New Year's Eve Barn Burner

We had such a great time sledding on Christmas Day that we decided it would be fun to invite a few people over on New Year's Eve to go night sledding.  Well, a few people quickly turned into 50!  As Pioneer Woman would say, the cast of characters included the following families:  Tomchaks (Dave, Laura, Sidney, Rycher, and Zach Sharp), Shutes (Matt, Stephanie, Megan, Sari, and Sophie), Marshalls (Tracy, Katie, Morgan, Abby, Wyatt, Chase, and even little Kia), Townsends (Eli, Mikeeli, Jed, and Lydia), Solomons (Nate, Jennifer, Tuff, and Hunter), Godfreys (Ryan, Angie, Felice, Kaylee, Jacob, and Tyler Fullmer), Earleys (Jeremy, Paige, Trinity, and 3 of her friends), Orrs (Chad, Janeil, Justin, and Jessica), and the Longs (Gary, Kristi, McKenna, and Ari).

We spent the afternoon getting ready for the big event.  I made potato soup while Dave gathered firewood and cut down a couple of trees to use for benches around the fire.

 It was hard work dragging all those logs through the snow but it was worth the effort!

 

The log benches were very popular (maybe because that's where the food and heat was).

Don't let the picture fool you.  It had snowed most of the day so our firewood was wet and we had a hard time keeping our fire going.  Eli Townsend, our neighbor, had some pallets at his house so we burned those.  People also brought their Christmas trees to burn but some of those were too green and wouldn't burn either.  

People brought all kinds of food: soup (chicken noodle, chili, potato), cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate, carmel corn, sausage dip, chips, hot dogs.  Our table wasn't big enough for all the food we had.

Sledders dotted our hill and Dave and his brother-in-law, Dave (you know, like Darryl and his other brother Darryl), taxied them to the top on their snow machines.

When it got dark, Chad Orr drove his truck out onto the road and turned it towards the hill so we could have some light.  He kept his truck running for about 2 hours with his lights on the sledding hill.  What a guy!!  Next year we'll see about renting lights and a generator.

Some of the kids wore head lamps and it was fun to watch them zing down the hill. (That's a head lamp in the top left corner.)

After everyone left (around 9:00 p.m.) Dave and Laura came up to the house with their kids and we visited until almost 1:00 a.m.  It was so good to see them and I'm glad they were able to come play with us.

And yea, we really didn't burn down a barn but I'd say our New Year's Eve was definitely a barn burner!!