The ICEing on the cake.

So...

Last Wednesday they told us at school that there might be an ice storm, and they handed out the back-up schedule for the last two days, in case of a delay or a closing due to the weather.

Having lived up in the northerly parts of the United States, where they don't close school no matter how "bad" the weather gets, I didn't think much about it.

But sure enough, early Thursday morning the ice had accumulated. School was of course cancelled, much to my relief, because I had actually slept in and would have been late, which is one of my biggest fears. I have 4 alarm clocks set in my room each night just to keep this very thing from happening. I didn't wake up until 8:30, and frantically raced around the house until I could figure out whether or not there was school.

We immediately decided that with my day off, and the hardships of the past few weeks, we should go out for breakfast. We deserved some IHOP (International House of Pancakes). We set off on our journey, right after the power in our house went out. We figured, why stay home if there is no power? So off we went.

After driving around for a few minute, we decided that this was going to be a little more difficult than we thought. The roads weren't slick, but there were trees down everywhere. It was really quite amazing. Powere out all over the city. We heard later on the radio that our county alone had over 300,000 customers without power.

We finally settled for a McDonalds. Not our first choice for breakfast, but it was the only restaurant that we could find open.

After 45 minutes of waiting line, we settled down in our booth to enjoy our newly acquired food. Only to have Sam drop his pancakes on the floor.

We went to the mall for a little while (which amazing had fully functioning power) to do some shopping. When we were spent there, we headed home to assess the damage. There were wires down in our backyard and trees down in our front.

After we realized that nearly all of the hotels in town were booked or empty because of the lack of power, we accepted some good friends offer to put us up for the night.

Shortly before bed time, one of the teachers at the school decided to call and let us know that school was going to be cancelled the next day as well because the school was still sitting in the dark. So we thought, why stay here for another day. So we drove back, packed up, and headed home.

So, here I am at my Mother-in-law's computer giving you this update. It doesn't even come close to the roller-coaster ride that we have been on the last few weeks. But we have both agreed that we have learned so much through all of this. It has solidified us and grown us so much.

Thanks again to all of you for your prayers and encouragement through all of this. And thanks for reading Harmless Thoughts!