Well, God was SO good in keeping us from having to drive in any snowstorms. It was just starting to snow when we drove into McCall. It snowed semi-heavily the whole time we were there, and tapered off just before we left. Christmas eve day was spent lounging around, sledding, trekking around and down by the river on snowshoes, playing board games, working puzzles, playing wii in the rec room, and generally having a good time. We were thankful to have been able to borrow enough snowpants to keep everybody dry. They were SO nice to have for playing in the snow. The very, very deep snow, that is really hard to climb out of when flung off the sled after whizzing down the hill. At least if you are over 40 and not as agile as the younger crowd (meaning it's hard to pull my fat self out of deep snowbanks :o) ). Sigh. I'm thankful there were no pictures of *that* (heh heh). Anyway, it snowed all day, getting deeper and deeper. In the slideshows, notice what the ground was like around the van when we first got there compared to later. The icicles were amazing....the kids decided to have fun with them, so they started breaking them off the eaves of one of the other cabins, and sticking them straight up in the snowbank underneath to look like dragons teeth. They also had fun messing around on the snow covered playground. There are some pics in the slideshow of John and Tab. having fun on the merry-go-round and the monkey bars.
Christmas Eve, a group of us went to the Chr. Eve service at the Baptist Church a couple blocks away from the camp, where Trent Means (attended our church here in Santa Clarita for several years before moving) has been pastor for about 5 or so years. It was fun to see him and his wife, and their girls and newer baby. I forgot my camera, so didn't get pics of them...boo hoo. It was a fairly nice service, being in the middle of the snowstorm and all, and there weren't a whole lot of people.
We went back to the camp and had Christmas Eve dinner...lasagna that James and Paula had brought from one of their restaurants in Oregon (they are in the pizza business)....and then John's other brother, Mark, did his hilarious "turkey rancher" monologue. A retelling of the Christmas story from the perspective of the "turkey rancher" whose field adjoined the grazing sheep & shepherds to whom the angels appeared. Blogger is having issues with video clips, so I'll post the clip later. Then we had ice-cream snowballs with candles for Jesus' birthday....we ate while we played a rousing game of round-robin Bunco (a dice game). Our finishing scores determined our number in the gift exchange after the Bunco game. Amazing but true, Paula brought enough little gifties for everyone, and, of course in true hooligan style, stealing was the name of the game. Ben was definitely the most excited with what he got. As he opened the bingo game complete with spinning cage and number balls, he loudly exclaimed in his own utterly genuine way "I'm SO happy!! I've always wanted a Bingo game!!!!!". Needless to say, after such an appreciative exclamation, no one dared steal his Bingo game (frankly, I don't think anyone really wanted it....). He was happy as a clam, and spent the next hour up on the bunkroom floor carefully unsnapping all the little pieces, and playing Bingo with himself. Yep, thats my hooligan!
We were awakened by Kendra around 6am Christmas morning. ....whispered...."Mom!! Dad!!....what is that noise???" I gradually woke up and said "What noise.....I don't hear any....**BANG**......*bangbangbangbang*......*WHUMP!!*.....oh...that noise???....I don't know?" It literally sounded like someone was banging something(?) on the edge of the roof in different places. It was very strange. And unnerving. We couldn't figure it out. Kendra finally went downstairs to look around, and I went back to sleep. When we got up and joined the crew downstairs we discovered that the temperature had risen just enough to make the 2ft deep sheets of snow on the roof start to crack and slide. Every time a slab would crack and shift it made the banging sound. AHA! The window of our upstairs room overlooked one of the lower gable type roofs, and when a slab of snow fell onto it it made the "whump" sound. It was sort of funny......it woke up and freaked out at least half of us. An interesting start to Christmas day to say the least. There is a picture of a falling slab of snow in the slideshow.
For the record, creamed eggs is John's Mom's traditional Christmas breakfast, but there were also cinnamon rolls (yummmm). Most of the other families had done their presents before they came, so us Todds, Carsons, and Newmans sat down and did our gifts together. The rest of Christmas day was spent playing outside, helping in the kitchen, and eating. There was turkey & ham, mashed taters (not as good as the kind Kathy and I make, tho...), green bean casserole, monster rolls that Zach & his wife Rachel made that day, glop (that cottage cheese/jello/marshmallow/pineapple.....stuff), and pie later of course.
I don't know who started drawing on the whiteboard, but there came to be quite the Christmas/eclectic graffiti there. The "neutral gender angel" came about as a result of quite an interesting discussion that ebbed and flowed all weekend. I don't even remember who first brought up the topic of angels, but I do remember John commenting (emphatically) that there *were* female angels mentioned in scripture. Put together an extended family of very opinionated people, plus 3 of them being pastors, and bring up a controversial passage......well, lets just say it was a discussion with unique bunny trails to say the least. And it went around and around most of the time we were there :o). All in good humor. Hence the "neutral gender angel"......wouldn't want any angel discrimination going on....
We ended the day with a rousing game of balderdash, followed by getting as much sweeping/cleaning as possible done so that John's brothers and families could leave early the next morning. to be cont....
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