Baby! it's cold outside!

Ok, to the people who live in sub freezing temperatures every winter--you may think we here in Oregon are just big old sissys. Well, we are. But we appreciate the beauty of it probably more than those use to it. We had our snow :) then our freezing rain which was gorgeous :) then we had more snow :) then we realized we couldn't get out of our driveway :( then we lost power for 30+ hours :( then we realized we have no secondary heat or water with no power :( not quite as fun. We slowly watched the house temperature go down one degree at a time wondering if we were going to die. Tina called to see if we had eaten the children yet. We were fine. We were actually having fun (at least the kids and I, brett was too busy being the mighty protecter man--wanting to take care of his family). So, we looked like we were trying to bring back the dead as we sat in a circle with candles in the middle (about 14 of them!) but we were really playing poker. We fed the birds. We heard the branches come crashing down like nobody's business. Brett slid around the icy road on his 4 wheeler as I reminded him that an ambulance couldn't rescue him and I would pull the plug if he was in a coma. It didn't stop him. I didn't think it would. Brittany joined him but stayed on the snow. We talked about what we would do if our house slid down the hill (we decided we'd ride it out like a Disney ride, put our hands up and yell WAHOO!!). We found our propane stove and made hot cocoa (that was a necessity after all). We put all the mattresses, sleeping bags and blankets in our room, and had a huge sleepover with the 6 of us sleeping in one room. Personally I think it was a total blast!! Now before you get too worried, it only went down to about 54 degrees in the house and there were times we were actually hot as we had overbundled. But now, we have a computer, lights, TV, guitar hero, and a heater (which I'm grateful for, as the word HOTEL was coming out of my mouth more often than Brett wanted to hear). So, we will go back to our lives as we knew them. Of course, it is still snowing and we have about 6 or 7 inches of snow. Brett's dad brought us out some chains, so we should be able to trek it into Silverton for things if need be. So, that's what's going on here---what about where you're at?