Hot enough for ya?

On this incredibly hot and humid day I'm reminded of last Tuesday...

(cue flashback music)

I woke up in the morning expecting a very normal, low-key day. Morning walking plans with a friend got canceled, so I decided to check the weather to see if it might be a good day to invade Grandma and Grandpa's pool (tired of us yet, Grandma?)

Lo and behold, the hourly forecast predicted cloudless skies and steadily increasing temperatures throughout the day, reaching past 90! Yep, it's a swimming day. So I called Grandma to invite ourselves over, but she had a morning appointment so we planned to come down after lunch. That left us the morning to chill out at home, turn on the a/c if it got too hot, and leisurely pack up for the trip down to Burnsville.

Not so.

At about 10:30, right when I was starting to debate whether open windows and fans were keeping us cool enough, I heard a strange noise.... I think the fridge just stopped running. Crud. Then I looked up- lo and behold, the fan was starting to spin slower and slower. Power outage!! I called the power company- all they could tell me was that it could take up to four hours to fix. No big deal, right? I was planning to leave anyways, let's just bump up the departure time a couple of hours. I called my parents and packed up the kids quickly; the house was heating up fast.

Out to the garage we went- a little stifling, but no worries, we'd be out of there in no time! (Ahh, you see where this is going, right?) I pressed the garage button... nothing. So I did what I always do in these situations- I called Paul. He told me where the lever was to release the door, but then the door wouldn't stay open so I called him again. He told me how I could try to lock it in place, but that didn't work so I called him again. He even offered to take an early lunch break and come home to help me, but I think he knew I could figure it out.

In the meantime, I found out from John Rogers that the power was out all over the area- even across the river into St. Paul! This could take longer than we thought. He offered to come help with the garage (Thanks John!) but I finally figured out how to prop it open with a ladder before he had to make his way over.

I pulled the car out of the garage, blasting the a/c- I'm so thankful that cars aren't connected to the city power grid. Finally, we were on our way to the pool! Now the city can take its time fixing the power, we're in the clear.

Literally three minutes after I had pulled away from the house, I got a call from John. "Hey, just wanted to let you know the power's back on!"

Super. Great timing, Xcel Energy!

Oh well, we went and enjoyed a full day in the water anyways. Max has turned into a little fish lately! He spent over four hours in the pool with Shanni and Sawyer. So much for a quiet day at home!