles of thunder and a little bit of rain...it was pretty anemic as storms go!

So the candles get lit, the neighbors disappear (to family/friends homes for dinner), the fire company comes to close down the road to traffic while waiting for PECO to appear to fix the lines. The three of us sit there in the house as the light disappears from the sky and the humidity takes over the house! (not so bad as it would have been if the cold front didn't come through, but a little air conditioner would have felt AWESOME!!)

A couple months ago, our neighbors had purchased some solar lights that they had put around their house - I liked them, and thought about getting some for our patio area and front of the house, so I asked about where she got them. Costco, $95! Well, Brock wasn't all that interested in spending the 95 bucks for some lights (15 of them, by the way!), but I bought them anyway. They soak up the sun, and as the sun goes down, the lights come on!

Solar Lights

So, about an hour or so into the evening, Brock appears from outside holding several of these lights - they screw off the stakes that hold them into the ground - and, although they don't give off a ton of light, they give off enough that you can see your way around the house, change a diaper, find the matches to light some candles! I say, "so, not so upset I spent that 95 bucks now, are ya?" Brock agrees, the BEST 95 bucks spent at Costco so far!

Now, something else about these lights, the top of the light is the solar panel that soaks up the sun and senses the light dimming in order to turn the lights on. When they screw off the stakes, they have about an inch in diameter surface under the light. Brock is attempting to balance the lights on this inch in diameter surface. I say, "why not put them upside down so that you don't have to worry about them falling over," to which Brock replys, as he is walking out of the room to place these things around the house, "because that's where the light sensor is." I wait a few seconds and say, "yeah, it senses NO LIGHT so that the darn thing will turn on!!" Wait a few more seconds, and Brock is walking back into the room, turn the lights upside down for more surface area. Yeah, my husband is a dork sometimes! ;-)

Solar Light as light source in Power Outage!

At some point, I see something out of the corner of my eye at the neighbors house - so I stood at our window, looking out in the darkness, wondering what I might have seen and all of a sudden, one of our neighbor's solar lights is waving at me! Apparently our neighbors came home and decided that we had the right idea using the solar lights inside the house!! I'm telling ya, you gotta get ya some of these lights!!

Anyway, we spent an old fashion evening, reading Harry Potter by candle light, listening to KYW on the old radio that used to sit in my Grandmother's kitchen (the only station that has ever been tuned into on this radio is KYW!), and hoping that PECO shows up to fix the lines before too long.

Evening Entertainment

And, instead of listening to my daughter on the monitor all night (since there was no electricity to do so!), I listened to Frank and the other guy who kept yelling to Frank fix the power lines outside my bedroom window! The electricity did come back on around 4 in the morning.

We did receive the most interesting sunset after the storm...you can see the downed power lines in this picture...

Sunset after storm

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