Finally, we've had a few active weekends. I took off to Indiana on Thursday the 20th. I arrived an hour or two late for Luther's funeral, but got to meet the 30+ people at the farm for the wake. I bet the last time that many people were there was for Hugh's wedding. It was fun re-meeting several people I hadn't seen since I was a wee lad.

I was amazed at all the wind damage on the farm. Much of the woods seemed impassible due to the large number of blown down trees.


Dad kept himself busy burning brush piles and cutting up fallen trees. I got a little practice in with a chainsaw one day when we cleared the trails to the treehouse.


The treehouse escaped unscathed, which I attribute more to luck and a good location than anything else. I did stay in the treehouse each night even though the temperatures were dropping into the teens. Luckily I had a good sleeping back and several wool blankets.



We visited Pat's Swamp Shack one evening. She'd just gotten a wood burning stove installed, which seemed quite luxurious. It was a lot of fun comparing notes on shack building and seeing where'd she'd made different decisions.


The treehouse saw a lot of visitors this trip. After Luther's funeral we had 9 people in it at one point. Granted, three of them were children, but I'm still counting it as the record. Sandy and Tata made it over one day, as did Tommy.



The weather was all over the map while I was there. There was one nice day, several cloudy days, it snowed one day, and rained the next. The creeks would freeze over during the night, and all the water I carried down to the treehouse slowly froze over a few nights.


Luckily the main house stayed warm, and Ma kept the stoves fed with firewood. Lena spent a lot of time staying close the warmth. She would venture out for walks occasionally, but if we were too boring she's head back to the house.



It was a fun trip, and I enjoyed hanging out with the folks. Getting a wood burning stove in the treehouse got bumped up in the priority list a bit, maybe one will go in this next year.


The trip back was uneventful. It's no longer possible to get a direct flight from Denver to Louisville, but all my travel went smoothly, even with the layovers. I was glad to get back to a warm shower and bed.

Last week was a short week at work, then Thanksgiving preparations started. Kristen put on a good thanksgiving meal, she successfully fed 8 people, the Pumpkin Pie ice cream being a favorite. With the new couch and chairs the place wasn't too crowded, and everyone had a place to sit. We unfortunately didn't take many pictures.


Life will get back to normal next week. I have work people in town toward the end of the week, and Kristen is planning a big cookie making party on Friday. The weather should warm up into the 50s which will be nice.

Happy Birthday Ma! I hope you had a good one!

Friday night Kristen and I headed out to see the annual Warren Miller movie with a few friends. It was a lot fun as always, and we'd finally gotten our first snow of the year earlier in the morning. It had melted by the time the movie started, but it still got everyone in the mood for some skiing or snowboarding. We missed breaking the record for the latest snow fall by one day.

Saturday involved laying around the house, and biking into work for a half day. I've almost made up the time for this upcoming trip, I still have half a day to sneak in somewhere. Kristen laid pretty low, doing some more Christmas planning.

Sunday morning was the annual Panicking Poultry run. A few of the same friends we saw on Friday night showed up, and we all enjoyed the beautiful 70+ degree weather. The food was good, although we passed this year on the early morning free beer. Kristen won a nice hoody sweatshirt that fits me quite well. I'll be using it keep warm this upcoming weekend.

Tuesday evening Kristen's office had a 5k race, I headed over there and we both ran it. I met a few of her coworkers, and generally enjoyed yet another record breaking day (78 degrees).

I'm heading to the airport early tomorrow, my flight leaves at 6:15 am. I'm excited to get back and see the folks, I haven't seen much of them this year.

There's been a whole lot of squat going on. It'd be easier to make weekly posts if we had anything interesting to post about.

I've been working 6 day weeks trying to bank up some time for the upcoming Indiana trip. This makes for a short weekend, and we've just been taking Saturday's slow so I can recuperate for the next week.

Speaking of preparations for the Indiana trip, I've tried convincing Kristen that we should sleep with all the windows open at night, in order to "simulate the treehouse experience". She didn't see the need for her to get a preview, since she's not going. Oh well.

Kristen has been doing various mysterious activities in preparation for Christmas. I've helped a little here and there, unfortunately I can't post much about that without ruining Christmas morning surprises.

Last Sunday the fox that we often see running by the office decided to take a nap right outside the office window. They really look like they should be a pet up close. I wonder if people have tried to raise them as pets...


The weather continued to be beautiful here up until last Wednesday or so. I've managed to ride the bike in to work 5 days a week for the last month or so. It's getting cold enough now that I may do a bit more driving from here on out.

We've been enjoying Becky's blog lately, since there's actually some activity over there. Steve's pictures are very impressive, they make us want to take photography classes.