Yuck!!!!

It's too warm now and the snow is turning to slush!!!!  We came out the driveway to go to town today and it was 8 inch trenches of slush!!!  can't train the dogs because they would hurt feet - the last time we trained was Christmas day and who knows when again!!!  Oh the life of the dogsledder!!!!

Merry Christmas to all of you!!!!!

Having a great Christmas day - in town to church and now calling the kids to wish them Blessings and this afternoon to Jan's for dinner at 6!!!  Take care all!!!!

It sure looks like Christmas up here!!!!!!

Sorry it’s been so long since I have written!!!! Lots going on what with the holiday gatherings – so I will start where I think I may have left off!

A week ago Friday we left for the lower peninsula to have Christmas with family – this is our 3^rdyear of gathering at Spanky’s Pizza for the pizza buffet and opening presents – we came into town on Friday nite and our angel of a neighbor, Dee had already make a fire in our wood stove so the house was warm and toasty!!!  Since it was still a bit early before bedtime, we dropped in on Dee to thank her for the HUGE plate of chocolate and peanutbutter fudge she had left for us!!!!

Saturday we got up and just had granola bars for breakfast since there was no water turned on!  (too much hassle to drain again and put anti-freeze back in) and then went into Fremont for the party!!!  All the family came with the exception of Keyon, (working his shift at the North Muskegon fire department) and Karen my sister and her husband Larry (she just had had hip replacement surgery 3 days prior).  We had a great time and it was good that the room we rented was well sound-proofed because with 12 grandchildren all playing with their new toys it got a bit loud!!!!  We even had a performance from Ocean, Oak and Aeja on their violin, guitar and cello!  And Grandpa even remembered he could sing Silent Night in German out of the clear blue sky!!!

After the 4 hour part we left to go back to the UP and had no problems getting home – still lots of snow up here and none down south!

Through the week we trained every other day and Randy used the sled for the first time this year and I followed him on the snowmachine.  We did have some problems the 3^rdtime out with the sled as the dogs didn’t want to turn at the corner he wanted so while he was waiting to hook onto the snow machine to turn the team he slid even farther into the corner so we had to turn the whole team back on itself to get them going in the right direction!!!! In the meantime, I had tried to get the sled unstuck from being hooked on the snow machine runner and had backed up not remembering the drag was hooked behind me!!!  So we took the drag off and got the dogs unhooked and Randy took off leaving me to turn the sled around and follow …………..only I couldn’t turn the seld around because I was stuck in the snow where I had buried myself trying to back up with the drag on!!!!  All of a sudden I hear Randy yelling at me from around the corner of the trail to come and help him because somehow (he doesn’t to this moment actually know how……….) he fell and lost the team and took a “header” in the snow!!!!  Between the two of us we got it unstuck and drove crazy fast down the trail trying to catch the team and , lo and behold, we found them about ½ mile down the trail stopped, with the snow hook buried in the snow!!!!! What luck!!!!!!  So we finished the run of 19 miles without problems but were both exhausted and frazzled by the time we got back – so instead of running 2 teams we quit while we were ahead!!

Oh I forgot, we were already sore from the day before when we had gone out on a wild goose chase looking for a part of the trail that is going to be part of the race course in January – and we got lost – and we got stuck……………..twice!!  Once we almost rolled the snowmachine over on ourselves!! Luckily Randy figured out where we made the wrong turn and we found our way back home!!!

Friday nite we were invited out to dinner and a show (just like a date nite!!) by Carol and John Waltman so we went into the Elks and I had whitefish and Randy had his ususal boring chicken strips and then we went to see “Star Wars”!!!!  It was in the very old and recently restored theater in Newberry – apparently there are not very many movie theaters in the UP – like 3??!!!  I enjoyed it very much but Randy was a bit out of the loop since he doesn’t remember ever seeing a Star Wars movie!!!!

Saturday was church and we took the priest, Father Marty and his seminarian guest for the year, Mark out to dinner for the second time.  At the same time we were inviting Fr. Marty to come, Mark was being invited by another gentleman that was here from downstate Detroit area who was up here at his cabin in Naubinway – so we all ate together – the gentleman is a recent widower and I suspect a bit lonely and seemed to relish his time with us all!!

Today Randy “got back in the saddle” so to speak, and we took the other half of the kennel out with the sled – this time, no big problems!!!!!!

For Christmas day we are invited to Jan’s house for dinner with the Caldwells and she has asked that I bring the same cranberry sauce that I gave here at Thanksgiving time – from a recipe I made up…………so we will see if it turns out the same!!!!

If I don’t have a chance to write again before Christmas, please enjoy all of the wonderful Blessings that this season brings!!!!!!!!!

Snow and more snow............

We certainly are in the right spot for it!!!  It snowed all day yesterday while we trained and more - got about 6 inches and it is supposed to snow some more tonite and tomorrow - just hope it isn't too snowy on our way downstate on Friday!!!  Got my Christmas tree on Sunday when we were out trimming trail trees = we cut one down that was leaning over the trail and the top of the tree makes a perfect tree for out small space in the house!!!  Can't beat the price either!!!!

happy Monday!!!

we did go to the fundraising dinner and did have fun though we didn't know a soul there!!!  We danced several dances to the 2 bands they had playing and even got 2 local gift certificates in the silent auction!!!
Sunday we went out to clear more trail - it was a good thing we ran into Frank Caldwell because we wold have started clearing the wrong trail!!!!  Up to 40 today and slushed up the trail - cold over nite so it turned the trails into icy treacherous trails!!!!  So instead of training we did some final Christmas shopping at Sault St. Marie!!!!  On the way home now it's snowing, verging on blizzard so we will see how much we will have to push around tomorrow to make the trails good again!

Yo from the UP!!!

Another week of training in the books…………well calendar……….we are over 200 miles and going 15.3 miles currently without the dogs panting at all at the end of the run!  We want to get up to 20 miles before race season and that is very do-able!

Kind of an unexciting week – training one day and then trying to trim the snow-loaded trees off from the trail – we worked on one section of the trail for an hour and only got 100 yards!!  So many trees bent over with the snow load so that we have to not only cut the trees off and shove them to the side of the trail but pull the tops of the trees out of the foot of snow they are buried under!!  That’s the hardest work, pulling them out of frozen heavy snow.

Today we are going in to a fund raiser dinner for a family in Newberry that got burned out of their house and then to church.  Tomorrow we are going to do more trimming of trees on the trail and then meeting Waltmans and Jan and going to a Christmas program that the whole town of Newberry produces!!  We went 2 years ago and it was very good with lots of variety of musical talent!!