Pete's Log: christmas tree hunting and other fun

Entry #751, (Life in General)
(posted when I was 22 years old.)
I'm in my second day of car ownership and have now put 75 miles onto the thing. All the little trips I didn't take into account for mileage are gonna add up quick. I've also gotten some good experience with how it handles in slick situations, especially in the Rozman's driveway...

let's see how did today begin? I woke up around 11. I had gone to sleep last night around 11. I don't think I was asleep throughout those entire 12 hours, but I spent most of them asleep and all of them in bed. Excellent.

BJ and Donna showed up as I was waking. Talked to them a bit, haven't seen them in a while... then I ran some random errands (a.k.a. got to drive) and then the time came: we needed a christmas tree. The Rozmans were gonna go hunting, and since it's been a fun tradition for some time now, I tagged along. So drove to the Rozmans and from there caught a ride in Richards truck to the ranch. There we grabbed snowmobiles and went a ways before ditching those and hiking up the side of mt. whetstone. It was fun, I was happy with how well my lungs did, considering the altitude and all. We were hiking up the side of the mountain in snow that was kneedeep at times. So Richard found the tree he wanted, Tommy cut it down, and BJ and Tommy headed back down with their tree. Richard and I hiked up farther until we found a good tree for the Rijks family. Being the only representative of our family, I chopped it down and dragged it down the mountain. We got back to the snowmobiles and were faced with the logistics of how to drag the trees back to the ranch without breaking them. So we went back to the ranch and got a sled and returned for the trees. During this time I got to drive one of the snowmobiles. Woohoo! And Richard has promised me I can come back sometime and put on a helmet and really open one of them things up. Rumor has it they can get going quite fast. Then we had hot chocolate. mmmmmmm... good... with oreos.

Went to town for a while after dropping our tree off at the condo. Picked up Mamie and Annie and headed to the Rozmans for dinner. Good chili. mmm... watched some of Mod Squad (mmm... Claire Danes) before returning to town for an advent penance mass. That turned out to be nice, I was asked by Fr. Jim to do the reading and responsorial psalm, which went well enough. Then I even went to confession, for the first time on this continent, I think. It wasn't anonymous, it was a nice face to face chat with Fr. Jim. He complimented my reading. I got to talk about some of the problems I've had for the past few weeks. He knew the right things to say. God bless that man. Then head home and hang for a while. Now it is time to prepare for a trip to the Eldo.