Cabin Christmas Adventure - Day Three

Today Brian and Keith spent the morning making the permanent repairs to the ATV.  This meant a trip out to  the Can Am shop at Last Chance, where the wonderful mechanics were very helpful, even pulling parts to sell them from a rental they didn't need on Christmas Eve.

After lunch, Penny was sleeping and Jackson was happy playing with me, the others headed out to find the perfect Christmas tree.  Off they went, three on the ATV and the other two on skis.  

After travelling 30 miles, according to Brian, and less than a mile according to Keith, (bet you can't guess who was on the ATV and who was on skis...) they found the perfect tree.  

Later that night, we decorated it up with things we brought from home.  Not bad for a fresh tree from the woods, hunh? 

Christmas Adventure Turns Exciting! - Day Two

This morning I spied Chewbacca in the tree outside our bedroom window.  He looks very healthy, don't you think?  I was worried about him when Brian did some retrofitting to the Johnny Sack cabin that would prevent him from making it his winter home anymore.

So we went to church Sunday morning like always.  Well, not really like always.  Always assumes we go at 11 a.m. and drive in our nice clothes in a clean car, arrive early, enjoy church services, then go home without incident or event.  Not so this Sunday.  We got there in our dirty cars, just in time to strip off our snow gear and smooth out our helmet hair.  We sat down and enjoyed church services which consisted of a program of Christmas music performed by the ward choir and a talk by Elder Webb.   It was wonderful.  So was Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood meetings.  Sarah got to chat up all her old friends.  Brian and I said hello to some of our recently made friends.  Then on our way back to the ATV.

Keith and Jackie and Penny were the first ones to go in.  Just as they turned off the main road, the wheel fell off the ATV.  Fell off.  In the snow.  They called back to us.  The threesome made it back to the cabin on foot in falling snow up to their knees.  Luckily Penny slept through the entire thing!  Keith armed himself with water, a radio, tools and food and headed back to the ATV to try to lift the machine up high enough out of the 2 feet of powder with one arm, and then with the other arm, put the wheel back on.  Three of the four lug nuts had fallen off and one was stripped.  Luckily for him, three snowmobiles happened along and helped him out, then followed him back to the cars to the rest of us.  Brian and Keith checked things out, tightened the three remaining lug nuts down, then we headed off to see what parts stores were open on a Sunday.  In a remote area of Idaho.  Sure.  The day before Christmas Eve.  Oh well, we stayed warm in the truck at least.

No luck on a local parts store.  Back at the ATV we took it slow getting to the cabin in two trips. Then on Christmas Eve, Brian and Keith went back out and found the necessary lug nuts and studs, made the permanent repairs, and we were back in business.  Luckily this all happened in the daylight, when we were withing 3 miles of the cabin, and all of us were together.  This could have happened on any of Brian's 30 mile or so solo trips out into the snow earlier in the week when we were not there.  We are truly blessed, NOT lucky.

I am a Sea Star!  Baby Penny slept through the drama.

Kelsey's snow man

Cabin Christmas Adventure - Day One

The kids wanted to spend Christmas at the cabin.  Of course, we were more than happy to comply.  Brian spent a year (maybe?) researching ways to get us all into the cabin on snowy roads.  Here is what he eventually came up with.

Okay, so he wanted to go up before the rest of us could.  Thanks to his good friend, Brent, he was able to.  Brent drove his truck and pulled the trailer up, and then Brent came back the next day.  Here they are getting ready to leave.  Not much snow on the ground at our house.  We hoped that would not be  a problem at the cabin.

Ask Brian about some tall tale of getting jack knifed once they got to the warming hut turn off. ;)

Did I mention that Brent is a 'good' friend?

A week later, Keith and Jackie and Penny flew into the Salt Lake airport.  Sarah and I picked them up late Friday night.  We loaded up on Saturday morning and took off in both cars fully loaded with 6 suitcases, 5 adults, 4 helmets, 3 tubs, 2 babies, 1 cooler, and a partridge in a pear tree. 

You can see that by now we had some snow at home.  And lucky for us, snow was falling nicely at the cabin. 

As we traveled we got hungry.  So first stop (after Walmart for diapers) was Neilsen's Frozen Custard in Rexburg.  After a sandwich, I had to try the peppermint custard.  Wow was it delicious!

The next stop was Rexburg Motor Sports.  Keith needed goggles and Kelsey wanted a new helmet.  Jackson and I tried out all the toys. 

Finally, on to the cabin!

When we arrived Brian met us at the warming hut parking lot on the ATV.  We were off on our Christmas adventure!

Kelsey, Sarah, and Jackson were the first ones in.  It was a little tight but hey,  we are a tight family, what can I say??

Jackie, Keith and Penny went next. And last Brian and I went in.  This is what we saw as we came around the corner to the cabin...

 Brian had wrapped the entire cabin in red ribbon laced through all the trees.  He said, "Merry Christmas!" as I exclaimed my delight.  This promises to be the best Christmas adventure yet. 

Tomorrow is Sunday.  Wait until you hear what that day brought...  

Sunday Afternoon Drive

After church today we took a drive over to the reservoir.  We stopped at Box Canyon and the fish ladder.  Here are some pictures of people we don't know floating the river below the dam.

Fishermen

Kids in float tubes

Fish ladder

Brian and his sister Julie

Want 'Smore 'Smores?

Smoke in your hair, sticky fingers, toasty front, cold back side...  What could it be?  A campfire with 'smores!

What a doll, eh??

Return to Lucky Dog Springs

Later today we took the neighbors on an ATV trip back to Lucky Dog Springs.  They had never been so it was fun for us to share it with them, since they have been coming to their Big Springs cabin for many years and know the area pretty well.  It was also nice to pay them back for all the times they have rescued us with their snowmobiles.  The kids loved the ATV riding part as much or more than the exploring of the old cabins.

Micah pushed over a dead tree.

The kids loved the cool bugs living in the dead stump.

Brian could not be out done...

No bugs under his tree though.

A  good time was had by all.  We will have to do it again next summer!

Girls' ATV trip

So the next day the girls' trip was to Lucky Dog Springs.  We took the guys along so they could see it, too.

After that we rode along the river and found as many puddles as we could since it had rained hard the night before.

Vroom, Vroom...

Brian

Kelsey and Julie

Jeff and Jens