Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

Thanksgiving weekend is like one long three day party at Holden. We had forty guests arrive on Wednesday and preparations began for Thanksgiving Day festivities. There was reed star making, clove apple making, table decorating, choir practice, and an advent wreath to make for the worship space, and a little bit of fabric dying. The day went fast with lots of activities and fun to be had by all. We got a little bit of snow and the children were our sledding and having a grand time! The dinner was fabulous there was turkey of course, and stuffing and mashed potatoes and green beans and cranberry sauce and squash. It was a delicious meal, but unlike any Thanksgiving I have ever experienced. The directors served the community and really made the experience special. One of my favorite parts of the day was the service at the tables, There was a choir that sang and good verses were read it really brought the focus of the day around to thankfulness nicely.
That evening there was a showing of the movie The Secret Garden, and then afterward there was apple and pumpkin pie. The kitchen went all out this year with the food! Cleaning up the meal was nice because so many people chipped in to help and the work went pretty fast.

Friday was another day full of activities and I got together with a bunch of girls and we all worked on Christmas gifts down in the craft cave. It was a lot of fun! We also had a fun family walk down through the forest by the river. We still don’t have much snow, but what we do have has been beautiful! Friday night we had a big bonfire out on the second level. Every year the village gathers the wood waste and does a big burn and Friday was the night. Dave and a few other fire brigade members went out to the burn pile and set it on fire with a torch. It was covered in snow so it took it a little while to get started. People from the village began to head out that way at about eight in the evening and the piles were going pretty well by that point. You could see the orange glow of the fire from the village and as you walked down towards it the trees looked like they were glowing golden with their snow covered tops. Nyrie, Jordyn, and I walked out there with my friend Rachel and as soon as others started to arrive, a huge snowball fight erupted! There were snowballs flying everywhere. It was amazing how bright and warm the fire was you hardly noticed the cold of the evening air. The girls were having a blast throwing snowballs and drinking coco. Nyrie kept reminding me that I needed to write about this on the blog, so here I am.
Once the fire got going Dave brought out the fire hose and we all got a chance to test out how a fire reacts to different kinds of water pressure from the hose nozzle settings. We had to be careful not to put to much water on so as to actually keep the piles burning. The girls really enjoyed getting a chance to try out the fire hose. We stayed out there until after ten and were all tired by the time we got back home. Dan Roberts had to stay out with the piles until four o’clock in the morning to make sure the fire stayed where it was supposed to. There were over fifty people that came to the bonfire.

Tonight there was a Jacuzzi party the theme was the tropics. Little did we know that the weather would do its best to cooperate. It was up in the forties today and all of the snow is starting to melt. There is even green grass poking through in places. The whole village gathered at and in the Jacuzzi there were teeky(sp?) torches and a bar set up with smoothies and pineapple. We even had Hawaiian music and real live hula dancers, well the hula dancers were the village kids who did and awesome job. Jordyn and Nyrie were up there and very serious about their dancing. Then we hung out in the Jacuzzi and Dave put on a laser light show for us making patterns in the water and steam. The utilities folks went all out and served coconut cookies poolside. It was fun and decadent, and a little bit kooky. This whole week has been jam packed with events. All of the guests leave tomorrow and I have a feeling we are going to have a tired but happy staff.