Mountain Adventures...

Yesterday was definitely a day to remember! The weather forecast for this week is rain. rain. thunder. lightening. rain. thunder. rain. rain. and more rain. :)

I read on facebook from a neighbor that this was suppose to be a "historic" and "epic" storm...OH GREAT!! I got my candles out, lighters ready, laundry done, house cleaned, flashlights, and headlamp all ready! Bring on the storm. By the way, Andrew is gone this week recruiting in the Northwest..perfect timing!

Well, Monday morning at about 9:15AM the power went out. We had been informed that morning that there was a tree that fell on powerlines on the road out of camp. Bummer! Minutes later someone told us there was a tree that fell the other direction out of camp. You have got to be kidding me! We were completely stranded!!! Luckily, the tree that fell on the power line was soon removed.

On Monday nights I have my high school small group. I was trying to decide if I would tackle the mountain roads to head into town. This week we had small group at one of the girls house whose family I absolutely LOVE! The husband happened to be out of town that night and they had invited me to spend the night with just the girls. I said alright. This is where the story gets good...

It took me about 20 min. to pack up the car. (Ruthie was coming with me of course!) The second I walk out the door, the power comes back on. I still left anyway. I am now on the road out of camp and see a bunch of cars stopped up ahead and people getting out of their cars, while others are turning around. Meanwhile, my puppy in the back, sees all the people and begins to bark non-stop. OH MY GOSH! A man walked up and told me that a tree had fallen down and no one was there to fix it yet, so we better just turn around.

I called Andrew. Remember he is in Portland. Oh, I should probably tell you that I have absolutely NO gas. My gas light was on and it was just about to hit the white line...EMPTY. AWESOME. Well I had decided to take a back way into town. This back road has three roads that can lead to town. I began driving and I came to the first road...ROAD CLOSED. I continue driving on this road and get to the next road...ROAD CLOSED! You can imagine my frustration and definitely on the verge of tears! I called Andrew again. He convinced me to call it a day and head back to camp. When I needed to go into town next, one of the facilities guys here at camp could just put some gas in my car. I had just turned around to go home when Andrew calls me and tells me to go towards UCSC (University of California - Santa Cruz)..the third way to town and try and get gas there and then go spend the night in town. I said alright..probably crying at this point...and head back towards UCSC. I FINALLY make it to a gas station and am so glad. Andrew calls to make sure I got there ok and while he is still on the phone I say.."OH NO!"....

"I forgot my purse!!!" Ok this is like the adventure of all time. Unbelievable!!! Andrew called a friend who lives nearby to see if they would come over and lend me some money for gas..I was STUCK! AND...How awful to have to ask someone for money for something as expensive as gas!!! The friend apparently didn't answer so I ended up calling his wife..twice! No answer. Meanwhile, Andrew was calling my cousin, Nathan, to see if he could borrow a car and come save me. Nathan was about to leave when my friend Hannah called me back and said there were 5 min. from me and would come help me out! What a relief. The story gets better...This family was so incredibly sweet because they paid for my gas and didn't want me to pay them back. What a God thing! :) Thank you Hannah and Kevin!!!

I ended up spending the night in town and came back up to camp today to POWER!! I am frantically writing this, even though it's a novel, before the power goes out again. There was LOUD thunder and some lightning earlier and I think little Ruthie was a little scared. (Mom, I am fine!)

All this to say, the storm isn't over and the worse is yet to come...or so they say!

Christmas in Colorado.

WOW, what a whirlwind it has been. We were gone a total of 16 days! I was so excited to be home in our house with our bed and our life. We had a great time in Colorado and I actually felt that I connected with my sister-in-law a lot more on this trip.

I will have to say that I will probably never do that road trip again. It was actually a very cool drive because we saw antelope, heard the history of many places and we even gambled on the way home. (Andrew won $40 bucks!) But, a small car with 4 adults and two dogs is not a good idea! Although, the other dog, Ginger, wanted nothing to do with Ruthie...I guess worked out for the road trip! HA! Andrew did get pulled over once in New Mexico with just a warning for speeding...and he called us the Republic of California! :) Nothing else TOO alarming happened.

While in Colorado, we celebrated Jenni's (Andrew's sister) 40th birthday. We were able to just lounge around and even watch the snow fall for one day. I was surprised it only snowed one day as the last time we were there it snowed the WHOLE time. Unlike Portland, the snow stuck around because it was so cold!

Well, I was hoping to post pictures but for some reason I can't even see the button to upload...what a bummer. The joys of living at a camp with unreliable internet. Gotta love it, right? Stay tuned for more.

We bought a car!

Yes, it's true! We traded in my 2003 Nissan Altima for a brand new 2010 Subaru Forester.  This car is awesome! It's a great car for the mountain roads (AWD) and now our puppy has the back all to herself...SO GREAT! :) 

The car is dark grey and light grey in the inside. The inside shows the outside temperature (which is awesome!) and it also shows you your average mpg (which is also very cool). Oh, another cool feature, is that it has an auxillary outlet for you to plug your ipod right in...so cool! We love it and it drives great! We are down to one car and I think it will be doable for us at this point in our lives. Andrew works downstairs at the camp we live at and I nanny in town Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. PERFECT! (Or so I hope) I feel like I have so much I want to blog about from the Holidays so if the internet cooperates, you better keep up!