Large Groups of Kids

First large group of kid - Noel and the grandkids came for an early Thanksgiving visit. We've been cooking and cuddling all this week.

The one thing I didn't do all week is take photos. Because I always seemed to have my hands full. (Gee, yathink?!) Well, there were other things I didn't do this week too - watch television, hang out online, go to the bathroom without someone talking to me from the other side of the door... just a few things that come immediately to mind.



Noel was the one to finally remember and I tried to get some shots of everyone together. Unfortunately the light was already fading fast, and kids don't pose for more than a nanosecond at a time, and never at the same time, so it wasn't the best of circumstances. With everyone running different directions, success was elusive.



I took dozens of photos and there were one or two where at least no one's eyes were shut or face blurred or bunny ears behind a brother's head. I'm sharing this one instead because it pretty much tells the story of the visit. Everyone was pretty much happy, cooperative, going with the flow, except for one child, who had to do things.... her way. If you told her to do something, she had to refuse. If you told her to stop doing something, she had to do it twice as fast. I told Noel that this particular child (not naming names of course) is her karma child. I assured her that she'd undoubtedly grow out of it. In another sixteen years or so. Of course in this shot, I had just asked her not to stick out her tongue.





The nicest photo of the whole bunch was snapped by Hubby of us three girls.


Second large group of kids - William's football team.

The second play off game was supposed to be this last Friday evening here at home. It started storming by midday and by evening the snow was coming so hard and fast that it's unlikely that the people in the bleachers would have been able to see the players on the field, the players on the field would have had a hard time seeing a passing ball, and the referees would have had an impossible time finding the field much less determining the yardage. All this was a moot point as the plows couldn't keep up with the roads and the other team couldn't get over the mountains. The game was rescheduled for the next afternoon, which fortunately was clear, if frigid.




Great small town story. A few of the football boosters came out early in the morning and tried to deal with the field. There weren't enough people to make a dent, so they made a call to the local radio station who went on the air and asked the community to lend a hand. Over a hundred people showed up with shovels and snow blowers and in three hours they'd completely uncovered the field and bleachers from about a half foot of snow.

And as you can see from the photo above, visibility was much better than the night before. Lassen went on to win 42 - 0. We play the final Northern California district championship game later tonight (Wednesday). Fortunately there's no more snow forecast until possibly Thanksgiving night.

By Thanksgiving proper, as everyone else is gearing up for lots of busy travel and cooking and guest prep, the plan here is to be enjoying the quiet pleasures of being post turkey, post visitors, and post victory dance. I'm think I'm beginning to see there might be advantages of breaking with tradition.