When it Rains...

And that's NOT where it ended, folks. Kasey called me from our house, once they had successfully broken in, and informed me that they could not find the keys. Poor Kasey had searched through every nook and cranny of my home, going through dirty laundry, neglected drawers and cobweb filled corners (I praise God for a friend like Kasey who won't judge me by the lack of attention my home has gotten in the past few weeks).

Once she and Ben had admitted that there was no hope of them finding the keys, they drove the 20 minutes to Hawaii Kai to pick us up. All eight of us loaded up into their matching Honda Odyssey, left ours their in the parking lot, and headed home.

Once home, Paul and I did our own search through the house to look for the keys, thinking that perhaps in their unfamiliarity of all the secret spaces in our home, they had possibly overlooked them. Nope. No keys. Paul and I racked our brains trying to think of every possible place we could've left them.

Well, we were at Ryan and Jacquie's house the previous day for our Christmas festivities so Paul headed out to walk over there. Once there, they searched high and low and finally, at Ryan's suggestion, Paul checked their car. There they were. Paul rode with them Christmas night to go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and must have left his keys in their car. Funny thing about this is that Paul texted me on his way home from the movies and asked me to please leave the front door unlocked for him if I was headed to bed. He had totally forgotten that he had his keys with him!

So, Paul got a friend to take him back up to Hawaii Kai to pick up the van, and on his way home, he called me. It was 6:30 pm at this point and I had just bathed the girls and was in the midst of their bedtime routine when I answered his call. It went something like this,

"Babe, you're not going to believe this."

"What!?! Did someone vandalize the car?"

"No. I forgot my wallet."

"O-Kay?"

"SO, I can't get on base without my ID and I don't have my driver's license either. I'm ridin' dirty."

"Paul...please tell me you're kidding. I don't have a car. It's dark. The girl's are bathed and it's thundering and lightning outside. It could start pouring any second."

"I know, Hun. But there's no other option. I need you to walk down to the back gate and meet me there with my wallet. Otherwise, I could get a ticket."

silence...

more silence...

smoke coming out of my ears...

"Fine."

So, I loaded up the girl's in their strollers, and started the 3/4 mile trek to the back gate of the base. About 50 yards out from the guard shack, the power went out. All over base...all over the island! I couldn't even see the sidewalk in front of me because even the street lights were out. I slowed my walking which was frustrating because I could see where Paul was parked just outside the gate which only made me want to hurry.

When I finally reached the guard shack, the guards were running around frantic trying to get the barriers up to keep people from coming on or off base. They asked me what the heck I was doing out and I explained the situation. One of the guards ran towards Paul to motion to him to hurry up and get on base. They were so kind. They allowed me to vouch for Paul with my military ID and even looked the other way when we had to load everyone up in the van sans car seats (which is a big no-no!).

When we got home, we looked up at our dark, powerless house and decided that maybe we should head back out and find somewhere to hang until our power came back on. But only minutes later, we learned that EVERYONE was out of power. Not just Hickam AFB, the entire island of Oahu was out of power. (Even Barack Obama who is vacationing here with his family was out of power!)

We had a nutritious dinner of chips and gold fish (as we didn't want to open our fridge in fear of letting out the cold air) and put the girl's in bed. Thankfully, Paul and are used to sleeping with our windows open so we actually had a restful night and the power finally came back on at 5:30 this morning.