Davis Cup, Big Storm/Power outage, busy week

US Tennis Players End 12-Year Davis Cup Drought
I was there! Something I thought would be boring and just an opportunity to see a good friend turned into be very entertaining. I really enjoyed myself, I was up cheering and dancing with all the rest of them. Terese didn't find me as interesting as the other tennis fans sitting around us. Go figure! She was having a ball talking to all the people and I mean all the people around us that knew as much about the players as she did. She felt bad, but I understood. It is always fascinating to me to watch people that are incredibly good at something. The guy in the hat is Andy Roddick # 1 in the US. James Blake is # 2 in the US. They don't get paid for playing in the Davis Cup so that says something about them. They played men from Russia. They both had different styles so it was educational as well as entertaining. I have to say watching Terese sometimes was as entertaining as watching the match!!

Saturday (the next day) I got up early, left Jared Engstroms home and went shopping down the I-5 corridor. I stopped first at Fred Meyer to get something to eat and to check out their fake trees. I then went to Home Depot where I found an artificial tree I liked. It was hard to decide. But I kept coming back to the same one. So I bought it! I also got some poinsettias!! I love those.
I continued on to TJ's, Costco, bed bath and beyond ( I got some cute little artificial trees to line the driveway with and two larger ones to put on the front porch), Deseret Book, got some fun surprises, you will all see later!!!, and the garment center. By the time I got to the last store it was about 2:00pm. I had heard from a young man at TJ's that there was a BIG STORM coming in for the coast, so I thought I should get home before dark.

Sunday I got up to go to church, Steve was sick so he stayed home. Just before I got up to say the closing prayer in Sunday School the lights went out. We had opening exercises in RS then went home. I have to say I was surprised we had church, the storm was brewing pretty good before I even left home. I was shocked even more when the Branch Pres didn't send us home after Sacrament. On my way home it was really scary, I had to drive pretty slow!

The power was out at our house too. I looked out the back window and saw this:

In the first pic is the legs of our picnic table! The top flew off into the neighbors yard. The bottom pic is just the chairs all over the yard, several broken :-(

I then went out got our camp stove and some fuel and made pancakes, eggs, hot chocolate with whip cream(out of a can), and bacon. I was prepared!!! I felt pretty good about myself. I have to say when Steve started going on about my skills, I said that's what comes from going to girls camp all those years. I had battery lanterns, flashlights. We didn't start a fire the first night, but the next day we finally decided to try a fire. We were worried about the wind coming down the chimney. It was nice, cozy and took the chill off. Thankfully we have those big windows so the light wasn't too big of an issue during the day. At night when it was time for bed the temp in the room wasn't much different than normal so we slept fine. During both days we just wore sweaters and sweatshirts. When we were sitting on the couch, which we did far too much, we used blankets also. All in all it wasn't that bad. But I have to say when the lights came on 30 hours later I was one happy camper! The light seemed bright at first, I know that sounds silly, but I was very grateful.

So what did we learn!!? Steve has already bought a generator which he bought at Costco in Albany the second day of the storm, thankfully he had no problems, needless to say it made me very prayerful. We got a generator big enough to power both our fridges, the freezer, out septic system, and a heater. We could also use the microwave, electric skillet, or even watch a movie. We decided that the freezer doesn't need to be plugged in all the time, so we could unplug it for the little things I mentioned that aren't really necessary. We also bought and are buying some more Duraflame logs, batteries for the lanterns, and I think that is all.

The only bad thing that happened was our Dish fell off the roof. But Heavenly Father answered my prayers in that situation. It was about midnight and we both woke up to something hitting the house. We decided it was the dish, looked out the windows and saw it banging around. The wind was blowing so hard we didn't know what to do. We knew Steve couldn't stand on a ladder out there at the same time we were worried it would fall off and fly into one of our windows. So Steve decided to go out and at least see what maybe he could do. I started praying really hard that it would just fall straight to the ground. Steve said that when he got about 7 feet from it it just fell to the ground. I almost started crying when he told me that. Heavenly Father loves us all sooooo much! So we don't have TV for now. Steve is going crazy without the news! But I have noticed he has slept through the night now since we don't have it. I don't know if he has noticed that!

Since then I have been trying to sew and get Christmas Decor up. I haven't been too successful at either. Oh well, I am going to plug away today and hopefully by the end of this week I will have a pic of my new artificial tree.

Oh, I fixed my hair different or I should say like I used to, it is getting longer again. I was going to have Meg cut it now I don't know!

Love you allll!!!