It's Your Birthday.....

On Saturday night, we had a pizza/ice cream/wing party at Patsy and Brian's to celebrate Jay's birthday. Emma made him some beaded necklaces/room decorations as his present. When Emma was younger, we had a party for Jay at mom's and there is a picture of Emma sitting on Jay's lap. Below is this year's picture. It was taken on my cell phone, so it is a little fuzzy.We figured there was probably about 20 people or so over to the island for this occassion. Since the ice is in, there were quite a few people that snowmobiled over. I made 6 pizzas and there was none left by the end of the night. The homemade ice cream is a yearly ritual on Jay's birthday and I didn't think we should break it. Patsy and Brian supplied the wings and a green salad. The cake was made by Janet Ennis. Jay, Frank, myself and some of our other friends went for a snowmobile ride and had a lot of fun. This was the highlight of the weekend, and therefore, this will be a short post. Happy Bithday, Jay!

It took the airboat to get to the island on Friday. The ice is here, but we were still breaking in. Of course, since we had not been home for two weeks, we had a load of groceries and clothes to bring back. Along for the ride back, was Eileen "Urch" Slate. She looks nice and cozy all bundled up. Emma tried to fall asleep, but was unsuccessful until we slowed down and were coming into the dock.

Saturday night was some snowmobiling around the island to visit Rick and then to Patsy and Brian's for dinner. Our host is the one in the blue shirt. While the boys went around the island on the ice, Patsy and I decided to play it safe and went through the fields. When we all arrived at the Parker's, we enjoyed a spaghetti dinner. Thanks Patsy.

Sunday, I rode down to the house to get the laminator and decided to take a picture of the jeep with the snow on it. Imagine how much snow we would have if it hadn't melted. After all, I had some time to kill since the snowmobile wouldn't start once I shut it off. I told Frank once I arrived back at Erma's that if anyone had snuck up on me, they would have thought I was crazy. I was talking to the machine to try to get it to start. It started and I was on my way. Frank was just heading down to the house when I arrived at Erm's. It's a good thing I showed up when I did as we would have missed each other.

Ice is nice, but so is the warmth of a studio

A view of the channel markers sitting on dry dock in Clayton.

Today Emma went to the Handweaving Museum and Arts Center here in Clayton for a lesson on the pottery wheel. There were three students there and they were making clay mugs. Next week they will make the handles and glaze them.
Here she is concentrating on what she is doing. She did a nice job at making a bowl shape for the mug. This was her second piece that she made.

Here she is getting ready to take off the piece to be put on the platform to dry until next week. The instructor cut off the top to make it level.

Her two pieces that she did today. Keep an eye out for the finished product. This is it until after the weekend.

A Promise Is A Promise

Okay, On Sunday I told Emma that we could go sledding and/or skating on Wednesday as I wanted her to get enough rest for the State Assessments. Little did I know that it was going to be below zero. However, I knew she was looking forward to it, so I bundled up, went to the local hardware store that has everything and bought Emma a new sled. According to Kenny, it was the fastest ones on the sledding hill. Of course, she had to have it. I picked her up and we proceeded to the sledding hill.

When we arrived, Kenny was there with the hoses hooked up to the fire hydrant on the football field, making more ice. He mentioned that it was freezing fast and the sleds would really fly down the hill.

I took this video of Emma going down the icy hill. If you listen carefully, you can hear her saying "hi" to grandma and poppy. It should be a little better than the other one, since I took it on the regular camera. This may be the last post until after the weekend, when we will have more pictures and fun to tell about.

I was also able to take a better picture of the sledding hill for those of you who are interested in what it actually looks like.

After sledding, Emma had to go to basketball.

I should have known to keep my mouth shut...

Just a quick little note about Emma's basketball practice tonight. Apparently she wouldn't keep her mouth shut while the coaches were talking. She had to do at least 15 pushups. The coach mentioned how strong she is and that she didn't seem to mind doing them. Of course, she would never say that they bothered her. While she was eating dinner, she had to get off her chair and show me how the coaches made her do them. She had to clap her hands in between. She is pretty good at them.
I drove down to the front of Clayton and this is the view I saw. We have had cold weather, but it has not made very thick ice yet.

Snow, ice and sun make everything nice....

It's hard to believe that it is already the middle of January. So much is going on. The river is freezing to the point where the airboats are needed. We have some cold weather arriving this week so hopefully there will be some good crossing with the snowmobiles. Today was below zero, but the sun was shining, so I took Emma down to the local rink that is made by Kenny Brabant in the Lion's Field. Emma has only been on ice skates one other time. She did extremely well.
At first she used a chair that had skies on it to keep her balance. She held her right foot hard against the chair. However, she had a difficult time keeping her feet straight. She did much better once she left the chair behind. She was so excited to be skating.






Then she saw the sledding hill....Watch out below! She didn't have a sled, so a fellow Girl Scouter let her borrow one. She had a ball. I hard time getting her to leave. We will probably go back on Wednesday after school, depending on the weather. There were so many kids there. The line was unbelieveably long.

I am sorry for the clarity of this video. I took it on my cell phone and didn't realize I was taking it.

One picture before I sign out that says it all. Goodnight.