July catch up! Our 5th anniversary adventure

I went wayyy too long without posting in July! Here's why:

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on the 7th. We didn't have anything big planned, just a relaxing day with the kids and eating at home. But early in the morning on the 5th, we had a big storm, and this happened:

Yep, a tree branch in our yard took out the power lines, and killed the power on our whole street! We were surprised by this branch too, this tree has a few dead branches, but it was a live one that came down. Besides the tree and the power, we also had all the windows open to get fresh, cool air during the night (we don't have a/c) and we had a huge puddle in the dining room that we had to mop up from the 3 big windows there. The front room window had a small puddle, and another puddle in the girls' room. We called the power company as soon as we noticed the downed wires, about 5am, and sort of figured that it was some kind of priority and that they would come pretty quickly. Eric stayed home from work to wait for them, in case they needed us to move our cars or something, but by lunch time we still hadn't heard anything, so we went to the mall for lunch, and Eric used the free wifi to work while the kids and I shopped and played in the play place. A neighbor had come over to say that he worked with power lines and advised us to stay far away from them because of the high voltage wires. 

At nap time we dropped Eric off at church to work the rest of the day and went home. It was a really hot day, too hot to have played in the yard anyway, so we just sat inside and played. After 2 days of no power and lots of eating out and frequenting air conditioned play places, someone from the power company came out and taped off our yard with warning tape. At that point the estimated date we would get power back was the 8th. My dad just bought a new generator and still had the old one, so we were able to run it occasionally to keep the fridge cold. We called it an adventure and made the best of it, trying to fit take out into the budget and taking short cuts when possible, and the cold showers weren't terrible, they actually felt kind of nice on those 100 degree days! Someone from church had given us some tall candles just a few weeks before, so I melted some wax into the bottom of some tea cups and made candle holders so we could keep the house lit at night. Very Laura Ingalls, I know! 

On our anniversary, it was already hot out when we woke up. Eric surprised me with pearl earrings and a pearl necklace, and I got him a new backpack for his laptop, something he has desperately needed-he's been toting his laptop to work and back in a purple Babies R Us reusable bag! After we went to church (our church has a Saturday service and Eric teaches the jr. church class, while the girls and I help in the nursery sometimes) and then went to the reception hall to take our yearly pictures: 

I told Eric that the best way to spend our anniversary would be in air conditioning. So, we took the kids to McDonalds for lunch, then let them play in the play place while we took turns watching them and checking our email and facebook for the first time in a few days. At naptime we put the kids in the car, but still didn't want to go home so we drove out to the Hands On museum. The kids napped in the car, we had some nice conversation, and then we had a nice afternoon exploring the Hands On Museum. 

When it closed around dinner time, we drove over to Eric's new office for a tour, then walked over to a little shopping district. They had a small supermarket, so we walked around and everyone picked a fruit, then we got sweet potato chips for the kids and some bread and brie for ourselves (a snack we ate on our first official date :) After eating we headed upstairs to the shops. There was a very cool spice shop that even sells berbere (The Ethiopian spice blend that we have grown to love). It was much more expensive, about the same for an ounce as we paid for 1-2 lbs in Ethiopia, but it tasted just as good, and as my dad pointed out, it's cheaper than a plane ticket back!

We got to a time where driving home would mean that the kids would fall asleep, and it was too early for that, so we drove to the local mall and walked around for awhile. We hit a Whole Foods on the way out and picked out some fruit, crackers, and yogurt, and then enjoyed a quiet ride home as the kids slept. Not at all what we expected for our 5th anniversary, but I wouldn't trade it!