Power

So, we've had an interesting two weeks. After a nasty heatwave the DC area was treated to a Derecho. I've never heard the term before, and frankly it sounds like something Matt would make up. However, it is very real and knocked out our power for five days. And the best part is that the temperature didn't go down and continued at 100+ degree days. Because of the heat we lost everything in the fridge within less than 24 hours. We went to eat the ice cream for lunch and it was already soup. Thankfully there were no injuries or major home damage in our neighborhood.

The big damage for us. Our neighbors had a whole tree pull out of the ground and take out about three backyards.

 This house is around the corner from us. It's surprising, but there's two trees down and they didn't hit any wires, cars, parts of the house or the bocce ball court.

 

To escape the house one day I went on a drive to IKEA. (Amelia and I slept in the basement and Matt slept in the family room because we didn't want to deal with getting a hotel room) On the way home I saw this.

 Seriously, let the man out of the cow suit.

Amelia enjoyed sleeping in the basement with me, but it did mess with her nap schedule. Thankfully her school had power, so she went there on Monday and Tuesday. But the weekend led to the nap taking her.

We finally got power back on Wednesday late afternoon. And less than 24 hours later we were on a plane to Grand Rapids, MI. Where it was 100 degrees. Seriously. Thankfully the hotel DID have air conditioning. a pool and power. We had a great time visiting with relatives, and Amelia LOVED all the attention. She has a "cousin" about six months older than her and they didn't really play as much as egg each other on. This was the first time Amelia was at a wedding where she had some understanding of what was happening. She kept asking where the bride was and when they were getting married. Unfortunately, most of this was during the service, so I ended up in back with her. 

The wedding was beautiful and we had a great time at the reception. Amelia had an even better time. She was able to bounce from Memere to Pepere to Uncle Steve to any number of Matt's cousins. She worked up quite a thirst. 

She must have had four glasses of orange juice, along with at least three cookies plus wedding cake. Thankfully Amelia is a total ham, so she burned off most of the energy on the dance floor. She kept pulling Matt and his father back on to the dance floor. I would say she spent at least an hour out there before melting down. Thankfully it was a quick walk across the street and straight into bed. It was about 10:30 when she went to bed and SHE SLEPT TILL 8AM. This has happened NEVER. So apparently we have to do the following to get her to sleep in:

Spend 45 minutes in the pool jumping in and climbing the ladder out and repeat

Go for a 15 minute walk in the direct sun

Let her play, run around and bust open her lip at the Children's Museum for over an hour

Go to wedding with all sorts of interesting people

Let her stay up and dance her head off

I'm tired just looking at that list, so maybe we're not going to get 8am for awhile. 

We flew back on Saturday and thankfully still had power. Sunday night we had more thunderstorms and one of the bangs was loud enough to wake both Matt and I while also shaking our house. I seriously thought we were having an earthquake till the lightening hit. Amelia and Teddy slept through the whole thing.