Snow, snow, and more snow - there's no doubt that we had a White Christmas this year. It's a good thing we like snow; we wouldn't have moved to Trout Lake if we didn't. The weather really cooperated for this holiday, alternating days between heavy snowfall and clear, sunny weather that enabled us to go outside and enjoy it.
After one new snowfall, Leif, Loren, Corinne and I played 2-on-2 tackle football. The snow was deep enough that it was near impossible to run very fast or far; and the snow was so soft that there was nothing hard to hit when you were tackled.
Towards the beginning of the break, the top layer of the snow that was already on the ground had formed a moderately hard but unpredictable crust. Sometimes you could walk on top safely; other times your foot just fell right through into the softer snow below. This sparked an idea that ended up being much more fun that we had anticipated - a snow race!
We still can't figure out how Loren didn't fall on his face (like everyone else.)
We took several hikes, including one on our neighbor Jack's trail that leads out of the valley and up onto the hills to the east. Corinne and I wore our snowshoes on the trail, but Leif and Linda slogged through with only their boots on. Parts of the trail lower down had already been traveled and stomped down a bit, but once we got near the top the snow was untouched. It was deep and it was hard work! We got some beautiful views, including a nice view down on our property. The dense, dark, perfectly organized trees are all ours. ;) If only we had remembered to bring one of our walkie talkies, we could have called down to our other guests and waved.
We've lost some branches - and a tree or two - to the heavy snow loads that we get here in Trout Lake. In particular, a flowering cherry near the house had most of its larger branches snapped off, leaving a mangled mess that would never recover. Loren has some recent experience with chainsaws, cutting downed trees after some heavy storms in Tulsa, so he and I made fairly quick work of the remnants.
Of course, all of that snow meant that some work had to be done occasionally. I think I cleared the driveway three times over the break, and I'm thankful that I was able to get away with that small number. ;)
But by far the most frequent and popular snow event of this holiday season was Zillah Magilla, the Snow Gorilla. It all started innocently enough with the pretty standard idea to make a snow sculpture.
Step 1: Create the biggest pile of snow possible.
Step 2: Analyze the raw material to "free the inner sculpture". In our case, Linda spotted a gorilla head. We had our inspiration.
Step 3: Work to bring the new creature to life.
Step 4: Make sure that it doesn't REALLY come to life. (Actually, we're carving out chambers in which to place candles.)
Step 5: Take a break.
Step 6: Take credit where credit is due.
Step 7: Light it on fire.
But as it turns out, our gorilla had a bit more to say. Several days later, the gorilla got a helmet (ala Planet of the Apes). Then, his right fist emerged from the ground several feet to the west. Shortly after that, his left hand was seen around the base of a tree, seemingly pulling himself out of the ground.
Before long, our creation was trying to claim his first victim.
We spent a good portion of the daylight hours outside, and that's the way it should be. That's why we live in the country! All that exercise sure did make us hungry, though...
We started off our holiday vacation in Portland. Andrea and Shane drove down from Seattle on Saturday, and we met up with them in the city (along with Leif and Linda) to spend a few hours exploring. Our first stop was dinner at Noble Rot, a wonderful and comfortable restaurant and wine bar. We then sought out a nice place to listen to some live jazz, and after a few false starts ended up in the lobby of the Benson Hotel. For a few hours we sat in front of the fire with warm drinks and live jazz, all under the lighting of their Christmas tree. Lovely. Later that evening Loren arrived from Tulsa, and we all crashed at Linda's place for the night (after a quick stop for some midnight Mexican food).
The following day we all packed up and headed to our place. Once we arrived and made our guests comfortable, the first task was to light, erect, and decorate our 20' tree. The tree was a bit taller than last year's tree, but it was also more narrow and with wider branch spacing, so we had enough lights to cover. We learned quite a few lessons from last years tree, so this years went up a lot faster. We took turns holding the tree at an angle while several other people wrapped lights around the top. We weren't going to repeat last years mistake! Everyone participated, and a good time was had by all.
Once the tree was up and decorated, we had no more scheduled events for the next 10 days! That's not to say we didn't do anything; we would simply get up in the morning and just relax until we thought of something in particular that we wanted to do. We spent quite a bit of time outside in the snow and prepared some fabulous food, both of which will be covered in their own posts.
Over the break we had a bit of a revolving guest door. Leif, Linda, Loren, Donna, Shane, Andrea, and Reidar all shared the holidays with us for all or a portion of the 11 days. We played quite a few games and assembled a puzzle or two, but Cribbage was definitely the game of the holidays this year. Part card game and part math problem, there was almost always a game in progress. Leif and Linda were obsessed with the game; Leif dominated, but Linda resolved to beat him before the New Year arrived - and made it by only 3 hours.
Loren may have physically been here, but unfortunately he had to spend a large percentage of his time working. He runs his own graphic and multimedia design business (in fact, he is the business), and unfortunately had a major project to complete over the holidays. (Apparently he spent a good portion of the ski trip that followed working on that same project!). You can see the results on his website, CleverMill.com. I guess he'll just have to come back sometime soon to make up for it. ;)
Corinne and I have managed to eliminate most gifts from Christmas, since we'd rather spend our time with people than shopping for them. There were still some gifts to unwrap, though, so we had several different Santa's pop in to Trout Lake to help us out. (The one pictured here seemed to be a bit mentally unstable...)
There were also several "competitive events" that occurred rather spontaneously. One started out as a game of Triominoes, but turned into a 20 minute Computer Programming competition between myself and Leif to see who could write a timer application for the game (since Leif thought the game moved too slowly.) The competition was actually lots of fun, with Loren doing color commentary, and frequent commercial breaks containing ads for knitting shops (Donna), bait & tackle (Reidar), and pillows (Linda). Leif gets points for creativity; his solution was a 15 second audio file ending in a recording of him saying "beep". I, however, wrote programs in two different programming languages (Python and C#) but couldn't figure out why they weren't working. Here's a hint: beeps don't make any sounds when Mute is on. Oops.
This Christmas also involved LaserTag. Corinne and I had frequently talked about how fun it would be to play in our forest, so when I saw a deal I bought enough equipment for 6 people. We played both indoors and outdoors, which brings me to our next post... SNOW. And lots of it.
Much of the time between our firewood/poker weekend and December 21st is kind of a blur. Aside from our company holiday party, the rest of the time was devoted to preparing for the holidays and our holiday guests.
This is the first year since we were kids when we weren't traveling anywhere for Christmas or New Years! Instead, this year a portion of Corinne's family is coming to visit us. (We won't see my immediate family until a trip to Florida in January.)
Food When we take vacations - even if just a long weekend - we generally try to arrange it so that we can just stay home on "the farm". Since there aren't many places to eat out near us, and we can generally make better, healthier, and cheaper food ourselves, we try to do enough menu planning in advance so that we can do all of our shopping on a day when we have to drive in to town to work anyway. So when we're hosting as many as 8 people for as long as 12 days, having enough food takes lots of advance planning.
We spent several hours searching for good recipes that are suitable for larger groups and would make good leftovers, then broke down the recipes into shopping lists and divvied out the lists to a few shoppers. 12 days worth of food (and drinks) for 8 people takes up quite a bit of space, so we would rely on the fact that the weather would stay cold and we could leave much of the food outside in coolers.
Snow On top of that, the snow just didn't stop. Over a 2 week span we probably got 18" or so of new snow on top of the 24"+ we already had on the ground. Almost every day for at least a week, we spent significant time snow blowing and shoveling. We're getting pretty good at clearing the driveway, but the snowblower that we have doesn't clear down to the ground. The result is a flat surface of packed snow that all-wheel drive vehicles like our Honda CR-V can navigate, but most 2-wheel drive vehicles would have problems. Since we had at least 2 vehicles arriving that fell into the latter category, we decided to clear out an area next the bottom of the driveway for parking. We'd still have to dig and push the cars out at the end of the vacation, but at least they wouldn't have to deal with the rest of the driveway. Leif kindly offered his snow shoveling assistance, which we gladly accepted. He even brought some homemade stew to rejuvenate us when we finished.
Tree And of course, there's the Christmas tree. Last year we cut down a tree at Thanksgiving, brought it in and decorated it, all with the help of our Thanksgiving guests. But this year we were in Seattle for Thanksgiving, so we needed a new plan. Ideally we wanted to cut down the tree, decorate with lights and put it up (in that order!) before our Christmas guests arrived. The guests could then help with ornaments and any other decorating.
So a week before our guests were to arrive, we headed out into our stands to find a good tree. Corinne wanted to find a tree that was more sparse and narrow than the typical Christmas tree, so that:
There would be more free space for ornaments to hang;
We would need fewer lights; and
The tree would take up less space in our great room.
After some searching (most of the trees are much too large even for our 20' Great Room ceiling), we found a nice grand fir that met all of the requirements. We had the tree on the ground pretty quickly, then carried it through the deep snow toward the house, having to stop numerous times along the way. It was much easier last year when we had a dozen people helping! We knew there was no way we would be able to put the tree up on our own, so after laying the tree down for a few days under the eaves of the house, we brought it inside and waited for the xylem in the tree to thaw and for our guests to arrive.
Insitu hired a photographer for its Holiday Party. While most people used the opportunity to have their family portraits taken, we decided we'd rather have a group shot with some of our friends from work. This picture came out unbelievably well. Stay tuned for episodes of our own new TV show à la Friends.
A beautiful frosty morning inspired me to take the digital SLR out for a morning stroll. I took 163 photos hoping for some winners. These are some of my favorites.
Our friend Mark, an avid poker fan, holds a Texas Hold-em poker tournament semi-annually. The most recent poker tournament fell right in the middle of our firewood expedition, but we really wanted to go (and he was expecting us). So we showed up at his place wearing "farm" clothes and with a pickup full of firewood. We changed into something more appropriate once we got there, each paid our $25 buy-in, and sat down with the other 19 players for an evening of poker fun.
It's a good thing we went, too; after about 6 hours of card play, I won! For my $25 buy-in, I took home the $210 first place prize money. I figure that just about pays for the firewood and gas money for the pickup. Now when people ask how we heat our house, I can honestly say: poker winnings.
I guess I should have turned the money around; there are actually $20s on the other side.
After our escapades cleaning up the snow in the driveway, Mother nature decided to be kind (briefly). The temperature went above freezing for the next few days, allowing some of the remaining unplowed snow to melt. A few days of rain also helped to further soften the path. We still haven't been able to clear out the west half of our circular driveway, but it's a start.
In the meantime, we had several related heating issues to resolve. Starting sometime before Thanksgiving we noticed a mild propane smell in the house when we arrived home at night. Our house's primary heat source is a propane furnace, so something was not right. The smell quickly got stronger, and on some days the heat wouldn't come on at all, requiring a manual reset of the furnace. We made a service appointment with the furnace repair folks, checked the toxicity of propane (propane is non-toxic), and started to use our wood stove more heavily.
Unfortunately, the fire wood that came with the house was almost depleted, so it was time to replenish. Being of a scientific nature, I started by doing some research on the various types of wood available locally and their qualities: BTUs per cord, propensity for smoke, burn temperatures, etc. I then checked out the local classified listings and found someone selling seasoned, cut and split maple for a good price, so we jumped on it. We loaded up the pickup 3 times (1 cord for us and 1/2 cord for Leif). Loading and unloading 1.5 cords of hardwood is hard work, but it's a heck of a lot easier than cutting and splitting it.
Now, a quick diversion to answer the question we receive most frequently: you live on a tree farm, so why do you need to buy firewood? Ideally we'd simply thin trees from our forest and use them. The problem is that we would have needed to cut down those trees at least a year ago; soft woods like firs and pines should be seasoned (i.e. dry aged) for at least a year before burning. Unseasoned wood will burn cooler and generate much more smoke and creosote, neither of which is a good thing. So sometime soon we hope to fell some future fire wood.
This assumes that we don't spend all of our time dealing with snow, that is. And so far, prospects are not looking good. After a short respite from the snow, it was back with a vengeance. For about a week, it seemed like we got new snow almost every day, and spent a part of each day cleaning it up. Some days we would blow snow in the morning and shovel at night; other days it was only in the evening. We're definitely better prepared as far as the snow-blower is concerned, but enough is enough! The furnace is now fixed (thanks to a $60 gasket), so at least we can come in to a warm house after a cold snow removal session.
It is Saturday night at about 11pm. There's ~18"+ of snow on the ground, and it's still falling. The snowblower is attached to the tractor, and we managed to maneuver it so that it is ready to depart the shop and immediately start blowing snow. Last step: engage PTO and drive out. Engaging...
(grind grind) Something's not working right. The PTO won't engage, so the auger doesn't turn. We try all sorts of things - engine in gear, out of gear; all sorts of unrelated hydraulic settings; numerous calls to our "tractor support line" (Reidar) who apparently thought he had the night off. Nothing works. After about an hour and a half, we gave up and went to bed at close to 1am. Frustrating. We fall asleep dreading the next morning, envisioning several feet of snow covered in a sheet of ice.
Early the next morning I'm up, and the weather isn't as bad as we feared. I'm on the phone with our support rep, who gives me a couple of things to try. Finally, I manage to get the PTO engaged by doing it with the engine OFF - something (the ONLY thing) I didn't try the night before.
Time to start the real work!
The snow is deep, and less fluffy than the night before. It's still manageable, but I have to alternate between forward and reverse frequently, to avoid too much snow piling up in front of the blower. Corinne gives me frequent direction initially until I get comfortable with how it maneuvers, then she moves on to do some manual shoveling. It's a bit awkward to operate the tractor driving backwards and looking over my shoulder to make sure the snow is blowing, but it works. I figure that as long as I alternate which side, I shouldn't be too terribly sore the next day.
As the day progresses, the temperature starts to creep up and the falling snow turns more slushy. The snow on the ground has been getting gradually heavier; at one point the discharge chute jams with snow, causing us to have to stop and dig it out with trowels for a while to clear it. After a total of 4 hours or so, we've managed to plow from the road to the garage, but only one side of our circular driveway. Cold and tired, we head inside for a break and breakfast.
After a couple hours inside to warm up, and with the snow still falling outside, we decide to head out again to do another pass on the driveway and attempt to clear the rest of the unplowed section. It doesn't take too long, however, before we realize that we don't have enough diesel fuel to finish. So we pack the tractor away in the shop with snowblower and chains still attached, ready for another day. We hope that we'll have an opportunity to clear the remaining section before more snow or ice arrives. After a long days work, we measure the snow and head inside. 24" (at the time of this photo).
This past weekend was a busy one - even busier than Thanksgiving. Here's why.
We took Friday off (as part of our "end of the year and we have extra vacation we need to use up three day weekend extravaganza") and spent the afternoon shopping in Portland. That evening we met up with Jamie, Torsten, Katja and Marta for dinner and games. The following day we spent with Phyllis Clausen, scanning many of the old photos she has of her and Vic's time in Trout Lake. The photos go all the way back to when they built the house in the 1970s. It's amazing how much can change - or be changed - in just 30 years. But we'll save that for another post.
The REAL news is the snow. Lots of it. We actually left Portland earlier than we had planned on Saturday so that we might avoid driving during the worst of the storm. But almost as important is the fact that we have to clear our own driveway, and we were already behind.
Up to this point the snowfall has been fairly mild - a few inches here and there, slowly accumulating on the ground and driveway without too much effort required of us. Our CR-V was able to drive right over the snow that remained from the first few snowfalls. But now we were faced with snow of a different beast. Forecasts were predicting "Heavy Snow Warnings"; "Freezing Rain By Morning"; "You're In Trouble."
We arrived home at about 8pm to find that a lot of snow had already accumulated: probably at least 12" of fluffy, new snow on top of the 8" or so that remained from the earlier storms. Realizing that the icy forecast for Sunday morning would only make things more difficult for us - and that the snow was still coming down pretty heavy - we decided that we needed to try to take action as soon as possible. So we unloaded the car (which did manage to get up the driveway), ate a quick bite, and head out to the machine shop.
The shop brought a host of problems that we had to solve before we could even start thinking about moving snow. 1. Detach the blade implement from the back of the tractor 2. Put the tire chains on the tractor 3. Remember how to start the tractor 4. Attach the snowblower 5. Get the tractor out of the shop 6. Remember how to operate the PTO
It has been quite a while since Reidar gave us our tractor lessons, and we hadn't used the tractor since then. So suffice it to say things didn't exactly go smoothly.
The first few steps weren't too bad, and we managed to get through step 4 in probably a little over an hour. Step 5 is where it started to get complicated. Our machine shop is a fairly large outbuilding, but it is also filled with lots of equipment, including 2 tractors, at least a half dozen attachments, a trailer, and a full-size pickup. The tractor and snowblower are in the middle of the shop, while the two sliding doors are blocked by a pickup and the other tractor.
In the past this hasn't been a problem; we would simply drive one of the other vehicles out of the shop onto the grass to make room. However, the snow at this point was almost 2 feet deep. We hadn't yet put the snow tires on the pickup, so we were afraid that if we drove the pickup out of the shop into the unplowed snow, it might get stuck, and then we'd be in big trouble.
Tetris skills to the rescue! Back the pickup just outside the door (see photo); move the tractor into a nook; slide the pickup past the tractor; etc. Imagine the Austin Powers N-point turn, only with a large tractor with snowblower attached (and we didn't actually hit anything.)
Finally, the tractor was positioned so that we could get it out of the shop, and it was oriented such that the snowblower would create a path for the tractor. But before we drove out of the shop, we figured we should test the PTO connection that drives the snowblower...
Thanksgiving, as always, was full of good food, family and fun. This year's Thanksgiving was centered in Seattle, at the new home of Corinne's cousin Taryn. Tor and Clare, whom we haven't seen since last Christmas, were also in town, along with frequent visitor and fellow Tulsan Loren. All the usual locals (Leif, Donna, Joie, Pete, Reidar, Carol, Jeremie) were there as well.
Corinne must still be riding on the tail of our pie party, because she made 3 different cranberry-based desserts: Cranberry Cream Pie, Rustic Cranberry and Raisin Tarts, and Cranberry Streusel Bars. All were delicious, of course (but the cream pie could have set up more than it did.)
A number of new Thanksgiving items this year qualify for potential Thanksgiving Traditions:
Multi-purpose stuffing. Corinne and I were responsible for making the stuffing this year (actually dressing, because stuffing is evil). After we got past the annual "your dressing versus my dressing" debate - which she won, yet again - we set about to prepare the dish. Since there could have been as many as 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner, we made 3 pans of dressing. The twelve people we did have for dinner only managed to eat 1/2 of one pan, leaving us looking for ways to use the abundance of leftover dressing. Oyster casserole is always a family tradition, but was absent from this year's event. Two problems, one solution: one batch of oysters + one pan of stuffing == the best oyster casserole ever.
Two turkeys. There's nothing worse than finishing Thanksgiving dinner with no leftover turkey. Two turkeys, plenty of leftovers.
Turkey and Sweet Potato Hash. Corinne discovered this recipe in the November issue of Fine Cooking, and it really hit the spot. We prepared a Saturday brunch in which this hash played a starring role. Possible candidate for my "Best Recipes of 2007" list.
Wreath Making. Why buy a wreath when we have a perfectly good forest full of boughs? Before we left for Seattle, we pruned several feet off the bottom of a few of our grand fir, trimmed off the dead branches, and packed them into the back of the car. A girls shopping trip to the craft store plus a few hours of assembly resulted in some beautiful homemade wreathes.
Black Friday. The ladies ventured out shopping on Black Friday and discovered that it's not nearly as crazy as its reputation. Given no particular agendas or goals for the outing, it was quite fun and we found some stellar deals.
Green Bean Casserole from scratch. The old holiday standby, with no canned food involved. Tastes even better the day after.
Of course we made time for the already established traditions as well: disc (aka frisbee), Super Smash Brothers, and tech support. No family visit is complete without that.
It's been raining here for the last week. (Yes, I know, stereotypical Northwest weather.)
For a few weeks now we've had a list of some outdoor, end-of-the-season projects that we wanted to finish before winter arrived: mulch and protect the newly planted garlic; final cleaning of the irrigation system and the orchard; collect kindling for winter; final mow of the lawn; etc. We tried to wait for a "nice" day to work outside, but by Sunday morning we realized we weren't going to get one. So we trudged out into the rain and began raking leaves.
Within about a half-hour, the rain turned to snow; within an hour the snow started to accumulate on the ground. Just a few hours later, it looked like winter! I guess we aren't going to get any more herbs from our herb barrel, and it's probably time to pull out the last onion and carrots from the garden.
In the end we got 2+ inches of snow. With any luck, we'll have snow on the ground from now until April!
When the deer aren't stealing from the garden or trampling the flowers, we actually enjoy having them around. I guess they feel pretty comfortable here. Today they napped in the driveway and next to the blueberry bushes.
Aside from preparing for, enjoying, and cleaning up after our Pie Party, we did manage to get a few other projects done around the house on this 3-day weekend.
Outdoors Saturday was a beautiful day (despite the 100% chance of rain prediction), so we used the opportunity to do some winter preparation: putting up storm doors, packing away the grill and other summer stuff, etc.
During our first winter in Trout Lake, part of the rock wall around our small parking area was knocked down by the snowplow; well, now almost two years later we've finally managed to repair it! Just in time for snow plowing again...
Indoors Monday it actually DID rain all day, so we built a fire in the woodstove and worked inside.
Last month we harvested the squash from our garden. Since then they have just been sitting in our garden shed, waiting for some inspired cook. That inspiration didn't come, so Corinne did some research on preserving squash, and as a result we decided that the best method for us was to roast, puree, and freeze. A few hours of effort later (and lots of fun with our vacuum sealer), we had almost 40c of squash puree - and from only the 2 large and 2 small "mystery" squash (which we're guessing is probably some variety of pumpkin). We packaged them in amounts convenient for muffins, breads and pies. We even ate some as a snack, with nothing but some butter, salt and pepper - good stuff. And that still leaves the sugar pumpkins and acorn squash for another day.
Hurray for three day weekends! Boo for the end of summer!
Several months ago, Corinne came up with a great idea for our next food-related event: a Pie Party. Sunday we turned that idea into reality and hosted our first pie party.
What exactly is a pie party? It's a potluck party where everyone brings a homemade pie. And what precisely is a pie? Wikipedia says:
A pie is a baked food, with a baked shell usually made of pastry dough that covers or completely contains a filling of fruit, meat, fish, vegetables, cheeses, creams, chocolate, custards, nuts, or other sweet or savory ingredients.
Homemade pies only!1 People seemed generally excited about the party. We attribute that not only to the fact that everyone loves pie, but also that a certain anticipation could build knowing that a multitude of homemade pie awaited, but not knowing precisely how many or what kinds.
We had a total of 34 people at our party, including 7 kids, and 23 different types of pies (7 savory, 16 sweet). We thought we might be a little short on the savory pies, so I made sure to have prepped ingredients for 4 pizzas ready to go if needed (we ate 3). Each pie was labeled and laid out for all to see. The π (pi, get it?) sign was courtesy of Andrew.
Savory
Caramelized Onion
"Boy" Pie (egg, bacon, cheese)
Tourtiere (French-Canadian Meat Pie)
White Bean and Pesto Pizza
Leek & Cheese Pie
Chicken Pie
Cottage Pie
Sweet
Peanut Butter & Chocolate Pie
Peanut Butter Pie
Christine's Fruit Pie
Bourbon Pecan Pie
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
Pravin's Apple Pie
Chocolate Mousse
Lemon Custard Tart with Fruit
Grape Pie (yes, grape)
Peach Street
Banana Creme Pie
Vermont Maple-Walnut Cream Pie
Frozen Margarita Pie
Coconut Cream Pie
Cherry Cream Cheese Pie
Pumpkin Pie
Of particular note were the pies from the first-time pie makers, Simon and Leif. Leif's "Peach Street" was his interpretation of a rustic tart, and Simon's chicken pie was a family recipe. Simon apparently called his mother 5 times during the process to make sure he was doing it right. The pies (and homemade crust) turned out great!
And that's what a food party is all about: getting people to experiment with food and expand their culinary horizons, as well as enjoy good food with good friends.
- Mike (& Corinne)
1We did have at least one "cheater" who bought their pie. But for their own safety, we won't say who.
Corinne's step-grandmother turned 85 recently, and this past weekend we attended her birthday party at her condo in Tacoma. She is Scandinavian (Swedish or Finnish, depending on who you ask), so everyone calls her Mormor, meaning "mother's mother" or "maternal grandmother" in Swedish. (Her husband was similarly called Morfar, or "mother's father".)
Family came in from all over for the party, and most we hadn't met before. There was a large contingent from St. Louis, MO as well as Sweden. We were treated to a real Swedish smörgåsbord, complete with herring, salmon, and swedish meatballs (of course).
They even hired some professional entertainment for the evening. Stan Boreson, self-proclaimed "King of Scandinavian Humor", entertained us with his accordian and his staple of Ole and Lena jokes.
Here's one of the jokes. (Imagine a heavy Scandinavian accent):
A Swede was walking down the street and sees a Norwegian standing on the corner with a gunny sack over his shoulder. "What's in the gunny sack?", asks the Swede. "Chickens," replies the Norwegian. "Chickens?" "Yah. If you guess how many there are, I'll give you both of them." "Okay. 5." "Nope - you were off by 2."
You get the general idea. He was very entertaining; you could tell from his comfort in front of an audience that he had been doing this for a very long time; Stan used to host a children's show on KING-5 in Seattle.
Eivor, Kris and Kelly did a great job putting the party together. We had a great time!
