Happy New Year-West Piney!

The Hayden family brought the year 2010 in with a bang! Okay, not really, we all struggled to stay awake New Years Eve! We may have gone to bed at 12:01 (JK)but we partied all day and night the rest of the time! Almost all of Scott's family came down to go to West Piney lodge. They all stayed here at our house for a night before journeying to the lodge. The weather was great going in and the road was plowed all the way to the lodge. The lodge is about 10 miles past Swan Valley. Everybody was pretty happy to not have to walk the mile in with all their gear.

We had tons of fun just sitting around talking, snacking, playing games, and relaxing. There were puzzles, bingo, ping pong, movies, and of course the Wii to help keep us entertained. Not to mention the forever slide and snow to have fun with.The slide is the real reason to go to the lodge.

New Year's day we woke up to 6 inches of new snow and it snowed all day long. It was a warm wet snow so it really wasn't bad to play outside in it. Ryver and Portia were one of the first to go outside and Ryver was the last to come in. There is nothing better than spending time with family.

Most everybody went down the slide at least once except Jake and Nicole, maybe next time! Grandma Kathy went once and that was enough for her. Grandpa Scott was a real trooper and even went down on our sled down the slide. That wasn't the wisest thing for me to have him do. It took him a minute to catch his breath and get up. We banned going down the slide with a hard sled after that. Angie was probably the funniest of them all. The first time she went down it took her forever to go like 5 minutes to talk herself into it. The next time it took even longer-no joke when I say 10 minutes. She was awesome and did go down with a death grip on the side of the slide.

The morning we left the cabin was such a site, I wish I'd taken pictures. There was probably a foot or more of snow and we all struggled getting our vehicles out of there to the main road. Our little green Honda car was stuck good. I had left it down at the bottom of the hill thank heavens! Scott's dad had to pull us out with tow straps to the main road. We all made it off the mountain in one piece. We came back to our house and had to plow our driveway out. We went to Big Judd's for dinner and then I think we were all in bed by 10:30. It was really fun to have the whole Hayden clan down and at our home. Hopefully by Thanksgiving we'll have the basement finished and have more room for everybody.