Reminiscing About Ice Storms
After talking with friends and family back home in Missouri and hearing about their plight at receiving yet another annual ice storm, Joe&Tina are reminiscing about their first ice storm together in January of 2007. Joe&Tina had been home from their Seattle honeymoon for one short week and were out for a Friday night date when the ice storm hit our house. As we drove home from a lovely Italian dinner at a cozy little bistro, we noticed that street lights and neighborhoods were dark. Ominously dark. We pulled into our street, finding that it, too, was dark. Assuming that the worst of the weather would pass by morning and power would shortly be restored, we called Tina's parents to see if we could crash at their still electrified house. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived they had lost power, too. Luckily, they have a gas log fireplace and a basement that typically holds heat well. We hunkered down under extra blankets and prepared for a day that would surely bring the return of electricity and heat. No such luck. We awoke to a very chilly house and spent the morning cuddled under blankets seated as near the fireplace as we could manage without sitting on top of one another. We cooked lunch in foil packets just like we were roughing it on a winter camping trip.
One set of lucky friends in Springfield still had power and called to offer up hot water for showers and electricity for watching television. For the next week we spent our days and nights in a constant state of flux, traveling from friend to family to friend and back again for sleeping and showering and marking time until we could return to our newlywed home. After a week of the gypsy life, our lucky friends offered us their generator and we were finally able to return home. We spent the second full week of the ice storm with a home powered by a generator whose thirsty gas tank had to be filled twice each day.
After fourteen grueling days without power, the utility trucks finally arrived on our street and power was blissfully restored to our house. What initially seemed like a certainly brief encounter with powerlessness turned into the first challenge of our marriage. We learned a lot about ourselves and our marriage in those two weeks and realized that the warm fuzzy feelings of the honeymoon were definitely not the only glue to our relationship. Joe and Tina learned a lot about the depth of their friendship and the strength they possessed together in adversity. Almost a year to the day the second ice storm of our marriage hit, but we only lost power for a few hours. This year, we face a different kind of ice storm in our marriage as we weather the move to frigid Minnesota along with the challenge of making our life together work in this new place. We're both thrilled to be absent for the third ice storm to hit Springfield in as many years and appreciate that Minnesota rarely sees such dreadful weather patterns. Snow seems like a piece of cake in comparison to ice storms...and best of all, we're rarely in danger of a 14-day power outage when flurries start to fly!
One set of lucky friends in Springfield still had power and called to offer up hot water for showers and electricity for watching television. For the next week we spent our days and nights in a constant state of flux, traveling from friend to family to friend and back again for sleeping and showering and marking time until we could return to our newlywed home. After a week of the gypsy life, our lucky friends offered us their generator and we were finally able to return home. We spent the second full week of the ice storm with a home powered by a generator whose thirsty gas tank had to be filled twice each day.
After fourteen grueling days without power, the utility trucks finally arrived on our street and power was blissfully restored to our house. What initially seemed like a certainly brief encounter with powerlessness turned into the first challenge of our marriage. We learned a lot about ourselves and our marriage in those two weeks and realized that the warm fuzzy feelings of the honeymoon were definitely not the only glue to our relationship. Joe and Tina learned a lot about the depth of their friendship and the strength they possessed together in adversity. Almost a year to the day the second ice storm of our marriage hit, but we only lost power for a few hours. This year, we face a different kind of ice storm in our marriage as we weather the move to frigid Minnesota along with the challenge of making our life together work in this new place. We're both thrilled to be absent for the third ice storm to hit Springfield in as many years and appreciate that Minnesota rarely sees such dreadful weather patterns. Snow seems like a piece of cake in comparison to ice storms...and best of all, we're rarely in danger of a 14-day power outage when flurries start to fly!
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