December

On a recent snowshoe hike, Nate kept teasing the girls by shaking the snow down on their heads.  As you can see, once in a while this trick backfired.

One of our family activities for this Christmas Eve day…snowshoeing.  Merry Christmas everyone!  From Half Moon Trail Resort…..Dave and Mary, Ryan, Liz, and Mabel, Sarah, Nate, and Michaela

Here is a follow up to our wild Christmas tree post.  Thought you might like to see the tree in the house and decorated.  Nothing fancy here, just simple white lights and all the kid’s ornaments.  We work hard at finding unique ornaments for each of our kids.  We have done this for a long time, so we sometimes have to look hard to find a wild tree that “has enough branches for all of our ornaments”.

We cut another wild Christmas tree off our property this year.  Sometimes it takes a lot of looking and a wild tree is always a bit sparse and misshaped.  However, there is still some gratification doing it the old fashioned way!  Although balsam fir probably makes the best native tree, we were content with a small white spruce this year.  The photo below shows Michaela with her head stuck in the tree; she is actually cutting it down.

Our simple rink rake plus many feet hose to reach the skating rink.  This “T” shaped contraption is simply PVC pipe and a shutoff valve connected to a garden hose on one end and a pipe with a row of small holes on the business end.  The attached towel spreads the water out in a thin even, layer.  We have been able to salvage half of the rink, but the other half, as expected, has flooded and slushed out.

The resort is a great place to host holiday get-togethers.  We have the extra space in the lodge and Mary is a great cook.  And, there are plenty of ways to burn off the extra turkey and stuffing.  These photos are from our Thanksgiving hockey game with extended family.  Thanks to Bob Hammerstrom (a photo journalist who has shot his fair share of sporting events! and my brother-in-law from New Hampshire) for these photos.