Christmas vacation......

.

Early in my winter vacation I went on an ice fishing expedition with Ivan and his grandson, Mycal. We spent quite few hours and caught -0- fish!! Not like this crew to go home empty....

We fished a little lake northeast of Park Falls. It was one of those high humidity days with the temps in the mid 20's, and the trees were all covered with frost.

We fished until a little after noon and the frost never left.... what a sight it was.

On Christmas Eve we went to Peg's mother's house. It's amazing how Santa always makes his rounds at the same time each year... just after the Christmas dinner.

Rose must have behaved herself well enough to get a stocking full of treats.

This is Peggy's brother, Gary. He seems to be really fond of Santa (Gary's son, Jordan).

Hmmm.... how did Peggy manage to be in Santa's good graces?? Just kidding..

I was a little under the weather with a serious allergy attack in process. I spent most of the evening in the TV room, slightly groggy from the Benedryl capsules I had taken.

Bryn got some goodies, too.

The youngest member of the crew, Philip. He's Donna's great-grandson.

Here is Philip with his dad, Kent, who is the son of Peg's brother Jim (on the left).

Chris was late getting in from Rapids, as he could not get off work early. He had ordered a specific plate of food and Peggy had it ready for him!

Kristi, Peggy and Philip. I think they all had a good time playing in the living room.

You have to watch what you say to Kristi or you just might get a stiff finger to the nose. Looks like Peggy might have said the wrong thing..... oh, but I'm just kidding her. Anyway it was another great evening and we got home late.










I thought you might want to watch the following video. I guess you should use your own judgement, as Bryn was testing one of the programs on her new Apple computer. Thanks, Bryn.... I think.

.

A milestone achievement.

.

Hey, now this is what it has been about for a few years now!!! Rosie finishes her classes and clinical work, and now she is a Registered Nurse! I am impressed by her drive to accomplish this, supporting herself with jobs along the way and making it through with flying colors.....

I don't have many photos of the actual graduation ceremony. Reasons being that with a standard camera, the flash is not sufficient to reach out far enough, and the ambient lighting was not enough on its own. I did,however, record most of the proceedings with my camcorder, so we'll see what comes of that.... above, after the graduation, the school took photos of all the staff and directors and included Rose in the photo. She had the gold cords which signified 3.5 or higher grade point, and she was chosen the "Outstanding Graduate" and gave the student address. I wish I could have been as motivated and hardworking when I was younger......

Rosie with her mom.

..and with her dad.

Rosie with Peggy.

and Bryn...

and Chris.....

and Wai.....

and with Aunt Sally.

Maybe a little stress release?

'nuff said....

Yee, haa..... a party!!!!

Rosie with her good friend and study partner, Beth.

Rose, Beth and Laura, one of Rosie's best buddies.

Rose, Beth and another of Rosie's good friends, Nicole, from Glidden.


Congratulations, girl!! Job well done!

.

The Ottertail is open......

.

The first thing one always does, when winter vacation starts, is give the lodge a good cleaning. While that was in progress, I decided to take the bunk beds out of the main lodge to free up a little space.

That left the back room open for a shelf unit, a recliner with reading lamp nearby.

Now there is room to actually kick back in the chair to read, snooze or just look out the window. Put on a little Finnish Reggae and you're all set......

Still have a small supply of firewood outside the door. These pieces were all the drop-offs, knots and such from the main wood project. Peggy collected them all and stacked them outside the door, and I must say that they are the lodge nice and warm.....
I dug out all the snowshoes and left a couple of pair ready near the door.

A day or two ago the weather was clear, about 5° and a little wind. I decided to go out anyway, and I tramped about an eighth of a mile of trail. Wind on the face was a little too cold..... We'll continue the trail making process soon.

Late afternoon sun is a treat around the Ottertail. Winter is always cold with a beauty all it's own.

I stopped in the lodge to close the damper on the heater and pull the curtains shut, and I noticed that new constellation they have been talking about. It was particularly bright that night.

Well, the lodge is open and warm, stop in when you get a chance........

I gotta go, Carlo

.

.

The UPS man brought me another package!!! Santa must like me? Onlyhow, here it is, a pretty good sized box carrying two small packages.

Now my memory may be getting poorer, but my 'puter's memory is getting way better. That big box held two of those itty bitty things like the one laying in front. They are memory "cards", or what ever they are called. I ordered a "memory upgrade" and this is what I got. I was still at 512MB of RAM, and the main board had two slots, so I ordered a pair of 1 gigabyte cards, putting me now at the awesome level of 2 gig of RAM. This thing is running like it's on fire!

All's I had to do was go to work and take the side panel off. Oh, yeah.. overdue for a dusting out! Anyway, I located the old memory, yanked it out and started opening packages.

New memory installed in a couple of minutes, they're the long black vertical things just to the right of and almost touching that little fan. It's amazing, that big old computer case is really quite empty when you look inside. Nothing in there looks like it knows how to make an email or a web page?????

I also treated myself to a new mouse pad. GO BERT!!!

We got about 6-7 inches of snow last week. I was headed out into the frigid air to plow and Peggy sneaked in this photo. Hmmm... I must be more careful next time.

Windy as it was, there was a strip of bare ground just on the north side of the woodpile. This immediately became my walkway so I wouldn't have to shovel a path through that drift...

Eileen is once again blending nicely with the surroundings.

Hmmm, rabbits and deer.


I gotta go, Carlo

.