Merry Christmas Week

Okay, sorry for not posting anything sooner but I just haven't felt like it! I'm not sad, or depressed or anything, I'm just not ready to post anything. Um... I didn't feel like posting anything. I do now so here goes.

I know I promised to post pictures of the first big snowfall and I as yet have not done that. That is because we haven't gotten a big snowfall that stuck. It snowed three times before any of it stayed put but it was about a quarter of an inch. Around here that does not qualify as big. On Christmas we got about four inches. That's respectable and I'll try to get pictures of it on here soon.
Christmas was Christmas. It was only the three of us because Charlie couldn't make it down and Kathy said Justin, Katrina and Jaddrick(sorry if I spelled that wrong) were planning on stopping by her place so she wasn't here. We opened presents at noon cause that's when all of us were up at the same time. I got really cool scrapbook paper from one of my cousins' children, Robbie. It's very retro and it'll be perfect for Mom and Dad's scrapbook. Also, a pack of loose papers in different colors and a sticker-maker. I have one and I really like it. And really, can you have too many scrapbook tools? Mom made me a jumper, got me a rice cooker/steamer (which I really, really wanted), and my favorite candy in the whole world, Almond Roca.
Dad got a really cool flashlight with red and blue filters. He almost blinded himself when he was looking at it and turned it on. He also got little sculptures of a wolf and a bear from his niece, Amanda. The sculptures are already on the entertainment center, which, by the way, holds our new television!!!!! It's amazing! When you info a program on the satellite, the info box is bigger than our other tv! It's really nice because this tv is a stereo tv which means that the sound is much lower when it comes out. There's a lot more bass. Apparently, Dad was having a hard time hearing the other tv because it was so high-pitched. He doesn't need this one turned up nearly as much. I can actually lay in my bed, three feet from my own television and hear what I'm watching instead of what he's watching.
Sorry, back to Christmas. Mom got a Jo-Ann's gift card, a sewing stiletto and serger tweezers. She asked for the stiletto, and if I couldn't find that, then the tweezers. I found both and that's what she got.
We all got a family picture of the Selbys (Amanda, Clint, Robbie, Glen and Brytni). Grandma Love sent us a calendar of some of the pictures that Uncle Dave has taken. One of the "purtypurple flowers" is an orchid, I'm sure of it. I was a little bummed that I didn't get an orchid calendar this year but I guess I did huh? Mom also got a quilting book that she spent the day poring over. Me thinks she likes it.
Grandpa and Grandma Arndt sent us candy, scarves, brownie mix and an oven mitt that is too cute.
I'm sorry if I forgot anyone. Normally I write down who got what but I forgot this year.

Oh! I got my dog the cutest little snow suit! I know, I know, you're all thinking "Clothes for a dog? What a weirdo!" but you have to understand that he is only a foot tall, doesn't have much of a winter coat, fur-wise, and it gets downright nippy around these parts. Because he is crated most of the time he needs to get out and run sometimes. With McKinzie in the house, it's just a lot easier to let him run outside. McKinzie can't focus on fast moving objects so he gets really frustrated when he can't catch the furry little blur whizzing past him.

We haven't had much excitement this week but Kathy had a lot more fun than we did.
Last week she went to Anchorage with her son, daughter-in-law and their two children. Mom was taking care of the house and the dog while she was gone. Unfortunately, when Kathy got home she had a chimney fire! She called Dad and he grabbed the ladder and me and we went to rescue her. She was remarkably calm, considering her house was on fire. Dad climbed up on the roof and poured water down the chimney until the pipe was cool. Two days later Dad and Tony took her old stove out and put the one that Mom bought for us four years ago in. It is too little for our house but it's just perfect for hers. She had run out of heating fuel and the old stove just couldn't keep it warm in that one room. Now, you have to understand the dynamics of Kathy's house. She lives in a trailer with an add-on and a shell over the whole thing. The circulation isn't that great. She has a Toyo stove in the trailer and a wood stove in the add-on. Together, they keep both buildings quite warm and comfy. Okay, she had run out of heating fuel... She put a sheet across the doorway into the trailer to keep the heat in the add-on and because there's no heat in the trailer, her water froze. She also has Bryan and Mary Beth's camp trailer hooked up to her water and septic. Where the septic lines connect, because she wasn't running water through there, it froze. So now her water and her septic are frozen, she has no heat in the trailer and the wood stove needs to be nursed through the night to put out enough heat. Exciting, no? Well, the day that Dad and Tony switched the stoves, Bryan and Mary Beth bought 100 gallons of heating fuel. So, her heater was working, the wood stove was working and just a day later her water thawed out. The only thing that was wrong was the septic. I had forgotten, but when Jim and Kathy had their well drilled they were able to find a bowl of sandstone. Their water gets filtered by the sandstone before it gets pumped to the house so, ordinarily, they have really good water. If it's not run for a couple days however, it gets really rusty. Kathy says it'll take about ten gallons to run the rust out. But she couldn't run her water because the septic was still frozen. She came up here to get water a couple of times but I think it's thawed now because the last time she came up was on Christmas. She said the pump truck would be out the next day to thaw the system. Hopefully she's all working again.
That's all the news I can think of for the moment.
~Pam