Thursday, December 26, 2002

Happy Boxing day. I have been having a ball in Houghton, Michigan. We have been cross country skiing everyday. I think Wen and Ki would really like it as its been very easy cross country skiing and then you get to come home to a nice warm comfortable house, a hot shower, and have Mom and Dad Roberts take care of you :-) I have also enjoyed getting 10 hours of sleep a night for 6 days in a row. I think I can finally say definitively that I'm not tired. We took a long slow drive out on the Keneewaa peninsula and I got to see Lake Superior. There were really cool ice formations on the rocks close to shore but the water has not frozen over yet so we saw waves lapping over the rocks adding more layers of ice probably. We thought the roads would be clear of snow but they were not so we had to crawl along at 30 mph. What we thought would take an hour took about 2 hours. Oh well. We were in no rush and we saw some beautiful views of the Michigan woods with tree branches covered in snow and Lake Superior harbors.


We had a tradition turkey dinner yesterday on Christmas day. I enjoyed the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. Although my favorite food of Christmas day was the chocolate chip muffins we had a breakfast! After breakfast we opened presents. I got lots of nice gifts and I enjoyed watching my folks open their presents. After lunch my Dad and I went cross country skiing. We went on an intermediate trail which my Dad said was at the top of his skill limits. I felt bad for leading him on the harder route. I thought he could handle it and he could but only just barely. Oh well. I enjoyed it. There were about 2 very steep scary hills that I enjoyed zooming down but my Father did not. Today we went back to the same ski area but did only green easy trails and Mom came with us this time. She passed on Christmas day as she was busy cooking turkey and the rest of Christmas dinner.


My Mom's Christmas present never arrived. Grrrr! I ordered her Nevada Barr's Superior Death since its set on Isle Royale and Anna Pidgeon even comes to Houhgton, MI once in the story. I got on the internet and printed out a picture of the cover of the book and told her I hoped it would come soon and to look for a book from The Book Garden. I also got my Mom some software for her Mac called Ortograf which basically is Scrabble. I still haven't got the registration for the game though so at this point she can only play the demo version which takes away 20 letters so the games are pretty short. I'm crossing my fingers that the registration info arrives soon so I can get her set up before I leave.


I leave this Saturday at 2 p.m. If all goes well I get to San Jose near midnight. Since I'm just taking a taxi home I'm rather hoping all does not go well and I can volunteer to be bumped and get a free airplane ticket. I don't have any plans for Sunday so I'll have time to recover from a late arrival before I have to go back to work on Monday. I will really miss having Mom cook for me, skiing every day, and sleeping in everyday!