The UnWelcome Home Party.

So, cell phone coverage in the Black Hills is shotty at best. Christopher's parents tried calling us Saturday. We didn't get the messages until Sunday. It took four tries but he finally got through. I guess it was a good thing. They wanted to tell us that a big thunderstorm had come through our neighborhood on Friday. It brought with it the largest hail they have ever seen. "Oh, and we think your house has been struck by lightning." Um, what? Yeah, it appeared half of our house was without electricity. Just half, mind you. It just happened to be the half that took care of our air conditioning AND our fridge. They had stopped by to water the plants [outside] and for some reason went inside. Only to find our fridge and freezer had defrosted and ran all over the kitchen floor. (Side note, I had actually managed to go grocery shopping before we left and had the freezer stocked with food for the coming week. Best laid plans, hunh?) Oh, and it was a thousand degrees inside our house. Not a whole lot we can do about that on vacation. On our way home, Christopher got ahold of the electric company. (Not to be confused with The Electric Company...) After having to work a little too hard to convince the nice phone lady that he was indeed the only account holder at this address, he was able to request that someone go to our house and check it out. In the 10 years we have lived here, three of our neighbors have had this happen and have had to fight with KCPL to get them to admit that the problem was theirs and that they should fix it. When he checked in a few hours later and was told a serviceman had been by but all looked good and we would be charged for a service visit. To say we were a little heated as we continued our 5 hour drive to who knows what would be an understatement. But we trucked on. Really, what else where we going to do? We pulled in to our driveway about 6:00PM. Christopher and I ran inside. We unloaded our dirty clothes, packed some new clothes and headed to the grandparents'. (Yet another blessing to having them live just down the street.) Fortunately, Grandma was taking care of dinner. Unfortunately, we would all be sleeping in the same room. (One of the best things about vacation is returning home all exhausted and knowing that everyone will be sleeping in for days to come - when they are all in their own rooms, that is.) After we got everyone to sleep, daddy and grandpa headed back over the house to do a little recon. Turns out it really wasn't the electricity. Our air conditioner was acting up. (Sorry for all the mean thoughts, KCPL.) Wednesday afternoon, we got someone to come and look at that. The compressor had blown. Air conditioner? 7 years old... That shouldn't happen. I stopped by the house to start some laundry. Got a load washed and tried putting it in the dryer. Nothing. The dryer turned on, mind you, it just wouldn't spin. So I loaded up all the wet clothes and headed BACK to grandma's with even more "stuff". Just keeps getting better, hunh? We did our best to stay out of grandma's house as we knew we would be back for dinner and the evening. I did leave the kids there for a while while I went back over to the house and cleaned out the fridge and freezer. Oh, fun times. Thursday, the repairman came. $700 later (for a part under warranty, mind you) and we were up and running. Of course, with it being 1,000 degrees outside and having been without air for so long, the house was not comfortable enough to be in until Friday night. SO, that was the air conditioning. Now, on to the fridge... All this time the fridge was plugged in with an extension cord running in to the living room. Sunday afternoon, Christopher and his dad undertook what was to be a simple outlet replacement. 20 minutes was the estimation. 8 hours later, they had restored electricity to that outlet BUT another random section of the house was now electricity-free. Monday an electrician came out and found the problem relatively quickly. Tuesday while we were having breakfast, I noticed the fridge was out again. I tried plugging the extension cord in to the other side of the kitchen. Nothing. So the cord went back in to the living room. After the kids went to bed, Christopher got to work - AGAIN. Being the smarty he is, he found the problem rather quickly and the kitchen was up and running again. So far, so good. But we are taking nothing for granted!!!