So last night the internet and satellite TV died.
During the night the electricity died.
The electricity made the water pump to die, and the water supply.
It’s late evening and I still have a very short battery life left in my laptop, and the light of the screen illuminates the living room – the only other lights are a few candles burning and the glow from the fire in the wood burning stove.
There was two feet snow in our front yard when we woke up on the morning, and both of our cards were covered. We thought we had experienced the wildest mountain moments already earlier this week, when the herd of elk and the pack of coyotes had a not so nice encounter in our front lawn in the middle of the night and all that was left for us to see on the morning was a leg of a baby elk. Let’s just say that I don’t like go out at dark anymore. Or even let my dog to go out at dark.
But now it is the real deal, experiencing the mountain side living during the winter storm. We have spent the whole day outside shoveling the snow and just getting our cars out. Luckily we have a wood burning stove in the corner of our living room to keep the house warm – and now it’s actually hot in here!
While we have been hoping to do some good old Colorado camping with the kids, we didn’t really expect to do camping in our home, nor in the middle of the winter…
Our neighbor and a friend, who is also from Finland, saw us outside first thing this morning and he was totally excited about getting his snow toys out (like a huge tractor with snow chains) and clear some mountain roads for us. “You should love this, this is your element” said he to me, and I, still in my Juicy Couture sweat pants, standing in the knee high snow, just smiled.
While the first reaction when we woke up to the cold house, snowed in house and no electricity (or a morning latte), was a bit of a shock, we really had an amazing day, and so much fun. Let’s just say that a reality check was well timed, and this home style surviving camp is good for me and Matt. Even after the roads were cleared and we heard there was electricity downtown, only a 10 minute drive away, we didn’t pack the kids in the car, and drive for a dinner in our favorite restaurant.
Well, we might have done it, if we hadn’t taken a first snow day glasses of wine already at lunch time – just to keep warm, you know, and we needed another candle stick made from the empty wine bottle. We moved here this fall and all our candle sticks are still in some mysterious moving box in unknown location, so mom’s gotta do what mom’s gotta do.
We grilled salmon and potatoes in the grill in our front yard, and since we had some heavy cream for cooking, which would have gone bad by tomorrow, we also made some flaming bananas (in French Cognac of course), with real whipped cream (hand whipped, my arm is still hurting!). The whole valley was pitch dark, we could only see a small glow coming out of some of our neighbors windows from their candles, and we did some real gourmet flaming in the grill, watching our backs for coyotes.
There was no pressure to do laundry. Kids didn’t beg for TV or computer games.
We worked out butts off at the yard and carrying more wood in, and trying to move all the fallen tree branches off. We played cards and just had a wonderful family time together.
I even showed kids how we can make water by melting snow, and they got a kick of washing their faces at bed time in the warm “snow water”.
The wine has never tasted so good, and I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I’m writing this after having a few glasses – in a day like this, I deserved the nectar of the grapes!
Tomorrow morning is a school day, and I’m hoping my phone battery will last ’till the morning hours to wake us up, I just realized we don’t even own a battery operated alarm clock. I am prepared to cuddle up in the front of the fire with Matt and watch for the fire the whole night while kids are snugly asleep in their own beds.
It’s funny that sometimes in life the worst thing that happens is the best thing that happens.
During the night the electricity died.
The electricity made the water pump to die, and the water supply.
It’s late evening and I still have a very short battery life left in my laptop, and the light of the screen illuminates the living room – the only other lights are a few candles burning and the glow from the fire in the wood burning stove.
There was two feet snow in our front yard when we woke up on the morning, and both of our cards were covered. We thought we had experienced the wildest mountain moments already earlier this week, when the herd of elk and the pack of coyotes had a not so nice encounter in our front lawn in the middle of the night and all that was left for us to see on the morning was a leg of a baby elk. Let’s just say that I don’t like go out at dark anymore. Or even let my dog to go out at dark.
But now it is the real deal, experiencing the mountain side living during the winter storm. We have spent the whole day outside shoveling the snow and just getting our cars out. Luckily we have a wood burning stove in the corner of our living room to keep the house warm – and now it’s actually hot in here!
While we have been hoping to do some good old Colorado camping with the kids, we didn’t really expect to do camping in our home, nor in the middle of the winter…
Our neighbor and a friend, who is also from Finland, saw us outside first thing this morning and he was totally excited about getting his snow toys out (like a huge tractor with snow chains) and clear some mountain roads for us. “You should love this, this is your element” said he to me, and I, still in my Juicy Couture sweat pants, standing in the knee high snow, just smiled.
While the first reaction when we woke up to the cold house, snowed in house and no electricity (or a morning latte), was a bit of a shock, we really had an amazing day, and so much fun. Let’s just say that a reality check was well timed, and this home style surviving camp is good for me and Matt. Even after the roads were cleared and we heard there was electricity downtown, only a 10 minute drive away, we didn’t pack the kids in the car, and drive for a dinner in our favorite restaurant.
Well, we might have done it, if we hadn’t taken a first snow day glasses of wine already at lunch time – just to keep warm, you know, and we needed another candle stick made from the empty wine bottle. We moved here this fall and all our candle sticks are still in some mysterious moving box in unknown location, so mom’s gotta do what mom’s gotta do.
We grilled salmon and potatoes in the grill in our front yard, and since we had some heavy cream for cooking, which would have gone bad by tomorrow, we also made some flaming bananas (in French Cognac of course), with real whipped cream (hand whipped, my arm is still hurting!). The whole valley was pitch dark, we could only see a small glow coming out of some of our neighbors windows from their candles, and we did some real gourmet flaming in the grill, watching our backs for coyotes.
There was no pressure to do laundry. Kids didn’t beg for TV or computer games.
We worked out butts off at the yard and carrying more wood in, and trying to move all the fallen tree branches off. We played cards and just had a wonderful family time together.
I even showed kids how we can make water by melting snow, and they got a kick of washing their faces at bed time in the warm “snow water”.
The wine has never tasted so good, and I’m not even embarrassed to admit that I’m writing this after having a few glasses – in a day like this, I deserved the nectar of the grapes!
Tomorrow morning is a school day, and I’m hoping my phone battery will last ’till the morning hours to wake us up, I just realized we don’t even own a battery operated alarm clock. I am prepared to cuddle up in the front of the fire with Matt and watch for the fire the whole night while kids are snugly asleep in their own beds.
It’s funny that sometimes in life the worst thing that happens is the best thing that happens.
This is Day 6 in Blog 365, posted a few days late.
