My favorite sport (besides Clemson football)...go figure!

Do you ever really enjoy something and you have no idea why?  Well, I am coming out with a passion that has been hidden up until now.  Some of you have heard bits and pieces, but never before have I released all of the information.  I don't understand it myself and really it is something that has been coming to me in weird fragments of information for years.  So....here goes (in chronological order!)  When I was in college I started collecting Santas.  My grandfather was the Santa in Seneca for years, so I thought it would be neat to collect them to keep the memory alive. So one day, sometime between 2002 and 2003, I heard about a place where they set up a real live Santa workshop in Sweden.  I thought it sounded interesting, but didn't really look into it until 2004, when I celebrated my 30th birthday.  See my birthday is in December and so i started thinking that it would be a lot of fun to celebrate my 40th birthday at Santa's workshop (I am a bit of a planner).  So I looked this place up and it was way more than I had imagined.  It is in Jukkasjarvi, Sweden.  There is a hotel there called the ICEHOTEL.  Oh my word, I get excited just typing it.  This is a hotel that is completely built of ice.  The beds are ice, the walls are ice, the restaurant and chapel are ice.  Anywhere you might want to sit or lay down is covered with reindeer skins.  You can also take camping trips out to places where you can see the Northern Lights.  There are sleigh rides in the snow pulled by reindeer and snow mobile trips.  And here is the part that I have always been the most excited about.... a dog sled team will come and pick you up from the airport.  How cool is that?????  So for the last 5 years, I have tried to find companions willing to trek to Sweden with me (so far I am 0 for about 5,429) and I have spent countless hours figuring out when I could go, how much it would cost, and how I can fit all of the activities into the few days I could afford to be there.  Ok, so I know you are wondering where the sport title of this blog comes in...well, here it is.  Since I have gotten so excited about the possibility of a dog sled team picking me up from the airport in Sweden, I have come to love mushers and sled dogs.  Well, in case you didn't know, the 2009 Iditarod is currently underway.  It has already been won by three time champ Lance Mackey, but there are still teams out in the tough terrain making their way to Nome, Alaska.  If you haven't watched any of the coverage on VS, you should check it out.  It is amazing to think about these athletes and what they go through on the race from Anchorage to Nome.  It is really cool to see all of the different mushers.  There are men and women, young and old.  The youngest musher this year is 18 and the oldest is 63.  How many sports have such a diverse population of participants?  I love it!  So...now you all know...I have a weird love for sled dog racing.  Go figure!

Life at the Lake

Today, after church, the Carter family tromped down to Lake Hartwell for a picnic and to see if the snow and rain had helped the sad water situation. Scout and I got out our favorite family quilt, which I was informed Matt had already claimed in the will...haha, and we set out for the sunny part of the yard for our picnic. As we were laying on the quilt, basking in the sun, and telling funny stories about grasshoppers with red toenail polish the two neighbor kids came driving across the yard on a four wheeler. They were having the time of their life and I was a little envious of the fun ride. Their names are Zoey and Bobby and they have got to be two of the coolest kids on the planet. They are getting some life experience that most kids only dream of. They spend a lot of time at their grandma's place at the lake and the rest of the time in the country with 12 goats. Zoey is the oldest, 8, and in the 2nd grade. She was the one navigating the four wheeler. They both know how to fish, clean fish, ride seadoos, and all kinds of other things kids in the country get to do. So today, after the four wheeler ride, Bobby decided that he was going to go turkey hunting. We spent the rest of the afternoon shooting bb guns and watching Bobby turkey hunt. Oh, did I mention that he was turkey hunting with a rake. It was awesome! He had a whole bag of tricks and when he would see a bird, he would sneak toward it with his bag and rake. He had a whistle to attract them and a toy helicopter so that they would think there was another bird in the air. His plan was to attract the turkeys (which later turned to ducks) and then swat them down with the rake. Don't you wish you had that kind of imagination? I do! I miss the days when I could tell the story of a grasshopper with red toenail polish or hunt turkeys with a rake all while thinking it was perfectly logical to do so. When did I get so logical? It's not nearly as much fun!