I am trying to write in between power outages and getting the kids' school done. We were without power late Sat night until this morning. There have been many strong storms coming through and city power has been very sparse so the batteries we have as back up don't have enough time to charge. Hope fully we'll have "the beast" generator hooked up and running tomorrow that will be back up to the back up batteries.

Sunday night was a bit comical. We had no fans all day so we were all roasting. We all took showers early because we were afraid we'd run out of water with no electric to pump the water from the cistern to the water tanks on the roof. Without the fans, we were all hot and sweaty by bedtime anyway. Without fans in our rooms, it gets too hot so we decided to sleep out on our balcony like we did the first two nights. The problem is that even with bug spray on, the kids are getting bites. We had two mosquito nets here (thanks Rick) so Jeff got them all rigged up over two mattresses, got our mattresses moved out. We had out lantern going, just sat down with some coffee and a movie on the laptop when yet another storm decided to move through. Jeff and I scrambled to get all the mattresses huddled together in the corner so we could keep them dry. Kind of fun, camping out!
Monday, we had power for most of the day. Enough to pump water up to the tanks and to get school done. We are so very thankful for those two things. Dinner by lantern, another evening on the balcony to thunderstorms. Kind of fun!
We still have some things to figure out...how to do laundry??? When to make dinner so I'm not using unnecessary power in lighting. How to do things without using too much power while we have it. We are so very thankful for the electric we have when we have it and the water we have. We're laughing about things like making coffee the old fashion way, then the power coming on. God has been so faithful to us. We are good! The kids are doing great.
thank you all for prayers and encouragement, it is truly felt. We love to skype when we have power and we love getting emails and facebook messages!
blessings to you and your families!
~Deb