Planned Power Outage That We Didn't Know Was Planned Adventure

We've had adventures with unplanned power outages before. We've had adventures with planned power outages before.

In July we had an adventure with what was a planned power outage but we didn't know it was planned. I looked up on our neighborhood Facebook page after the power went out. Someone mentioned a planned power outage was scheduled in the neighborhood. We did not know this. That's okay, though. 

We still had an adventure.

It was the middle of the day so there was enough light coming in my bedroom window that people congregated in there.

Jr. brought in his guitar to serenade us. Jet brought his kazoo to join in.

I showed Jr. Jr. how he could juggle lying down.

I started reading Anne of Green Gables.

According to what people said on Facebook, the power outage could have lasted for several hours but it didn't last that long. I guess the power company got taken care of what they needed to get taken care of quickly. Woohoo. We still got our adventure.

General Conference

General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was October 5 and 6. Wonderful conference. So much about staying close to the Lord.

We had our traditional Conference Nachos and we had activities for kids. Conference Squares (Bingo). Snuggles. Note taking. Etcetera.

Since Northern Lights were supposed to be happening at some point, we decided to go out looking, just in case (we had some late nights). Friday night a few of us went around West Mountain to look North over the lake. We didn't see any Northern Lights but we saw a barn owl fly right in front of us. I love barn owls.

Saturday night a few of us stopped at Deer Creek Reservoir to look for the lights. We didn't see them then, either, but we were able to do service for some people late that night. These people were going to watch General Conference on Sunday and their vehicle broke down where we were. We were able to give two of them a ride (the exact number of seats we had since Nichole and Jr. stayed home) to a relative's house while the third stayed to work on their vehicle. It does feel good to do service.

Sunday morning the power went out. We got a notification that it would be back on around 11am so Nichole, Jeremy, and I went out for a drive and listened to the first session on the van radio.

We were able to watch the other session with the boys at home.

Planned Power Outage... Again

We knew the electricity was going to be off again one day so we had some fun. Instead of going out that day, we stayed in and played games and made shadow puppets on the wall.

 

Lucky is pretty good with his shapes. Jet absolutely loved seeing them and interacting with them.

 

Even when the power came back on we kept playing and enjoyed ourselves.

Family time! Woohoo!

Power Outage Adventure

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.

Pumpkin Pie

Let me tell you about our Thanksgiving pumpkin pie.
Wednesday evening I was originally planning to make the pumpkin pie so the only thing to use the oven for on Thanksgiving Day was the turkey.  However, there was a storm Wednesday evening.  Wind, lightning, thunder.  Then it snowed.  The power went out.  It was kind of exciting.  Luckily, Jeremy had already finished heating up the brine for the turkey and the dishwasher had already finished washing and was on the drying setting.
We had some fun with the lights out finding flashlights and candles.  We all went to bed somewhat early before the power came back on.
I got up early Thursday and decided to get the pie done so there wouldn't be anything in the way of the turkey.  Lucky woke up and helped me.  I thought I was smart and put aluminum foil down on the oven rack before setting the frozen pie crusts down.  Then I used a measuring cup to pour pie filling into the crusts.  I thought I could fill them more full that way.  Only a little bit of pie filling spilled onto the foil.  I was thrilled. 
Then I tried to push the oven rack back into the oven.  Ha Ha Ha Ha.  Splash splash splash.  Drip drip drip.  Ugh.  I turned off the oven, very carefully lifted the pies onto a cookie sheet on the stovetop, and mostly cleaned up the drips on the bottom of the oven.  I put new foil on the rack and very carefully put the pies back down and very carefully pushed the rack back in.  Sigh.
When the pies were done, I realized that because of all the dripping, the pie pans were stuck to the foil.  I was able to get one out but as I was getting the other one out, well... I tipped it a little too much. 

But you know what?  Eh, it's just pie.  Jr. Jr. walked into the room while I was getting the camera to take a picture.  He commented about us still being able to eat it, maybe about how it will still taste the same.  That's the right attitude.  I had the same attitude.  It's not like it was ruined.  I don't care that much about look, more about taste.  It tasted good, by the way.

So those were our Thanksgiving adventures.  The turkey turned out well.  Really yummy.  All the other food was good.  And a great family to share it with.  So much to be thankful for.

November 24 was also Celebrate Your Unique Talent Day.  A talent we had was saving two wishbones about a year to finally break them on Thanksgiving Day this year.  Wow, we're talented.