Thanksgiving 2010

My son Sean, daughter-in-law Tammi, and grandchildren Shadwic (Shad) and Kaihla came to visit for 4 days. It's been our tradition for years to spend Thanksgiving together. It's a nice break for them to spend time in 'Nana's Forest'.  As usual ~  we sauna, have a nice meal, and hunt for a Christmas tree. Tammi decorates the tree for me. This year was an exceptional Thanksgiving holiday because as usual Tammi wished for some snow and well.....we got it. She's more or less referred to in our family as the 'Snow Queen' because any time she hopes to wake up to snow - we do.

Since we had so much snow this year it would have required us to have chains to get to where we usually search for our tree so we kept the search a little closer to home, no problem.... we had already previously decided to try another location anyway. This year was the deepest snow we have ever encountered in our Christmas tree search.  

This was our first location, but we quickly decided it wasn't the greatest spot seeing how we were literally walking over manzanita bushes and sinking in the snow.

It got to be too difficult to go any further as you will note by the photo of Sean and Shadwic 'taking a break'

We eventually found a nice area where Shad led the way, braving his own pathway in 'untouched and untraveled' snow.

Nana wanted a Doug Fir for her Christmas tree this year, and we had to shake snow off the trees just to see what they looked like.

We all had fun, as we usually do.

We found plenty of time to build a snowman.........

..........do a little quadding in the snow.............

...........a little sledding...........

....and a little sauna-time.

I've had some pretty severe carpal tunnel symptoms in my left hand for the last week or so and Tammi and Sean cleared my driveway and walkway prior to going home. By that time it was pretty much solid ice. Can't thank them enough.

Sean taught his son Shad the first basics of 'shooting'. He's only 5, so of course we used the little pink Daisy BB gun my friend Laura gave me for Christmas (apparently I had been whining too much about not having my Red Ryder rifle anymore and she got tired of listening to me whine) Shad didn't care if it was pink or not. It was fun watching Sean teach his son how to correctly point the gun when not in use, how to sight it in.....it reminded me of many years ago when Ralph had bought Sean his first .22 handgun and taught him how to shoot. Shad shot all the balloons we set up for him and even managed to get a few shots into the little bulls-eye target I made him.

It was a great Thanksgiving and I miss the kids already!