Winter weekend

This past weekend (March 6-8) was quite the exciting weekend. We were blessed with a beautiful new niece on Friday morning. Lily Kay Smith. My sister Kristin and Tanner are doing well.

Also in Tyonek, the Chief Chikelusian Celebration was going on. It started with a potluck on Friday night. There was so much food! It was really good. We had moose meat for the first time! There was moose stew, moose meat in gravy, plain moose meat, all very delicious. After the meal some of the kids in the village did some traditional drumming which was really neat to hear.

Saturday night, we decided to cross-country ski down to the river (which is about 2 miles away). We found a good camping spot and set up. We did not anticipate how big of a job setting up a campsite would be, but because the snow was so deep the moment we stepped out of our ski's we would sink to our knees. After pounding down the snow with our ski's and boots, we set up our tent. We also made an area to have a campfire. Our fire wasn't as big and warm as we had hopped, so we decided to make hot chocolate instead. The night was extremely cold! I even slept in my down jacket! It may have been a premature camping trip, but was fun anyways. Granger also got to shoot his new gun that he got, which is always fun. Once we got home and started to thaw, my feet began to swell! I thought I was going to loose a few toes, but everything turned out ok.

After we warmed up a bit we headed to Second Lake to watch Snow Machine (Snow mobile) races. The kids were ice fishing and playing on snow mounds. They also had a riffle shoot. The kids did an egg toss in the snow! It was really funny to watch because the egg was dropped almost every time but never broke! They had a blast though. We enjoyed the picnic and headed home.