One Thing After Another and Family Togetherness in Spite of it All

I'm baaack - after two weeks of adventures with lots to tell and show everyone.

The snow just kept falling... and falling and falling. It seemed like everything was getting cancelled due to snow - three days of school, 3 weeks of garbage pickup, two weeks of Church, Ward Christmas Party, YW in excellence program - so having our party was a welcome social event. 5 couples dropped out due to snow related concerns, but we had fun with those who came.

On Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd), we welcomed the Hanna family (Paul's sister, Kara's, family). They came all the way from Blackfoot, ID and were spending the few days around Christmas with us. What a treat!! This is also when the adventures/craziness began. As they were pulling in, James tried to back down the driveway (btw, not a good idea in the snow and ice) he ended up perpendicular to the driveway and eventually came to rest in this position below. You can't see it, but he missed our well head by about 2 feet! The ground here, normally, is EXTREMELY marshy and hadn't frozen solid. He landed there and as he spun his wheels, just went deeper and deeper:
A tow truck was called after a while of trying to dig out on their own. The tow guy wasn't all that much smarter as he attempted to pull him out without having his chains on and ended up off the beaten path and stuck himself. Luckily, not stuck to the point of no return. He got out soon enough, put his chains on and got James out - 3 hours after they arrived, James got to come in out of the cold! This event was just the prelude to greater things to come!There are no pictures of this next instance for obvious reasons - but I'll paint the picture the best I can.... Christmas Eve morning, I'm in my shower, Brianna's in the kids' shower - both all soaped up, doing what you do in showers - when Paul comes screaming into the bathrooms yelling "TURN THE WATER OFF." "Why," was the obviously response to this demand. All we got was, "THE SEPTIC'S BACKING UP INTO THE BASEMENT - TURN IT OFF!!!" After we WIPED the soap off (luckily it was a non-hairwashing day for both of us) I go down to find James sopping up the bathroom. LUCKILY, James had been in the bedroom down there when he heard the toilet start gurgling - quickly yelled for Paul and started throwing towels at the brown, sludgy flow coming out of the shower and toilet (current status of towels used -TAKEN FAR, FAR AWAY by garbage man!)

Now, here's what's going on in my head - "Holy you know what" (literally). WHAT IN THE WORLD are we going to do? 13 people, Christmas Eve, no water flowing and all septic guys telling us that no pump trucks are going out due to snow and we're #30 on one of their lists who need pumped." My neighbors happened to be out of town, so a few head over to their house to use bathrooms and take showers (Oh, and the snow is still falling). I start plotting in my head as to how to move all of us and Christmas to their house...

Paul and James have now opened the risers to the Septic and with Paul on the phone with a septic dude (seriously this unseen septic guy is my new best friend), he and James proceed to "troubleshoot" the situation. After 3 hours and much stirring of the poop soup (sorry, it had to be said) two clogs were found between tanks 1 and 2 and tanks 2 and 3 - levels went down in two of the tanks and we were back in business (still definitely needing a pump, but at least bandaided enough to survive). Believe it or not we feel like a major catastrophe was averted with no "sewage" reaching the walls or carpet - I proceeded to bleach everything in sight in that bathroom, got rid of a shower curtain, trash can, buckets and several towels (as mentioned above). It is now noon on Christmas Eve...

Preparations continue for Christmas. Missionaries are coming to dinner and the excitement is palpable. As night falls, Aaron and cousin Sarah have been playing in the snow for quite a while. Aaron sticks his head in the front door and says, "Dad, come here." Paul goes out there and Aaron says, "I think there's a dead deer under the front porch." (He didn't want Carly to hear, because he knew she wouldn't have handled it well. Smart boy.) Sure enough, one end of our front porch is at the side of the house, has a 2 foot clearance, and a deer had crawled under there and died. Now - we took no pictures of this, but here are a couple to kinda set the stage. This one is of a deer from the week before (not sure if it was the dead one under the porch) who was hungry enough to come on to our front porch to eat an exposed clematis plant. You can see the back half of another one off to the right, back of the picture:
Oh and here is Aaron and Sarah (who found the dead deer) playing in the snow that Christmas Eve:

What happened to the deer?" you ask. Well, Paul calls the people you call when there are dead animals on your property and they tell him that they would get to it if they got the chance or we could just haul it off into the woods (ew - gonna start stinking real quick) or bury it (seriously - there's 2 feet of snow out there!) So, the day after Christmas (yes, we left it there for 2 days - it was below freezing and it wasn't going anywhere), Nathan and Jon were enlisted to don gloves and haul it up our driveway, down the short road we live on, then further down Carlson Road. They deposited it off the side of the road, on our property, but far enough away - now it's roadkill and they HAVE to pick it up and haul it away. And that's how you take care of a dead deer under your front porch...

Back to Christmas Eve - Paul went and picked up the missionaries (they're not allowed to drive in the snow). We had our typical cheese, sausage and crackers, veggies and dip, chips and salsa and other munchies casual Christmas Eve spread. Then we did our "Real Meaning of Christmas" presentation:

Then its Christmas Jammies time. Below, everyone all decked out and ready for bed and sweet Christmas dreams (Aaron, Brianna, Carly, Kenzie, David, Sarah, Chris, Nathan and Jon): Christmas Morning:

With Stockings:

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful..." the view out the door on Christmas morning (yes, it's STILL snowing):

Interesting snow formation:

The following are samplings of Christmas loot. Aaron with his new BB Gun - happy boy and no eyes have been shot out as of New Years Day!!:

Sarah with her giant lion:

Kenzie got a new ski coat:

Much of Brianna's Christmas consisted of items to get her ready for college:

Nathan got some earphones for his tunes - thinking he likes the chick on the back of the package more "Could I order one like this one at BYU, please?":

Jon will never be lost again with his GPS:

David became a master at opening presents - his and everyone else's. Every time Carly would turn around, David would have another one of her presents half-opened:

Carly has a thing for pigs and Brianna knows this very well. Below a thrilled Carly with her new "Piggy Bank" complete with tiara and tutu:

Paul with a cool gift Brianna gave him. She did this on the computer using her handy dandy graphic design skills she's learned in yearbook. The mountains across the bottom are from a pic Paul took skiing at Whistler. In the "SUMMITS" letters are pics of different climbing and summit pictures Paul's taken on his different climbs. And you can't see it well in this pic, but to the right of "SUMMITS" is a faint picture of Paul and Brianna on the summit of Mt. Hood together. This will hang proudly in his office...

Now, Aaron knew exactly what he wanted to get the women in his life. He went to Target with Paul, made a beeline to the jewelry section and proceeded to methodically pick out earrings and necklaces for his three sisters and me. All in 10 minutes flat! He knew exactly what he wanted and even talked to the lady at the jewelry counter to acquire boxes to wrap his gifts in. And looky here, I even got a HUG out of the deal! Yeah, me!!

The Hanna boys got a few shirts. This was one of Chris':

OK, if this had been Paul and I, I wouldn't have been laughing nearly as hard. James thought it would be a good idea to GIVE Kara Turbo Tax software for Christmas. She thought it was HILARIOUS:

Not sure if you can see Aaron's expression very well from this, but before they opened their new Wii, Aaron actually said, "I hope it's NOT a Wii." Then this worried face. Come to figure out that he was under the assumption that we would never be owning a Wii due to Paul working at Microsoft. He thought it would be a conflict of interest. Paul reassured him that he thought it was fine since Microsoft doesn't make anything that directly competes with the Wii, that the Wii was a one of a kind machine. He perked up and has been loving it ever since! Strange kid!

Carly, Kenzie and Aaron presenting dad with his new Leatherman tool:

Whew! That's a lot - but there's more to come. It's ONLY noon on Christmas day with a whole lot of fun to be had. More in the next post - we need to pace ourselves!