Crazy? I was crazy once

Luckily there was no rubber rooms or rats, of the real or rubber kind, involved.  They drive me crazy! (extra points if you know what I'm talking about there)


Supposedly, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  And if that's true I was insane for most of the day yesterday.   I kept walking into a room and flipping on the light switch and then being frustrated when nothing happened.  For some reason I couldn't remember that our power was out.  (As if it being 90 degrees in the house wasn't enough of a reminder.)


It all started Friday night.  We got home from cub scout camp (no, that wasn't the cause of the insanity, although it would have been a pretty good excuse) and watched the local news.  They said we were going to get strong thunderstorms that night.  I didn't really think anything of it.  It had been 104 degrees that afternoon and super humid.  That kind of heat usually draws in evening thunderstorms and the rain usually helps cool things down a bit.  No big deal right? (Wrong!)   


We were getting ready for bed when there was a ton of noise outside.  I ran to the window and peaked out to see horizontal rain and trees that looked like they were going to fall over.  I quickly turned around and plugged in my phone, wishing I had charged it earlier in the day.  Then the lightning started.  And then, a few minutes later, the power went out.  So much for charging the phone.   


The storm looked pretty cool, so we grabbed our flashlights and headed out to our balcony to watch.  (We're crazy like that)  There was so much lightning, it was incredible.  You didn't really need a flashlight to see outside because the lightning was so bright and frequent.  Dallin said it looked like there was a TV on in our skylight.  

This is an actual picture of the storm, but I can't take credit for taking it.

We watched as tree branches started breaking off and falling, keeping our fingers crossed that one wouldn't land on our car.   After a while we decided to head in and sleep... what else can you do when it's dark and you don't have electricity.  


I woke up Saturday morning, my phone told me it was 5:30 (and that it was about to die), but it was too hot to go back to sleep.  Dallin and I went for a walk to survey the damage.  There was quite a few downed limbs from some pretty big trees, but there weren't any downed power lines or smushed cars (in our area).   We had some friends over for breakfast (hurray for gas stoves and matches!) and I learned it's hard to cook bacon by flashlight.  By this point it was about 9 am and we were all sure that the power would come on any minute.  It had too.  the temperature was supposed to get up to 101 and we NEEDED air conditioning.  By quarter to 10 when there was still no air, we decided to take a drive.  It looked like a war scene, downed trees and power lines, smushed cars, smushed houses.  And there was no power anywhere!  Which meant no AC :(  On top of that, cell phone reception was horrible and we had no data coverage so there was no way to find out what was going on. 

This is right by our city hall

At least this guy had a sense of humor... the sign says "for sale, recently lowered"

We suffered through the afternoon and Dallin left, on his bike, at about 3:30 to go check on the families he home teaches.  At about 6 the power came back on!  I did a happy dance and turned all our fans on!  It was great.  Dallin was at our friends house who still didn't have power so we invited them over to dinner in a slightly cooler house (it took quite a while for our AC to limp back to life).  We had dinner and talked and then they went home and we made one more stop by my friend Liesel's house to offer our AC since they were still without it.  And then slept in our wonderfully air conditioned house!  


I turns out that the storm we had was called a derecho, it's like a tornado that doesn't spin. (News video about the storm here).  The peak wind gusts in our area were 80-100 mph.  And we were without power for so long because on top of the downed trees and power lines around the neighborhoods, some of the big transmission lines were knocked down by the wind.   We are some of the lucky ones to get power so early.  A lot of people don't have power still, and might not have it for a few days.  Church doesn't have power so that has been canceled for the day (our chapel is in the middle of the building and doesn't have windows).  We've been invited to the Arlington wards' sacrament meetings, so at least we'll still get to go to part of church today!


So today, I'm thankful for electricity and for the people who have been working non-stop in the heat to get our power back up!  I'm thankful that I was not born in pioneering times, because I just don't think I'm cut out for it (I realized I like air conditioning way too much!).  I'm thankful for the Arlington wards who are going to let our not-so-small ward join them in their not-so-big building so that we can have the opportunity to go to church and partake of the sacrament even though our building is out of commission.  I'm thankful for cold water and for the fact that we got power back quickly enough to not lose everything in our fridge (we had just gone grocery shopping).  And I'm very thankful that as far as we know none of our friends were injured in the storm. 


If anyone needs AC, someplace to charge a phone, or a cold drink, just stop by, we'll be home most of the day (although if you're reading this, you probably have power too). 

Graduation

Dallin Graduated!!  Hurray!!!  We were so excited and I am so proud of him.  My mom and Dallin's parents were able to come out to visit for his graduation.

He got to wear these great robes, and a funny little beret-ish hat :)

It was fun to talk with some of his friends and professors.  This is Dallin with his friend Corey, and yes his hair is blue.  It's how he showed up to law school the first day.  He did it blue again just for graduation.

The whole motley crew.

Now... on to the bar!

EDIT: I meant now onto the bar exam... not the other kind of bar...just in case you were wondering

Final Final!

Dallin took his last final EVER on Thursday!!!  He was pretty excited.  Unfortunately I've been sick so I wasn't really in the celebratory mood, but it was entertaining just to watch him for a little bit.  He kind of walked around in circles for a few minutes trying to decide what to do.  He was so excited to just be done with school!  I didn't have the heart to remind him that he still has to study for the bar...

In related news, my mom is coming Wednesday and Dallin's parents are coming in Saturday morning for his graduation.  We're excited to have them visiting.  Anyone have any good ideas on what to do with some tourists in DC.  They've all done the monuments and stuff like that, so we're looking for things a little more off the beaten path.

And... We're Back!

So, after the few days in the hotel while we tried to figure out how to get the heck out of Missouri (which is where I wrote our last post), life got kind of crazy!...  go figure.  But here's a video of our last 4 months or so.  Yes, our life is so exciting that four months fits into about 2 minutes!  I know I can  hardly believe it either, we've really got to stop being so exciting.

narration: driving to California... it was long, we saw my Aunt and Cousin and Dallin's Aunt, Uncle, and Cousins (we didn't take pictures... oops) - Christmas Caroling... one of my favorite Christmas traditions! - We went to the beach on Christmas Eve! Hooray for being from So. Cal! - Went to pass around, another fun (and crazy) Christmas tradition - I couldn't find any pictures from Christmas day, but it was fun and we got presents, and went to Church. - We saw a sunset in Utah (and visited with friends and family) - and almost got blown away in Nebraska... It was seriously like hurricane force winds, Dallin wasn't acting (We did get in the car eventually... and hit a deer that night) - We got free tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra (this is just them warming up, we weren't supposed to take video during the performance, or before really) - Occupy DC protesters got kicked out... sorta - I met Captain America - I made a blanket for our friend's little boy who should be born any day now - I had a birthday which involved a fruit basket (thanks mom) walking around DC, and elephants! (I bet no one got you elephants for your birthday) - We saw the cherry blossoms and the tulips (Dallin was a good sport and went with me before work) - and a rainbow - And I FINALLY got my diploma, (YAY) I was worried Dallin would get his before me, even though I graduated almost a year before him.

I think the only thing that didn't make it in there was our pi day party, so just imagine us and friends eating a lot of pie and there you go, you're now caught up on the thrilling adventures of Autumn and Dallin!

Edit: Don't know why the video is a weird size, nor do I know how to fix it... maybe Dallin can do it when he gets home