Power Damage!

As the evening progressed, it became clear that our 40% chance of thunderstorms had increased to about, oh, I'd say ninety-nine-pointy-one. When the storm hit us, it was raging: the thunder was loud, the lightning was constant, the rain was...wet. Our power flickered a few times in the midst of everything, but it didn't go out until after we thought we were through everything.

We'd just gotten Alexander and Phoebe into their jammies and were about to gather for scriptures and prayer when...everything went dark. It was still light enough outside that this wasn't a huge deal, but Phoebe thought it was the best thing ever!

She was so tired-hyper. She could hardly stop laughing.

Here's another video I made her take so that she could explain about the "power damage" that we had (she says that instead of "outage").

While Andrew was putting her to bed, I read in the music/living room with Alexander. He was a little disappointed because (1) he's a little under the weather so (2) he didn't get to go to Grandpa's house and then (3) he wasn't even able to have his consolation prize of a bag of microwave popcorn and an episode of a show of his choosing because...there was no power. 

We were spelling out a lot of this to him, but Phoebe figured out from all the other words we used that we were obviously talking about microwaving something to eat. 

"What if I just want a bowl of cereal?" she asked. "Don't have to microwave that!"

"You don't need cereal. It's bedtime."

"But in the morning."

"That is an excellent solution for breakfast in the morning if the power is still out."

Good thing we have her around!

Anyway, we put her to bed (Andrew stayed on her floor until...she fell asleep...and she was still asleep when the power came back on so she's none the wiser) and I read on the floor with Alexander. 

He made a lamp using his phone flashlight, a toilet game, and some books. 

It was shining in his face, though, so he figured out how to angle the light down.

And then he started playing with the plunger and the light. The plunger turns a little translucent with the flashlight shining through this, but didn't let out enough light to read by...so then he turned to magnatiles and could turn his light almost any colour he wanted:

He used the tiles to "mix" colours together and cast coloured shadows against the wall. Then Andrew came down with the idea that Alexander could have some time on the Switch because that can run on battery power for quite a long time...so Alexander played a little Zelda before bed.

And then Andrew and I sat and read until the girls got home from camp (driving in the dark, dark neighbourhood all by themselves) and then we sat around talking about camp in the dark, dark living room...and then the power finally came back on and we sent the girls to bed because...we have to get up and clean the church in the morning.

Here's Andrew with the reading lamp he borrowed from Zoë with a little handheld fan blowing out him (we were all just so glad the power went out today and not the first half of the week when it was so, so hot):