Well, we finally got together. Christmas is when we're all together, not at a specific date. Yesterday was the day. It was good to all be together. We had lots of laughs.
I headed to Britt, meeting Tom Allen at the end of Osprey Road to get some local eggs. There was no problem keeping the eggs refrigerated in the car !
522 was better than I expected since they'd heavily salted it the day before. There was a bare strip in the center for most of the way. 69 was also good -- and I called Stef to let her know that the roads were ok. She had called the cottage before I left saying that they were on their way. I got back from Britt about 15 minutes before Stef, Aaron, Kylie and Laruen.
The noise level increased a little bit, but with multiple floors, it was contained. The girls went outside for a while, testing out the sleds. The snow is deep so they didn't get much action. Later on David brought the 4-wheeler down to the ice and, no surprise, it wouldn't make it back out the hill. I'd scouted an alternative the day before with Jeffrey, so I went with him over to Worosz's (sp?) and went up the slope between them and Jim and Bonnie then onto J&B's driveway and up. Perhaps our hill will get packed enough but given the projected temperature, I doubt it. I think that any time we take the bikes onto the lake we'll have to use that easy-out.
Speaking of bikes, Aaron took out the fat tire bike. He made it to 522 and some distance along there. He said that he got quite a workout ... the fastest that he could get it going, heading downhill, was about 15 mph. He also mentioned that pushing the bike, the pedals moved with the wheels, which tells us that the grease gets pretty thick at -18C ! The bike is easy rolling in warm weather -- I know that from NSB -- but not so much at these temps.
Right now it's even colder than that, about -25C. Today's high is predicted to only be a few degrees warmer ... brrrr ! Tomorrow's low is supposed to be -32C, about the same as the night that we arrived. Lemme outta here ! The moon is dead ahead right now, looking out my den window in the dark, a sliver -- or is that a shiver ?
After the girls came in and had lunch, we took the annual family picture and then started opening presents. Santa was good to all of us.
The turkey was ready to eat at 5:30 and eat we did, all the usual fixings. I did the cleanup, as usual -- it's a one person job -- and then everyone gathered for pie and then dug into the candy that Sheryl sent which clearly cost more to mail than to make !
Stef and Aaron, sans the girls, left around 9pm and were home before midnight. I'm sure that they didn't see many other cars on the road.
Some pictures are posted online. If you start here -- http://www.wdthompson.com/recent/index_7.htm you can work your way through them.
Today's story hasn't been written yet ...
Onward !
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