Have a Blessed Christmas and New Year!!!

 Our newly hung Christmas present from the kids (Amy, Bill and Caitlin) a picture of all 13 grandkids!

ill

Remembering the "reason for the season...."

Didn't train on Thursday so we went into Newberry to buy more fuel for the snowmobiles - I may have mentioned it but some days we go through 8 gallons of special snowmachine (no ethanol) fuel a day between grooming trails and training!!!!  Also bought more groceries (you know.....while you are in town..... a half hour away.....and you don't know when you will be there again......) and went out to a pizza place that is in a beautiful log home/cabin!!!

Trained yesterday and took some different trail for 17.5 miles - beautiful snow-covered pines and sweeping hills= wish I had brought the camera!!!  should do something with the go pro that I bought Randy 4 years ago.....

Cleaned house today and plan to go into to town for Mass unless the weather turns ugly while Randy is out grooming the trail.  Plan to go to Jan Shaw's for Christmas dinner - it will be a first for us to have leg of lamb!!!!!

O Christmas tree......

One more year I cut down a tree slightly bigger than I should have.......I intended this to be a tabeltop tree and it didn't quite fit!!!!!  at least it did fit in my "mason jar tree stand"!!!

Today was the first day training across the road and it went very well all things considered!!!  the first team with Dozer and Spark in lead did amazing crossing the road and finding the trails and listening when to turn!!  It was slightly easier with the one and two year old leaders (Noah and Fred) to follow the scent of the first team and they did pretty darn good too!!!

Made chili and maybe pumpkin pie later..........

what now!!!!!

Life is if nothing else, for me NOT BORING!!!!!!!!!  Saturday after feeding dogs we left for “downstate” to have our family Christmas gathering – Dee, our wonderful neighbor, had a fire started so the house was warm when we got there!  All that was needed was to turn the water back on……so as Randy was getting ready to go outside and do that in the basement, he noticed the reflection of flames on the window – it didn’t take long for him to figure out that it couldn’t possibly be the fire in the living room woodstove reflecting in the window and realized it was a fire on the snowmobile trailer – in fact the 4 wheeler was on fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Incredibly, somehow, the winch on the 4 wheeler on the trailer started on fire spontaneously!!!  I never saw the fire because I was in the house and Randy ran out to put the fire out without letting me know – he had a hard time of it because it was the plastic fender on fire so every time he put snow on it to squelch the fire, it would re-start and he ended up having to put it out patting it down with his gloves!!!!  It was a darn good thing he had the gloves on!!!!  The rest of the nite was uneventful……..went into town to Walmart and bought some more groceries for up north and some cheap kibble dog food at Tractor supply – then had to eat something and while we were eating, who should surprise us, but Mark and Jamie Kukal!!  Caught up on the boys and their life and it was good to see them!!!

Next day up got ready to load presents and go to town – turned off and drained the water….again…..  Had a wonderful time with our family and they all made a special effort to re-arrange their schedules to make time to see us – many presents opened – I think the mice-in-a-stocking Christmas ornaments I made were a hit with all the grandkids – though I did see a couple of them trying to take the mouse head out of the stocking!!  The timing was just about right for us to visit and open presents and everyone get their fill from the pizza buffet – so we left after 3 on our way back to our northern home – Randy was tired (quite a lot of driving and much activity….) and ate the licorice the grandkids had given him to keep himself awake – we were making good time and thought we would be home by 8 ……….until……….the power steering on the truck started to fail…….and it got worse and worse and the lights started getting dimmer………it was a blessing we were only about 5 miles east of Newberry – we made it without crashing or stopping into the parking lot of the Quality Inn and got a room for the nite!!! – just a half hour away from out house!!!  But amazingly, at a place where we could get help- Randy called Frank our neighbor, a musher and a mechanic at the Ford garage in Newberry and he said he was working on Monday and would look at it – I stayed at the motel and Randy drove the 5 miles to the garage with quite a bit of difficulty……  It turns out that what had happened is that the bearing in the idler pulley froze thus throwing the serpentine belt off, resulting in the power steering loss………almost sounds like I know what I am talking about (I had to ask Randy 4 times the names of the pulley and belt…)  Frank was able to figure out what the problem was but couldn’t get a replacement belt until Tuesday morning and Frank didn’t work again until Wednesday (the Ford dealership left it up to Frank whether he wanted to tackle the problem with our GMC behemoth!)  So tomorrow morning Randy will ride in with Frank to work and fix the truck and then Randy will drive our truck back – it sure is convenient to have a neighbor like Frank!  He even let us drive his truck home yesterday because Regina was coming into town later in the day!

Yesterday we trained both teams for 17 miles – it was almost too warm at just freezing – so today just catching up on rest and Randy is just going over to follow Frank around his trail system so he can see where he goes to get 22 miles in training.  Our side of the 407 we have almost maxed out on mileage and the corners and turns are a little bit more difficult to negotiate on the sled – Randy hopes to start using the sled on Friday and train by going out the drive on our side of the 407, crossing the county road, and then using the trails on the west side (it is also the trail system that Magnusson’s use and it is where the Taquamenon race trail is located).  So we will see what he has to say when he gets home!x

this is the only extra mouse I had left!!!!

When you didn't bring a nativity scene with you, you have to be creative with what you do have!!!

Randy picked up the big rock on the beach and it looks like it has an angel etched into the stone.......

the week in review!!

 Sunday nite after the Christmas music program in Newberry at Seder's Pizza - they call it "Stinky Sticks" cause it has garlic butter on it!!!  not as good as Spanky's though!!!!

 This was wild!!!  It's called pasty pizza!!!!  you can pick what filling you want so cheese, hamburg olives and green peppers were ours!  good but still not as good as Spanky's!!!

 Talk about a huge poinsettia!!!!!  made of metal!

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The week has gone by entirely too fast – doesn’t seem possible that it was already 7 days ago that I posted – the days are filled now with either training the dogs or grooming the trail.  Since I last posted we have gotten over 15 inches of snow and had the drive plowed twice – that’s a lot of snow to move around so the dogs have a solid surface to run on and won’t develop fissures (splits in the skin between their toes from spreading out and plunging down into deep snow)  It is also much colder – down to 0 yesterday morning – needed to put more hay in the dogs’ beds and have to chip ice off from the trailer step several times a day where it is melting off from the roof and dripping down the side of the trailer at the door.  We didn’t have this problem ever before and we are thinking it must be the way we are parked and the angle of the roof……….

Last Friday we had dinner at Jan Shaw’s with Carol and John Waltman for Carol’s 75^th birthday (they have included us in everything up here – you will not meet a friendlier group of people anywhere!!) and Saturday there were 11 people at Watlman’s for a Christmas potluck that was desicious!!!  Sunday we drove into town for the Christmas program at the Methodist church – people from the community that have musical talent presented – bell choir (which I loved!!!), flutes, guitar, violin and cello, choir, you name it!!!  It was wonderful!!!!  Then out to dinner at the pizza place from the pictures above.

The rest of the week has been training, grooming, cooking warm meals, getting the snowmobile battery replaced, working on some craft projects for Christmas presents, more training, grooming……….you get the picture?!!

Today is a non-training day and tomorrow we train and then Saturday we leave for downstate (a new word in our Yooper vocabulary….) to have Christmas with our kids and grandkids.  Hope the weather is conducive to traveling 5 and a half hours!!!

Per Amy Trenkle request I have been trying to post a video I took of us training dogs in a beautiful part of the snow covered trail but am not able to get it to download on facebook – I think I have tried about 6 times and it just won’t go through – I will keep trying because it gives you a good feel for what it looks like on our trail!!!

 coming home from Newberry - you can see the snowstorm cloud up north!!!!!

Below - me in my new warm parka ready to go out with Randy and groom the trail!!

Now it's really looking alot like Christmas!!!

From 0 inches to 6 in 24 hours!!!!

What a difference 4 hours can make – we started yesterday (Wednesday) with a trace of snow on the ground and it was 40 degrees and this morning we are at 6+ inches of snow and more on the way with a weather advisory!!!!  And it feels like 17 degrees – not only is this Michigan weather but even more fickle, northern Michigan next to Lake Superior weather!!!

Monday it rained and rained and rained till we had big puddles extending all across the trail in numerous places so that the dogs had to go into the woods a bit to avoid them when we trained on Tuesday.  It had been kind of warm the last week (when they have gotten used to 32 degree weather and we train at 40 it seems warm to them!) and so we had dropped back on the mileage to about 7 miles and because it was back in the 20’s on Tuesday we did the 13.7 miles we had been doing – everybody looked good when we got back and didn’t seem winded at all – the really big key thing we think is helping is the water additive we found out about from Frank and Regina Caldwell across the street!  Every single one of them drinks all the water we give them at the end of the run!!!  Something unheard of with our dogs in the past!!!  Not only are they re-hydrating, but it also replaces the glycogen they have used running.

Tuesday we also took the jeep over to Caldwell’s (Frank is a mechanic at the Ford garage in Newberry) because (even though we had replaced them last spring) the brakes were smoking!  Sure enough a caliper was hanging up and needed to be replaced!

Randy ran around the trail with the 4 wheeler and the drag to get the trail packed and added a couple more miles to the trail.

Today he just fed the dogs breakfast and is out on the trail again packing the new snow to train today.  It’s going to be a bit brisk out there – fortunately, we just bought some dogsledding clothes from Jan Shaw (the kind you wear when you distance racing with the down liner and anorak with a fur ruff – and in Randy’s favorite color…..purple!!)  So I should be able to stay warm as toast riding around on the 4 wheeler for 16 miles!!!  I also bought some new goggles while we were in Grand Rapids last week – I am trying to prevent my cheeks from getting frostbitten again – you know once you have frostbitten the skin it is way more vulnerable and takes even less to happen again – so now I get red and peely when it’s not even that cold so with the goggles I cover just about everything up except my nose!!!

This Saturday John and Carol Waltman are having a neighborhood Christmas potluck – it’s the only weekend that everybody will be in town and not visiting relatives – I think I will bring the little green bean casserolettes again!  Then Sunday there is a community Christmas sing along at the Methodist church – we are planning on that as well!

Beginning of December already!!!

 our view crossing the Mackinac Bridge coming home

 looking for agates and other stones on Sunday at the beach near us

 picture of the moon last nite overlooking the lake but you can't see the lake.....not a good enough camera in the phone??

 out to dinner last nite with Carol and Jon at Grand Maraia - really neat bar - the table is on a barrel and the top lazy susan part is glass with sand and agates under it

lots of rock to choose from!!!

update

Yo from the Yoopers!!!  The last week has been kind of busy – we trained on Monday and Tuesday and then went to an impromptu visit with my back pain doctor on Wednesday for a consultation – the 2 injections he has done on the T7,8,9 facet joints has not changed the pain I have in my middle back = so he suggested a different approach bathing the spinal cord around the backside with  steroid – as I write right now it seems to have worked!!! 

So we fed Tuesday and then left about 3:30 and thought we had a room in Cadillac for the nite – got there and they were booked up with people doing outside construction work!!!!!  We said “well it looks like it will be easiest to just go home for the nite………….and called Dee  to say “please start a fire in the house for us” and when we got home it was perfectly toasty inside (it helped that the temp was almost 50 degrees that day and somewhat sunny)  The pain in  the but part is that any time we come home you have to turn on the water and the gas and then when you leave drain the pipes and antifreeze them and turn off the gas…………..

We did have a list of things we had not brought with that we forgot so it was good to get those and bring them back north – not to mention I had a bazillion  Christmas presents to      wrap and check on for our family Christmas on December 17^th in Fremont at Spanky’s Pizza =

So   went to the consultation and got an explanation of the new “approach” and agreed (hope it works cause I may not come back if it doesn’t???......) scheduled for 1:50 pm on Thursday…  we went directly from the office to Red Lobster and had my favorite- crab legs!  Then shopped at Sam’s Club for some rice for dogs and a few other things and then to our hotel on 28^th street.  Good nite rest and good breakfast in the morning and then more shopping for Christmas and me and then the injection at 1:50 – went well and I hope I am not imagining it but it feels like it might have worked this time!!!

Have to stop in Newberry for some non-ethanol gas for the 4 wheeler and then home and bed traand training dogs tomorrow!!!

Trained short both Friday and Saturday due to the warm weather -- did have some passing practice with the Caldwell's 9 dog team today - about 20 passes in an hour -we did see improvement in our team not getting distracted!

Going to church tonite and shopping for still some more things I have forgotten for Christmas and more food........always more food!!!