Last week, our lives were turned upside down for a bit. It was crazy what we experienced, and I'm still trying to mentally recover from it. Now, let me preface this by saying that we were extremely blessed and fortunate, and I know we faired far better than so many Texans, and my heart hurts for them and what our state has gone through.
Growing up in Arkansas, I remember having a week long power outage when I was in college because of ice. We slept downstairs in front of the open fire place, and rode the fourwheeler to my aunt's house for food, because they had a camper and were able to cook. It was a miserable week.
We lived in Indiana for 4 years, so tons and tons of snow isn't anything new. DJ learned to shovel the driveway, and we both learned how to drive in the snow. DJ more so than me, and I was always thankful that Indiana had the equipment to clear the roads.
That being said, Texas is not equipped for snow like the northern states are. We were told that we would have ice and snow. An ice storm moved through on Friday which shocked me. I didn't know any bad weather would start until Sunday, but we got a head start. By Sunday, we had more ice on the ground, and then it snowed Monday, and then we had more ice on Tuesday night.
I read on Sunday night, that we would have rolling power outages, and I was confused as to why it was needed, but whatever. Our power went out around 3 am Monday morning. DJ and I woke up around that time, and we already had two kids sleeping in our room. By Monday morning, we woke up to still not having electricity.
That morning, the girls and I cleaned the upstairs, and DJ decided that we needed to go to a hotel. He called and confirmed that rooms were available and then booked online. Around 2 pm, we left for our hotel.
He had shoveled part of the driveway Monday morning.
We knew that the roads would be bad. Our hotel was in Round Rock, and we decided that we would need to drive side streets, through neighborhoods, and avoid the interstate. It took about 45 minutes to arrive to our hotel. Once we arrived, we learned that the hotel had overbooked and we were without a room.
We started calling other hotels, and everything had been booked. We also realized that restaurants were closed, so it was either- be warm in a hotel without food, or go home and freeze and have food. We decided to go home, and thankfully the trip home was easier, because we saw that I35 was actually cleared off.
At that point, we decided that we could bring our camper home and sleep in it. DJ dropped us off, and went to pick up the camper. Our storage facility has a hill coming out of it, and his truck ended up getting stuck. He couldn't back up because the trailer slid. Eventually, he called me and I called our neighbor asking if he could drive over and help DJ. (I should also mention that we woke up to no cell internet service and that text messages weren't going through and phone calls were spotty.) Our neighbor went to help, but there wasn't much we could do. I was getting worried, because I knew that it shouldn't be taking DJ this long.
Then, a miracle happened. A family was out driving and stopped to help DJ. They had a larger truck and were willing to bring our camper to our house. DJ unhooked the camper from his truck, they hooked it on to the other truck, and drove it to our house. It was around 7 pm, by the time they came home, and I couldn't have been more thankful for these people. 
We turned on the heat using the battery and propane, and carried extra blankets in to the camper. I was able to cook breakfast on Tuesday morning, because we have a gas stove, but on Tuesday, we didn't have water.
We decided to drive to UT and shower at the football office, and traffic was worse than it had been. We also tried to get propane to have extra on hand. Again, the roads were awful and cars were stuck. Thankfully, I35 was clear.
We stayed at the office for a while and ate popcorn.
We showered and the girls were starving, so we thought we would get something for them to eat. Except restaurants around campus were closed. The one restaurant we saw open had a line of people standing outside waiting, and a line of cars. DJ said it looked like a soup kitchen line.
We opted for a campus grocery store and picked up paper plates and sweet tea.
We made it home and started melting snow so we could flush our toilets.
DJ grilled burgers for our dinner.
Meanwhile, Gretchen buried some frozen food in the snow.
Because we don't use candles (and use essential oils) this was our evening light. I had 5 candles on the table (these are decorative ones I had on the coffee table) and I found 1 tealight, and then I had 1 that we had received as a gift.
We also used Adalyn's nightlight that is battery operated.
On Monday morning, when we woke up to no power, I decided to fill a few canisters of water and I'm so thankful we did. By Tuesday, I had realized that being out of water was worse than being out of power.
After dinner, we thought it would be fun to have a fire in the driveway and let the girls roast marshmallows. We also invited our neighbors over. It ended up being a good way to pass the time before going in to the camper to read before bed.
Overnight we received more ice. One of the trees in our front yard was completely bent over.
On Wednesday, we decided that we needed to stay home. With additional ice on top of the road, we knew driving conditions would be even worse. We stayed as warm as we could in the house, and eventually went to DJ's truck to charge phones, the camper battery, and play a round of Uno.
I ended up winning ;)
Coming back in, I realized our aloe vera plant was covered in ice.
I made hot chocolate on the stove to warm us up in the afternoon.
We had on lots and lots of layers. We heated up soup on the grill and made grilled cheese sandwiches for the little girls. DJ decided that he would build another fire outside in order to pass the time. As we were standing outside around the fire, our neighbor's outside lights came on, and it took a few seconds to register what was happening!
These girls were pumped that the power had come back on! It was the biggest feeling of relief.
DJ and I stayed outside around the fire, and I came back in to check on the girls and they had quickly realized that our TV worked again to!
Since our house was still cold and we weren't sure if the power would stay, we opted to sleep in the camper again. Each night, we had read "The Long Winter" from the Little House series before bed.
By Thursday morning, we had power and water! Our house had lots and lots of icicles.
We all had showers again on Thursday and I was able to run the dishwasher. We continue to be under a boil water notice, but running the dishwasher, showering, and washing clothes is fine. We just have to boil any water we drink/ingest.
On Friday, we had friends still without power and water, so they came over to eat lunch, shower, and wash a load of clothes. Thankfully, their power ended up coming back on while they were here.
Texas is still a mess. I read posts every day of people looking for water, milk, bread, eggs. The grocery store lines are long. But the way the community is stepping up brings tears to my eyes. People are still good.
In a year that has separated people, we are coming back together to help each other in times of need.
We know that without our camper we would have been really screwed over. I had been to the grocery store on Friday so we had plenty of food. We were able to use our outside fridge to save food as well as the camper fridge. I had someone ask me on Instagram if I would prepare differently for disasters next time around, and we definitely learned a lot, but we also know how much better we had it than others.
Our Berkey water filter saved us. We could have run melted snow through it and had clean drinking water. We also don't have to boil water even though we are on a boil water notice (side note, I am boiling water and then running it through the Berkey)
Because we had our camper, we had extra dishes and cooking supplies had we needed them.
Because we lived in Indiana, we knew to shovel the driveway and we had snow gear that I had saved.
We are looking in to getting a generator. We can also use it while camping, so it's not like it would just sit. I think we will also keep extra propane on hand.
I'll be starting a box of extra food, cold weather blankets, batteries, flashlights, etc to have on hand as well.
It definitely taught us a huge lesson, and maybe we won't need any of it, or maybe our neighbors will and we can help them out. It's times like this where you really learn to rely on others.
If you're in Texas too, my heart goes out to you. It was a hard hard week.
