Our Family is Raised on Love: Winter Ice Storm Week Recap

Monday, Feb.10th: I took Madalyn to the doctor again for her ears and she had another ear infection. So we are going to be seeing an ENT to look into getting tubes put in her ears.

Tuesday, Feb.11th: It rained all day. We found out that due to this winter storm coming in, they went ahead and canceled school for Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was suppose to a teacher workday but instead we were going to school as normal but we would have Monday off as normal because it's President's Day. (which we didn't go Friday due to all the power outages)

Wednesday, Feb.12th: We woke up to ice everywhere and it was still raining and falling and freezing. The ice was pretty on the trees but the roads were getting bad quick and it was turning serious . At 11:00am, our power went off, which we knew that was coming with all this ice. So at lunch time, Kevin came home and built Madalyn and I a fire and he went back to work. Entertaining a toddler with no lights, power, TV, etc. is interesting, but we did it. Kevin came home that night and we cooked our dinner on the front porch over the grill and ate by the fire in our den. All three of us slept on an air mattress in front of the fire during the night and we tried to keep the fire going. Kevin got up at midnight to check on the chickens. He does have generators for them and had several major concerns: the amount of ice on the roofs and it falling in, the chickens getting cold, the eggs freezing, not getting them food or water. After he came back we both feel asleep and at 4:00am I woke up and the fire had gone out and it was very cold in the house. So I started the fire back. All during the night you could hear branches breaking and falling. Thankfully we didn't have a tree limb or tree fall on our house or anything. But there's plenty that fell all around us and I would hold my breath when I would hear one crack, just waiting to hear them fall, then I would look out to see where they landed.

Thursday, Feb.13th: By mid morning the fire wasn't doing a good job heating the den any more, so Madalyn and I packed up and headed to Kevin's parents house; they had generator. It was nice to in a warm house again. So we spent the day and night with Kevin's parents, along with his grandmother, and his youngest sister and her family.

Friday, Feb.14th:All the ice was melted and people were starting to get power back. We took Kevin's grandmother home and went to Wal-Mart to get some things for her. That afternoon, I was able to take a shower (I hadn't had one since Tuesday night) it was so nice. :0) The weather had warmed up so we could get outside some. Riding through town, there's so much damage. The power companies are comparing this to the damage what hurricane Hugo left behind. Kevin and I were able to go out eat for Valentine's Day and when we came back, we passed our house and saw lights on. I was so excited to see we had gotten power back. According to our thermostat it was 52 degrees in our house so it was probably around 40 or colder these past days. Then last night, we were in bed and we heard a rumbling nose, and the windows rattled, the bed was shaking and the lamps on the night stand were shaking. We realized it was an earthquake. The earthquake took place in Edgefield, which is about an hour and a half from us and it was a 4.1 on the rictor scale.

Saturday, Feb.15th: I had to clean out my refrigerator and freezer of food that had spoiled and go shopping for some to replace it. We are getting back to normal, but so many people are still without power and power lines, power poles, trees, and limbs are still down everywhere. It's a mess down here. I am so thankful we have power back with little damage, but I feel for those that don't yet. Just because the ice has melted, it doesn't mean it's over, it will take all week or longer to get things together around here.