Linda and Leanne came to visit us for a few days.  We had a wonderful time sharing our life in Gothic with them.  We shared some delicious food- we made them our tasty chili (Thayer's perfect recipe) and Linda made us a tasty tomato/garlic/olive oil dish.  The weather cooperated perfectly- it was sunny and warm most of the days and Linda and Leanne were able to explore around Gothic on their snowshoes.  Unfortunately, Gunnison Electric did not cooperate as nicely with our guests' visit.  Gothic lost power for about 24 hours on Sunday/Monday due to a very "clever" person driving a fence post into a buried electric cable two years ago.  We lost power and water (by extension, as our pump was out) and had to use our nearby outhouse for the first time this season.  Oh well, all part of the rustic back-country experience! 

[T - Linda in particular found it made her vacation even better, so it wasn't really an issue.  The porcupine was in his usual tree on the second day of their visit, so they got a bunch of pictures of it munching away.  It didn't find them particularly terrifying, apparently.  The power company actually came all the way up to visit us, looking for damage to the power line.  They drove a big snowcat up to our cabin, which means we actually have a big trail going all the way from our cabin into town.  We are keeping one tread track for skis and one for walking.  It's really exciting to be able to go five feet out of our house without having to put on skis.  Now if only the snowcat had visited the weather station!  We'll have to try to maintain it, because its really nice to have.  It's currently snowing, and I don't know how much we're actually going to get.  ]

Anyway, other than the power outage, we had a wonderful visit with Linda and Leanne.  And then, on the way to take them back to the airport, we stopped at Secret Stash in CB and had FABULOUS pizza.  Thayer and I split a tasty pizza with grape tomatoes, ricotta cheese, fresh garlic, and parmesan; we even had leftovers.  [Can you tell that I'm slowly growing more and more excited about fresh veg and going out to eat?]

[T - we'll probably get real fat as soon as we move out of our cabin, just because we'll want to do nothing except eat all the things we couldn't get in Gothic]

Here are Linda and Leanne at the trailhead, preparing for the ski into Gothic.

And here we are with Leanne, taking a short break from the ski.

[T - the sled was heavy!  Linda and Leanne managed to pack very light though, I was able to pull everything in the sled so that they didn't need to have packs on]

There is also exciting news on the knitting front!  I finished my green sweater (except for attaching the buttons).  As we speak, it's blocking on the bed (and the color is most accurate here).

Remember those steeks?  You can see them sewn down on the inside of the sweater here.

And look, waist shaping (and a hem)!!

Thayer and I made some tasty dinner last night.  Homemade tortillas and refried beans!  I was amazed by how easy both processes actually were.  The tortillas in particular were quicker than any other flatbread we've tried up til now (mostly because they're non a yeast-leavened "bread").

[T - The tortillas are really good with cinnamon sugar butter melted on them as a dessert tortilla, as well!]