Everyone say, "Power outage!"
The electricity went off before I could make chop suey for National Chop Suey Day on August 29. Usually when the electricity goes off, it lasts for a few seconds then comes back on. This time we waited for several minutes before I checked our neighborhood Facebook page on my phone to see if it affected others. It did. The estimate was that power would be back on by 8:30pm. The kids couldn't do chores, I couldn't make dinner, some other things wouldn't work out. Well... even though we had already gone out birding earlier that day to see common nighthawks on River Lane (and other birds- Jr. Jr. loved all the swallows flying around),
I knew Jr. Jr. and Lucky really wanted to go back to Bridal Veil Falls to throw rocks in the river after
we did that the day Jeremy and the older kids got home, so I suggested that. Everyone was in favor of that idea so we headed out to Bridal Veil Falls, which was packed, as was everywhere else in the canyon (last Saturday evening in August and a lot of people were having wedding receptions). Jeremy mentioned that throwing rocks in the Provo River where people might be rafting might not be the best idea anyway.
New plan. We went home (power still out) and grabbed granola bars, chips, and some jerky for a makeshift dinner in the van. We thought that since farther up the Provo River wouldn't work, we'd head farther downstream closer to where it empties into the lake, but not at Utah Lake State Park as that would be just as crowded. As we were driving, I thought of a place to try along the Provo River Parkway. Turns out it was a great spot. There was parking available, not too many people on the parkway there, no people floating down the river as it was too shallow (which also made me not worried about the boys falling in), and there was an area down off the parkway where the boys could run around and throw their rocks. Also, as it got darker, there was light shining right on them from street lamps. And the sunset was gorgeous.
At one point, Nichole and I walked to a nearby tunnel and Nichole got pictures of
spiders.
Hooray! It worked out and when we got home, the electricity was back on so we could all get ready for bed with light.
Finding the silver lining, we had a fun family adventure.
Since we didn't get to eat chop suey, we still celebrated the holiday by watching the chop suey song/scene in the movie,
Flower Drum Song, before bed. I had been singing that song all week in preparation for the holiday and every time I looked at the menu plan.
