Hope your weekend is going well so far and that you had a fantastic Christmas celebration.

Our Christmas celebration in Toronto was awesome but was interrupted briefly due to the recent record breaking ice storm.  I’m happy that we made it home safe and sound and to be able to share our experience with you.  How did we end up in Toronto for Christmas?  Well, it’s been a little over 2 years since our last visit to Toronto, Canada to see hubby’s family.  The boys were 6 months old at the time and they were easy to travel with.  We decided not to visit anywhere until they were a little older, a little wiser…possibly a little more independent.  When our travel bug bit us a few months ago there were 3 places that we were considering; Sicily (hubby’s roots), Argentina (hubby’s birthplace), or Toronto (hubby’s childhood place).

After hours and days of discussions, phone calls to relatives, and countless research on Google and Department of Defense regarding crimes, it became clear that Toronto would be our next family vacation spot.  Not only it is the cleanest and safest city to visit but it is also the place where the boys will get to see their Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, cousins, and other family members.  We thought Christmas, a time of family gathering, would be the perfect time to visit.  I secretly hoped that it will snow so that the boys could experience a white Christmas.  Well, it did more than that…the universe decided to throw a record breaking ice storm in the mix during the beginning of our travel following a white Christmas on Christmas day.

It was the best of time and worst of time to travel.  The airport was practically empty.  Our flight departed 20 minutes late and arrived an hour late due to the ice storm.  During the flight the boys had to adjust to their new environment.  Dante, the social butterfly, made a new friend sitting next to him while Alexander refused to buckle his seat belt.  I was able to calm him down 10 minutes later after bribing him with his favorite toys and snacks.

We settled in my mother-in-law’s house that night and for the rest of the trip.  We received a phone call the next late morning from her sister-in-law letting us know that the power just went off at her house.  While my mother-in-law was on the call I saw the lights flickering back and forth.  Hubby and I looked at each other with the look of “Oh Sh*t”.  An hour after hanging up the phone our lights went out.  We became one of the 750,000+ people that day that had no electricity since the storm hit.  When there’s no electricity there’s no heater, which is one of the basic survival requirements if you live in a cold place like Toronto.

Luckily hubby’s sister house, half an hour away, still had power.  We packed the clothes that we had unpacked the night before, packed the food, and packed the blow up bed getting ready to put the stuff into my mother-in-law’s car.  Well, her car was not accessible because it was stuck in the garage.  The car was stuck in the garage because it required electricity to open the garage door.  However, you can still open the garage door manually during an emergency situation like this but that would require a key to open the latch.  The key was missing…yes it was missing and we couldn’t leave the house on our own accord..it’s Murphy’s law!

Our only solution was to contact his sister so that we can head over sooner and stay for the night (we were hopeful then that the electricity would restore 24 hours later).  His sister came to pick up the 5 of us but how would we fit 6 people in a 5 seating car?  You do what you can to fit everyone in a small area in times of emergency.   Hubby sat in the middle of the back seat between the two toddler seats and I squatted (that’s one of my Chinese great traits :)) on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

During the ride, we could see branches on the trees covered in ice and also listening to the snapping of branches.  It was exciting for me because I have never seen anything like this before.  It was chilling at the same time because of the unknown.  The iced branches can fall and hit our car or block the road.

While we celebrated our family get together that afternoon and later into the night there were more people losing power.  Although we did not anticipate staying in a house with 4 toddler boys (you can just imagine the damage these boys had done to the house) it was comforting to know that we were rescued and being fed with delicious food while accompanied by our loved ones.  It’s been 7 days since the icy storm had hit Toronto that left 750,000+ people without power.  As I write this, there are still 65,000 people left that did not get their power restored since the storm.  God bless them and I hope they will get their power back very soon.

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Thank you so much for visiting and have a fabulous day!