Cajudo New Years Gathering 2006
Here's the wrap up entry for Wella's family gathering on New Years weekend 2006:
[Dec 30, 2006] I’m sitting in a lovely mountain cabin reflecting on my day. I got up around 6:30 AM and made a nice strong pot of coffee. I went upstairs to get the bills done and correspondence with online friends. We needed to get everything done before we headed up to Lake Arrowhead for a family New Years retreat.
On the way we picked up a family of 3 and loaded them up in the Tahoe. We fit quite comfortably as we sat in bumper to bumper traffic on the 91 freeway through Riverside. I was tremendously pleased with how the Tahoe handled the mountain roads since this was the first time we'd driven in that setting. I could only recall how constantly had to kick the Honda CRV into lower gear to keep my speed up the hill whereas now I just cruised up smoothly. The "chugging" sound of the V8 engine was music to my ears.
We arrived a couple of hours after sundown and when we finally got a look at the cabin we were a bit surprised. We were expecting 27 people and realized our cabin was basically one room and perhaps a 1,000 sq. ft at best with one bathroom. Oh yeah, it was quite cozy once everyone arrived! But never fear, I had my laptop and Age of Empires III =D So I climbed one of the ladders to a sleeping loft and noticed there were only 2 prong outlets and I didn't have an adapter for my computer plug. AGGHH!!!
[December 31, 2006] I dealt with the lack of computing that evening as best I could and headed off to the local hardware store the next morning for an adapter. Thankfully I found one and I breathed a sigh of relief.
There was no snow but just up the road was a place that had man-made snow with inner tubes. We took the kids over there for some fun. Kianna, her cousins and I had an absolute blast tubing! The look on Kianna's face as she went down the hill was just classic. She laughed and giggled all the time we were there and it was so wonderful to see her enjoying herself that much. When we first arrived she was a bit concerned about it but after every slide she wanted to go higher and higher. In fact, by the end of the day she was begging to go down the highest slope.
All in all, I really enjoyed myself. This is interesting when you consider how introverted I was during the first family gathering of this type I attended years ago. I was extremely uncomfortable with this type of close family association under one roof for days at a time but I have made a complete transformation since then. I now know how to be in my "happy place" in the midst of all the familial chaos and I believe I may have become even more at home with it than other members of the family.
return to BugLOG home
return to home page