Our Everyday in Photos - January 22nd + Ice Storm Lessons

In true North Carolina fashion, we had some winter precipitation and all the things were cancelled. Unfortunately, our electricity was one of the things that went away– right as we were in the middle of cooking dinner on the 21st. It was at that moment, that I realized that I was actually one of the two responsible adults in the house and while it had been freeze-raining and sleeting all day, I should have been preparing things, you know in the event that we lose power. So here's some "notes to self" for next time:

1. Fill up all the water bottles. If the power goes out and the fire is on, you will be thirsty.
2. Locate all the flashlights and batteries– while the lights are on. 
3. Retrieve all the scentless candles (um, we have to buy some of these) and lighters.
4. Stop what you are doing and prepare food that doesn't have to be in the fridge. Something, anything that can be eaten by adults or one year olds. 
5. Charge your phone(s). 

It is the end of February and it was 70º today, so it is likely I won't need these words of wisdom until next winter (or honestly, next week) but yeah. Rough times. We were all hungry (two days before grocery day), cold, my iPhone was dead and one of our smoke detectors went on the fritz and chirped every 2 minutes for the entirety of our power outage. Except for at 2am when Marshall tried to fix it and it set off every smoke detector in the house... 

All that to say, it was honestly a really fun snow/ice day. We only lost power for about 24 hours, and I was able to finish a book and thoroughly enjoyed "unplugging" a bit. True life of an online teacher: a power outage is a vacation. We built a little couch fort and all snuggled quite toast-ily by the fire. After a while it was hard to entertain Lincoln in the living room near the fire so we were able to go to our friend's house and eat/stay warm for a little while.  We planned to crash on their couch, but our power came back on right before it got dark so we went home in favor of Lincoln sleeping in his own bed. Quite a fun day to document, indeed!

(This post is a series of day-to-day photos that are part of my 2016 goals. I'm posting this one late, but you can see February 20th here.)