Sunday, February 6, 2011

February Freeze Out

On Thursday morning our old next door neighbor called and asked me if our water was working. I had only been awake a few minutes so I went and turned on our kitchen sink and the water was working. Then a little while after that my friend Allison called to ask if we had heat. I thought to myself, what is going on? As it turns out we were one of the local areas to have there gas turned off to conserve pressure for the rest of the city. So we went all day without hot water or heat. Typically, this wouldn't be a big deal but since Tucson was experiencing record lows and I have a 4 month old, well we will just say that the situation wasn't a whole lot of fun.
Thursday night we brought all of the kids into the Master bedroom to keep warm with a small space heater that my friend Brittany had brought over. She was going to borrow it from someone else in the ward but they ended up going to stay with family in Mesa. It was really kinda crazy. Makenzi and Garet were in the bed with me and Gavin and Eli were on the floor next to us. Gavin has been waking up in the middle of the night for some reason so that night was no exception. He woke up and woke up Makenzi and Garet so the four of us were awake from 2:30am-3:30am. When we got up on Friday morning the thermostat in the house said that it was 60 degrees! Burr!

I just had to put this picture in so that we could always remember how much fun it is to try to take a picture of our two year old!

I had Garet stay in his warm jammies all day to try and keep him warm but his poor little fingers were all purple so I ended up putting sockies on his hands to help keep his fingers warm.



Friday morning brought more problems. We had a pipe burst outside from the freezing temperatures. I woke Spencer up when I saw that water was running out into the road from between our house and the neighbors house. He went outside and figured that he could cap off the pipe so he headed to Ace Hardware. It is nice to have a handy husband! When he got back from Ace he said that he talked to the guys there about turning our gas back on by ourselves. He bought some leak tester spray stuff and was confident that he could turn our gas back on and relight our pilot lights. I was a little nervous but he was insistent. Live or die man! right??? Well we are still alive and now we are warm and clean so all is well!

5 comments:

Andrea said...

Whoa, crazy how cold has it been there? We have some friends in Texas who have been having lots of ice and snow. I didn't know Arizona was in the cold blast too. Sometimes it is fun if it is only for one night, that is unless your pipes break...

Heather Mae the DIY Gal said...

We stashed our family with one heater in the master room as well. Along with 3 layers of clothing, beanies and socks on our hands and feet. Our thermonstat said 58 degrees. It was harder keeping a 2 story house warm. We didn't have heat or hot water for 3 days. Eek!

Heather said...

Crazy weather. We were lucky we only ended up with a broken pressure regulator. Isn't it nice to have a handy husband.

Crimson&Howitzer said...

It's funny to think you were cold! We always keep our thermostat at 60 during the night to save on energy. Plus I don't mind snuggling up in cozy sweaters and big blankets. Is your stove electric or gas? It looks like you guys had a really fun 'slumber' party; it'll make for great memories later in life. And Happy Birthday by the way! :)

Jueneta said...

How crazy. I loved reading your post about your experience and the fun the kids had sleeping in your room.