The Solar Eclipse! Well... Almost

Yesterday was the Solar Eclipse- hurray! Although I have seen many lunar eclipses, I had never seen a solar eclipse until yesterday.
We decided to cook dinner with our neighbors and some friends, when we realized that we'd all gathered on a very special day. So, after loading up our plates, Maija and I had a little picnic outside to watch the eclipse progress. I know... staring into the sun isn't so great for the eyes. In our defense, we were both wearing two pairs of sunglasses. hilarious.


The food was fantastic- tofurky hot dogs (have never tried that brand before... a little dry, but not bad at all) and stuffed peppers. On any ordinary day, I think stuffed peppers are amazing. On the day of the solar eclipse- they were even BETTER! Maija put some curry powder in with the black beans, onions, rice, and salsa. We also topped them off with homemade guacamole. You wouldn't think that the curry and avocado would blend well, but I think it's my new favorite combination.

Oh, did I mention that we put green chile salsa on top of all of that pepper? YUM! It looked so good, especially on the great 70's dinnerware we had.

The really unfortunate thing about our seemingly perfect and accidental party was... well, I guess I'll just tell it in a story form.

Maija, Arielle and I had been running outside and staring into the sun for about an hour and a half before we just decided to save ourselves some energy and set up camp in our yard. Just as Maija and I started to notice some progress (whoa, was it fast), I ran up to the apartment window and started knocking frantically. Finally, someone heard me, and everyone ran outside (Jacob forgot the baby :S, luckily Arielle brought him out). The solar eclipse was at about 75% when a gigantic, thick cloud started passing right below the sun. AAAHHHH

We were devastated for the first couple of minutes. After the fact that we weren't going to see the rest (that cloud was huge) of the eclipse set in, we decided to accept that we'd seen our share. I felt really grateful that I got to see as much as I did. If I had been at home in Kansas City, instead of in Fort Collins, I wouldn't have gotten to see any of the eclipse. After all, sometimes people only get to see it once- and other times not at all.

It would've been nice to get pictures, but after taking a huge collection of blinding sunlight pictures, we decided that people must've been using special cameras to capture the magic. Either that or we're just way too close to the sun. In any case, I love the colors of my food. Is it weird that I love to take food pictures?


Ah, what a wonderful day it was.