Christmas and Family

Did we ever have a wonderful time with Cherish and Patrick joining us for Christmas! We took advantage of the warm weather to get outside and enjoy the beautiful woods heavy with snow. Patrick rode in Joanna's sled on an 18 mile dog sled training run. John followed with his snowmobile to help if needed and Cherish and I rode the new snowmobile just for fun and to watch Joanna and Patrick on the trail.

We all went on our first cross country ski run of the year on the frozen trail alongside the river and out onto the lake and then up the trail into the tall jackpines. Gorgeous!! The next day entailed another dogsledding adventure with Patrick mushing his own team of seven dogs and Joanna with a larger team. Patrick had lots of exclamations on his return and seemed to be in awe of the whole experience.

Our chilluns were planning on heading back to Ely on Monday so Patrick could be to work on Tuesday, but the weather was quite brutal with lots of snow, some rain and high winds making driving too treacherous, so we hiked along the river trail to the overlook of Indian lake for an outing, taking all three female dog cousins too. They became quite good friends during their time together. After that outing, we were all so pooped, we took some restful naps.
It's a good thing we had so much outdoor activity because we ate and ate and ate some delicious meals and continuous delectable treats the whole time. The only thing we were missing was Jonathan, Reseth, Aaron and Titus. At least we got to visit with them via Skype which was fun.