The Events of Thursday, December 16, 2010 

          “Wake, up Lindsey, it’s snowing‼ Wake up! Wake up! Grrr! WAKE UP!” Abby screamed in my ear and pounded me with her pillow. Groggily, I lifted my head to where she was pointing out the window. Most of the window was fogged up, but Abby had cleaned up a little spot and when I peered through, it was a world of white. I’m not kidding. In an RV, when it rains, it can get REALLY annoying, because your head is only three inches away from the ceiling where the rain drives into the roof like pellets. But the snowflakes softly thudded the roof and most of the time we couldn’t even hear it. I really had to go to the bathroom, so I was the first to walk in the snow. It was freezing cold, but I didn’t really even notice it. When I looked back, the rows of RVs in our Small Country Campground looked like sleeping giant polar bears. Everything was a beautiful, pristine, clean, cold white. We were going to have a SNOW DAY‼

          When I got back, for breakfast, there was hot chocolate, hot apple cider, and tea to warm us all up. We ate and then decided how to do showers. You see, we are parked on the top of this hill and the campground’s showers are at the bottom of the hill and it’s snowing, so … since Daddy had showered the night before, Mom and Abby were the first to hit the trail. They threw on jackets and snow boots on top of their PJs and looked so silly; we took pictures of them, standing out in the snow. As soon as the door closed, Daddy, Caitlin, Ben, and I rushed to the table and started brainstorming ideas for their Christmas presents. You see, in our family at Christmas, we try to focus on the giving of gifts, not the getting. That’s the whole idea, God gave us His Son Jesus, His gift to us. So five of us get together to choose the one gift that the sixth family member would like to receive for Christmas. This way we are all in on the secret. After planning for Mom and Abby’s gift, Caitlin and I left a little later and Ben followed soon after for his shower. All this while, secrets and shopping online were being done behind our backs. Whispering and smiles haunted all of us all day long, but that’s the fun of Christmas.

          When we were all back together in the RV, the shopping stopped and we had our family devotional time. Then, we split up for some individual activities, which included quiet times, bracelet making, book reading, math with Daddy, catching up on blogs with Mom, Abby sewing her scarf, cleaning, and just plain relaxing. At one point, Daddy and I went out to fill up our water tank, but found our spigot to be frozen shut, so we went searching for available water. We finally found a working spigot several sites over and I brought pitchers full of water and Daddy used a funnel to pour it into our tank. By the time we were done, we were both freezing and it was time for lunch. We rushed inside and used our newly purchased heating lamp to thaw our frozen fingers and toes. Mom stirred up hot soup and we sat down to a very soothing lunch.

          After lunch, Abby and I got ready to go outside to get our jeebies out. We dressed in our waterproof rain pants over long johns and jeans, added sweatshirts, jackets, hats and gloves. Finally ready (and quoting from the movie,  A Christmas Story, “I can’t put my arms down.”) we walked down to the dumpster, to throw away our trash and then used the restrooms. Then we headed down the other side of the hill, where a frozen lake lay, covered in snow. Just when we reached the base of the hill, Mom yelled from the RV, “Grandpa’s on Skype!” Abby and I raced up the hill, through the snow, which isn’t as easy as it sounds and said hi to Grandpa through the RV’s window. We talked and then ran back down the hill to commence our play. We were throwing snowballs and taking pictures, when Mom yelled, “Now, Grandma’s on Skype!” We again raced up the hill and collapsed, exhausted at the RV. We talked with Grandma and showed her some icicles and the snow. Then it was down the hill again. Abby made a snow angel and we took some more pictures. Mom called us back up the hill, because it was three o’clock and she thought we had had enough outdoor time in the cold. But we could have stayed out there forever‼ We went inside and warmed up.

          We did math and edited pictures and executed additional secretive Christmas activities until dinner preparations began. We had deliciously warm tacos with apple crisp for dessert. Daddy and Caitlin went to the nearby laundry room to wash dishes because we wanted to conserve our water and not risk our waste water tanks freezing again and being unable to dump. By the time they returned, the snow had ceased and we could actually see lights in the distance of a nearby city. We brushed teeth, set up beds, sewed, read, and Ben had his first shaving lesson with Daddy until 9 pm. We were all snuggled down and drifting off when Mom yelled, “Uncle Scott’s on Skype!” We all rushed to the back room. Uncle Scott is Mom’s brother and he is in Nicaragua on a surfing vacation. Unfortunately, both of us had bad internet connections so we could only see each other and type notes back and forth. Afterwards, we headed to bed and slept with sweet dreams of snow…