An Alaskan Christmas

Jody and Miranda came into town on the 23rd to pick me up. I had Christmas eve and Christmas day off, so I packed my things and headed out of town for a few days. Though I was tired and rather used to going to bed at 11 or earlier, Miranda's family does things a little differently, and thus we were up until around 1:30 in the morning. No big deal, I slept in past 10 the next morning. Mike needed help clearing some bush, so Miranda and I were enlisted to join in that operation. After donning winter gear, we set out in the truck, chain saw in the back, plow hooked onto the front, ready to go. The operation was pretty simple: Mike would cut down branches, and Miranda and I would throw them deeper into the woods so they weren't in the driveway. Only we did all this BEFORE driving the plow down the road, so we were wading through almost knee deep snow. Well, it probably was knee deep on Miranda, but that's because she is short.

Feeling rather Alaskan for trudging through that much snow, I piled back into the truck with Miranda and Mike. On the way home, Mike planned to clear some of the lower hanging branches over the road. But to get to them, he needed to stand on the truck bed. (Miranda got her short genes from somewhere) The first few times, Mike would stop the truck, get out, get standing up in the bed of the truck, fire up the chain saw, and cut down a few branches before driving on to the next one. To shorten this process, he decided it would be better if Miranda drove, saving a few steps of the process. To further save steps, he kept the chainsaw running. Then he didn't really have her stop the truck, just kind of slow down when necessary. Thus we came up with the sport of "drive-by chain saw-ing." Trust me, I wish I had pictures as much as you wish you could see them.

We took the snow machines out to Fish Lake that afternoon. We drove them around for a while, had a blast, and I only fell off once. When I was going in a straight line. Go figure. Miranda and I cuddled up with a good movie until dinner, an excellent selection of prime rib and lamb. While Mike and Jody were visiting with the other grown ups (two other couples) that were there, Miranda and I got impatient for Christmas, and sorted out presents according to who was going to open them. We ended up waiting until after midnight Oregon time, so I could open presents from my family on Christmas. I kept opening tools from my parents, (thanks mom and dad, looking forward to using them!) and Mike kept peeking over at my pile, checking out the goods.

We hit the hot tub that night before going to bed, again in the region of 1:30. Their hot tub is really cool, cause it is heated with a wood stove. Nothing like the smell of wood smoke while relaxing. Oh, and we jumped out to play in the snow a couple times. Again, feeling very Alaskan.

Christmas morning, we slept in, cause we had already opened presents. Thats a pretty good tradition, if you ask me. We went sledding after breakfast, down their sledding hill, the driveway, and any other somewhat straight stretch we could find. Yeah, we bailed out to avoid hitting stuff frequently... We had a notion to build a snow fort, but it was a lot more work than we were willing to put forth.

We headed into town to try to catch a movie that evening. Did you know that everyone and their mother tries to go see movies on Christmas? It was kind of ridiculous. We went to look at Christmas lights for a while instead, and ended up stopping at Burger King. On Christmas. I guess there is a first time for everything! Oh, and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt. It was 25, plenty warm enough for that. Yep, feeling Alaskan.

Jody and Miranda crashed in my living room so they could do a little after Christmas shopping before heading back home.

All in all, it was a great Christmas. It was kinda hard being away from family, but it was definitely memorable in a lot of good ways. Next up: 2010!