Ice storm 2007

Here's our house last summer, during the National Night Out ice cream social:


Here it is Monday morning, when we thought things were bad:

And here it is this morning. Our poor trees.


Of course, some of our neighbors had it worse. This poor tree:


now looks like this:

They lost four big shade trees.


And this tree:
is now completely gone.

The ice was beautiful as well:


We lost power Monday afternoon. Fortunately I have lots of candles and candleholders in the house. And our gas stove meant we could have hot cocoa by candlelight:
and cosy up by firelight. In case you can't see the kids, here's the same photo with flash:

In reality, it was neither so dark as the first shots or as bright as the flash shot. And the power came on at bedtime, so it was something of an adventure.

Back to our tree woes -- here's some shots of the devastation in our back yard:



Owen and George are surveying the damage with me. We had our utilities flagged recently so there's a big yellow DO NOT CROSS line in the backyard that even a three year old could understand.


Sarah & family stayed with us for a night while they were without power. They helped us start the clearing out process:


More cleanup is occurring today -- don't ask me why, because it is bitterly cold and windy. Tomorrow will be in the 40s and calm. But they're out there today:

Charlotte and George, sawing off little branches.


Dean was supervising saw use, making sure the branches could not fall on the kids -- and still managing to pile up a bunch of branches himself.

Me? I'm blogging and making hot cocoa.

We must be doing something right.

Yesterday we were driving in Oklahoma City. George pointed at a Wendy's sign, saying, "Look, Daddy, there's Pippi!"

Morning after.

We had a lovely Halloween. George's class had a party in the afternoon at which they served PIZZA -- hurray for the person who thought of that one. The solid base below the sugar rush seemed to make a big difference.

Here he is in his knight costume -- no weapons. (Sorry for the sideways pics but I don't have a way to turn them right now.)



Then we went to the library for George's favorite after-school program. Charlotte declined to wear her ghost costume since she had on a ghost t-shirt already. (Note the fetching pink tights and sparkly pink shoes -- a new necessity for every outfit.)

Here's my gang, poised and ready to go trick-or-treating.


Here they are two seconds later, clearly unable to wait for the obligatory "just one more" picture.

Charlotte is wearing last year's ghost costume, but with face makeup so the costume doesn't have to go over her head (last year the chiffon layer slipped off a lot). She is also wearing the bark pants that went with George's tree costume of several years back.

George is a Ghost Knight. His first idea was to wear BOTH his ghost costume and his knight costume, but we settled on face paint. It worked out pretty well although he was puzzled when some of his classmates didn't recognize him.

Our street was busy enough to be fun but not too crazy. The kids went trick or treating, handed out candy at home, and made it to bedtime without too many tears. No one got sick, no one got hurt, we all had a good time. All in all, quite a successful evening.

This morning all is quiet as we recover from the excesses of last night. George is at school, Dean is at work, and Charlotte and I are at home. We seem to be out of bread, clean clothes, clean floors, and all the other things I'm responsible for supplying. I'm sure things will be back to normal soon, though.

Or maybe not quite yet. When I got out of my shower I was puzzled to see Charlotte's candy bucket on the dining room table, filled with candy. I was sure I had emptied that into the box in which she is storing her haul.

"Where did this come from?" I asked her.

"Oh," she said, "we left some in there last night."

Then I noticed she was purple around the mouth, and smelled rather fruity.

"Did you eat candy while I was in the shower?" I asked.

"No, she said, predictably. Then she glanced over at the candy bowl, still on the chest by the front door. "And I didn't push that chair there, either."

We both looked at the chair for a minute.

"Maybe a bad ghost did it," she offered.

Happy Halloween!