Lights Out !!

So we are sitting around the house on Friday night and getting ready to put the boys to bed and in the distance we hear the rumbles of thunder. This goes on for a while with the thunder getting louder, but there isn't any rain. I am thinking, Great, now the boys are going be freaked out by thunder all night long. Then the lights flicker. Then all the power goes out in the house. Then back on for a second and then out again, then back on again for a second and then out again for good. Crap. I always try to have a plan in place for such occasions, but usually the power comes back on in minutes. So I grab the big flash light that the boys have been playing with a little bit and sure enough it's dead. Then Jen grabs for her flashlight that is plugged into an outlet. I knew that it was dead too and had told her months ago it was fubared, but she claims that I never told her that. I only pointed to the wind up flashlights twice at Walmart, but I think she thought I was just looking for a new toy to play with. So I grab the old reliable mini mag-lite that I use for my night golf because I tend to keep that one away from the boys. It's not much, but it works. It is dark in the house but still dusk-ish so not pitch black dark yet. So I am trying to find batteries for the big light or try and think of a toy that I can grab batteries from, or maybe a toy that lights up. My little Shoq Box radio is still running, but getting low on battery. After that dies I grab the wind up/solar battery from the garage. As I am trying to get this stuff together Andrew is insistent on being the keeper of the flashlight. I don't think he was scared of the dark, he just wanted to play with the flashlight. So he is screaming because he doesn't have the flash light, I am trying to find stuff, and it is getting real dark in the house. At this point I look outside and see that the people across the street have power ! WTH. But I see that the people behind us don't have power and see flashlights in their windows too so it's just out little area. At least it's not just our house. The boys weren't as freaked out about not having power as I thought they would be. William was having fun pointing out all the stuff that wasn't on anymore, which was everything.

Lucky for me I have a wife who has a candle obsession/compulsion/fetish so in no time we had candles all over the house. We give both the boys their own little candle as a nightlight and they go so sleep pretty fast. We are trying to decide what to do next. Its not bad enough to warrent packing the kids up and heading to a grandparents house, it's actually very nice outside, but I notice that it's started to rain hard. No power mean no sump pump (NO I haven't installed the battery back up yet), but I have a backup plan for just such an occasion. We have a dc/ac converter and the plan is to plug in one of the cars and run an extension cord down to the basement to power the sump pump. I checked a couple times and there isn't any water running on to the sump which is due to the fact that the ground is dry and it might take a while for water to reach the basement. But I want to get ready so I take the flashlight into the garage getting the extension cord to get everything set up. As I am grabbing the cord the power comes back on.

It was only an hour, but still an hour of a lot of scrambling. Just showed me how I wasn't really prepared, so probably a trip to the store to get a few things to throw into a box for just such an occasion and keep it away from the boys. It was actually kind of nice just sitting around with the candles and just listening to the radio.