I never appreciated my electricity before moving to Northport

This morning we had our 3rd power outage of this winter. Maybe some of you are like I used to be and could use a refresher on what it means to be ready for a power outage. Well, first of all no power means no heat. In Bellingham, my preparedness consisted of having some blankets. That won't cut it here in the zero degree weather. My first thoughts when the power goes out now--do we have enough wood for the fireplace and kerosene for the heater. Not only do we need to keep ourselves warm, but the pump house and our house need to be warm enough that the pipes don't freeze. Which brings me to my next concern. No power means the water pump doesn't work so there's only 1 flush of the toilets and no washing or drinking water from the taps until power is restored. Do you have enough water stored? I love baby wipes for all our cleaning needs during power outages. Also I check to see if we have enough disposable plates and utensils to use for eating since we can't do dishes. It seems the outages always catch me when I have a stack of dishes to do, and they just have to sit there until power comes back. Then I think what do I have to feed my family that requires no cooking? A lot of sandwiches happen. As well as canned fruits and anything from the fridge that will go bad. Yes we could cook outside on a campstove or BBQ but that means freezing your patutti off and not really having a good heat source in the house to help you come back up to tempurature afterwards. Is your cell phone charged and ready? Where are the matches and the candles? Can you find them in the dark? I just don't recall ever thinking about these kind of things like I have to now. Here's hoping the rest of the winter has no extended power outages. We've been blessed that so far none of them have lasted more than 12 hours. I love electricity!

The mail.

The picture below is us getting our mail. Our mail box is about 200 yards from our house, so I can't just grab it. We get to go for a short walk each day to get it. It's nice that there's still no snow. I suppose when it comes, I'll just pull the twins on a sled instead of pushing them in a stroller. Maybe one day it will be bad enough that I'll think of driving to the mail box.:-)














We now get Netflix through the mail! It is our excitement, since there is no cable in all of Northport and we choose not to get satellite and there is no Blockbuster or anything like unto it for 45 miles. The girls picked out a DVD with Hannah Montana episodes on it. Belle put on some play makeup from her "Hannah Montana Backstage Kit" she got on her birthday while she watched. Fun, fun, fun.

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House. Thanks Grandma Shari!

Halloween was quite a busy day for us. Erik was running the school's Scare Fair so Mom got to try to dress and entertain the 4 girls for Halloween. The girls had fun for the most part but it was very difficult to get the few pictures we do have. So here they are: Belle, the princess, Eliza, the clown, Alexus, the bee, and Olivia, the Lion.

Soccer Season Comes to an End

Eliza & Belle had a great time playing soccer this fall. The season was about 5 weeks and consisted of about 10 games. We drove to Colville for all these games, but the girls had a great time. In their U-6 league they have 3 kids from each team out on the feild at once. There are no positions and no one is allowed in the "shark pit" or goalie box. So they just run after the ball and try to kick it into the goal from outside the shark pit. The field was about the size of the infield of a softball feild and the shark pit was about 4 feet square. Eliza scored several goals as the season came closer to its end. Belle was quite distraught that she never made one, but we keep reminding her of how well she ran and kicked the ball. Belle was still sad when she played the last game and can't wait for next year. In the team picture Belle is the bottom row middle and Eliza is next to her bottom right.

Almost forgot our favorite double play!!!

Alexus and Olivia (born 6/15/07)

I am not sure why it is putting writing over here.......

I can't believe that we haven't found any cute stories to post about the twins. There was the time Olivia bit Alexus and then put her finger in Alexus's mouth hoping her sister would return the favor and thus avoid punishment....or how about when they don't like what they are eating they put in on their sister's tray until all the food is on the floor. Olivia definitley takes after her mother, she always is trying shoes on....her hands and Alexus loves to play joust with the kitch broom handle. Anyway, they are now almost 15 months and keeping us busy.

Back to School

Eliza started kindergarten! Here she is on her first day of school. She had two boxes of pencils, a box of crayons, a pencil box to put them in, a pencil sharpener, new PE shoes, two bottles of hand soap, a picture for her teacher from Belle and her lunch all in her backpack. She had a great first day and said she got to read a book out loud in front of the class.

I can't believe how fast we are getting old

Erik is struggling today, he cannot grasp the idea of having a child old enough to lose a tooth. Eliza lost her first tooth. She notified me of a loose tooth on Friday at lunch. Within twenty-four hours she had lost it. Needless to say the toothfairy was totally unprepared and their was a little stress between Erik and I as we had not yet discussed how the toothfairy would work in our family. Somehow the toothfairy did come but I think it will be a little different next time if he's better prepared. By the way that was another part of our discussion. I believe the toothfairy is a "he." Erik wasn't so sure. Of course if you've seen "The Santa Claus" you know he is a man. Anyway, we have a kid old enough to lose teeth and go to kindergarten in a few weeks. And Erik just keeps repeating that randomly throughout the day. Poor guy.

New Haircut

Belle looked a little different to me today. After admiring how grown-up she's looking for some time, I realized she has bangs now. I asked aloud, "Did someone cut your hair Belle?" She was quiet. When everyone else said they had nothing to do with it, I asked, "How did you do it, Belle?" She said she held the scissors up and they cut through it. She doesn't know where the hair she cut off went. But I am very impressed with how nice a job she did.

Welcome to the 1990s

We are so excited. We found out that we can get cheap dial up all the way in Northport and decided it was worth a try. Yesterday we almost had to evacuate due to a forest fire a quarter of mile away, but the locals quickly saddled their horses and put it out. The down side was we didn't have power until 3:44am this morning.

It was a good test run for a real emergency since it took us two minutes to get ready to go with 72 hour kits, clothes and Tomi's Sr year book as a keep sake. The twins are still not running which we are OK with since they are hard enough to keep up with when they mostly crawl. We'll keep you posted as life happens.