Guess who isn't prepared?

As I was working on goals for the new year a few days ago, I wrote down "check preparedness supplies and 72 hour kits." Well, on Monday we had the opportunity to get a firsthand look at our family's preparedness level.

After dinner we sat down for family home evening (writing thank you notes and goals) and then prepared for a round of family Rock Band when . . . . the lights went out. And it was very, very dark. Quick, we thought, run for the flashlights, which are conveniently hanging out all together in the kitchen cupboard. Problem - not one of them would light. Dan shuffled in the dark to the battery drawer and started loading in new D batteries. Still, no light. So, dead batteries or defective flashlights or both . . . we don't know.

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Instead we used Joseph's Star Wars lightsaver to go into the garage to find the camping lantern. While there, we also grabbed our super-cool emergency lantern/radio/TV which is powered by a crank. Or, so we thought. When we pulled it out of the box to power it up, we found that it FIRST needs to be charged for 12 hours or be loaded with 9 C batteries. Oops - it would be no help to us in its current state.

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So, we have some work to do to be prepared for a real emergency! At least we discovered that fact when there was no real danger involved.

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The power stayed out for a few hours. The kids thought it was a lot of fun. Joseph talked Aubrey into sleeping on the floor in his tiny bedroom (which is a sitting room off of our room). They called it a "dark party" and were giddy with the novelty of it. They were so disappointed when the lights came back on just before they settled down for sleep.

Very cool emergency device which was not helpful at all.