Juneau - Samuel H.

Juneau

7:00 am I awoke to the sound of the smoke detector going off. The power was out. I felt nervous, is there a fire? I saw my windows covered with snow and heard the wind blowing through the chimney.

8:00 am I bundled into my winter clothes and felt the cold wind on my face. I heard the crunch of snow under my feet and the sound of the shovel against the driveway. I played in the snow with my sisters. We saw the birds trying to eat at the snow covered bird feeders. We felt cold as we removed snow from the chicken coop.

9:00 am The taste of hot chocolate warmed my insides. I could hear the crackling wood in the fireplace and the wind blowing across the chimney. I could smell the smoke. I could see the glow of the fire as I played with my cats.

10:00 am I heard the neighbors voices speaking spanish in the kitchen as they arrived to get warm by our fire.

11:00 am In my room my sisters and I read in my room by the light of the windows. I could not hear my fish tank pump as the electricity was still out.

12:00 pm I saw my sister bring in a card table to the living room to do a puzzle. I saw her add another log to the fire. My mom brought cheese and crackers, nuts and fruit to snack on. I brought a game up from the playroom and set it up to play with my dad. I felt warm and safe with my family.

1:00 pm My dad had to do an errand so I went to my room and played with my legos. I put blankets on top of the birdcage as it was getting colder in my room.

2:00 pm Went back to the living room to warm up. My grandmother, mom and sister were still busy working on the puzzle.

3:00 pm Went outside to build a snow fort with my little sister. I heard the snow crunching and wind blowing. It was quiet inside the fort. My dad came and helped make the fort bigger and better.

4:00 pm We all searched for all the candles in the house as the sun was starting to set. I burned myself with melted wax twice as I moved the candles. I could smell the different scented candles I could hear my mom working in the kitchen as she started to heat up the tomato sauce for dinner. I could smell the gas from the cooktop when it accidentally blew out.

5:00 pm Our neighbors joined us for dinner as they didn’t have a way to cook. We sat by candlelight in the kitchen and I could see the shadow on the ceiling. After dinner I started lighting more candles.

6:00 pm My sisters and I started to search for my cat in the basement with flashlights. It was dark downstairs. We tried to scare my sister with stories of goblins in the basement.

7:00 pm We were all gathered in the living room by the fire and candlelight when the power came back on! We all cheered for we knew that we would soon have more heat.

8:00 pm We checked to see if the cable was back on. We checked the weather on the television to see how much more snow we might get. We saw the notification that we had no school on Wednesday and we all cheered again. We called the neighbors to make plans to get up early and sled so we could have the hill to ourselves. And we did!