Happy New Year!

The end of 2009 found us enjoying a wonderful New Year's Eve party at Carol's home along with the fantastic friends here on Loon Lake. This group gathers almost every Friday night through the cold season to play euchre and share fun and food. This traditional party is where we review the entire year via an awesome slide show of photos take throughout the year. Walt puts them all to music and we view on Carol's big TV with lots of laughs and remembrances. This year was even more fun for us after being part of this group year round for the entire year. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends. The group consists of over two dozen good friends, many married couples, a set of single sisters, a few widowed men and all of our extended families. There was talk this year of a "polar bear plunge" the next day into the frozen waters of Loon Lake. We were not disappointed. A call about 11 am informed us that they had found some open water and we should come watch the brave souls. Poppy ventured out to represent our twosome and took some great photos and video of the amazing event.

Here you see the one hardy female of the group, Lori who "warmed up" with a few stretches.

Here is Lori's mom, Mar, who can always be found sporting the greatest of fashions for any occasion.

Seems the shoreline needed a little persuasion in order to free up the frozen surface. Walt did the honors while still bundled warm.

Soon the guys readied their bods for the icy plunge. Tim (x-marine) and Walt were also the last to ski the lake back on Oct. 18, donning wet suits and stocking hats in 40 degree weather. So, no real surprise here!

Who appears to be urging someone in? Go Lori! I was not there, but I think from the video below, you will see she was the first, the bravest and the one to plunged the fullest!

May 2010 be a prosperous year for all of you. We look forward to further completion of our remodel project here. Poppy has been busy working on finishing drywall in smaller areas. The upstairs bath is about ready for the final sand and priming. That will then enable us to lay the flooring we have purchased for that space and have one almost finished room! He has taped and mudded the half bath and will next move to the utility room. We also have the flooring for the utility room, so we can have two almost totally finished spaces. He is still trying to find a crew to come in and finish the drywall in the bigger rooms, hallway and stairwell. But, he is prepared do end up doing it himself if he can't hire someone willing to do this task. We will EVENTUALLY have this done. We are also working on design ideas for remodeling the kitchen and tying the old space in with the new and finishing the work needed in the existing lodge room we began to redo almost four years ago. So, our goals for 2010 are pretty lofty and we will be working hard to accomplish it all.