We've got power!

A beautiful sight -- lights! And with it, TV, dishwasher, regular refrigeration, the ability to vaccum, and . . . AIR CONDITIONING!!

Oh, and privacy. Here's how we spent the power outage, with all six of us sleeping in our bedroom (keeping cool with a window unit plugged into an extension cord that ran across the street to a neighbor's house that had power).

All in all, our first hurricane was not a horrible experience for us. We were so lucky this happened in September, not August, and that we even got a cool front. (As someone said -- What is the difference between Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ike? 10 degrees.) We also met many neighbors and really enjoyed getting to know them (particularly our neighbor Hilda, who opened up her washing machine to our puke-laden sheets!). But now that we've had the experience, I'm happy to wait at least another few decades for another one.