Holly was down for the count all day. Being a single parent must be tough. I’m sticking with Holly.
Today was supposed to be one of Holly’s big days, she had all sorts of activities planned, shopping, going to the bazaar, cleaning the house, putting on the pageant a the Lighting of the fort and none of it came to pass though not through any fault of her own, as it’s important to rest when one is sick and we both firmly believe that rest is often the best medicine especially with a flu-type of bug which is not treatable, most of the time with antibiotics. Whew. That was a long sentence followed by a very short one.
Margaret took pity on us and came and got Mark for his piano/voice lesson where she’s teaching him how to sing, read music, and enjoy the musical realm. He’s learning “Good King Winceslas” right now, playing both hands in octaves while singing (I think he sings).
Then she dropped him off at his swim lesson, which is entitled fun-club and is run by various people in the swim team, from all I can tell. I peaked in on it and Blake Hamilton was herding them around in the shallow end. The Boron twins were there too, as were a bunch of Mark’s friends, so I think he had a wonderful time.
While Margaret was doing that with Mark, Luke, John Caleb and I went to the Bazaar. I was tempted to get some supplements for my diet being sold by Mrs. Boron’s Dad Lenny: Osolean, by Manatech: CLICK HERE!! if you want to check it out. Only thing is I think it’s kind of expensive for Whey powder. Whey sounds really inexpensive to me. Maybe I should create a brand called Wheyleanforever, or some such. John Caleb was asleep, so I left him with the crowd at the table with Hunter, Devin, and others.
After the bazaar, John Caleb woke up and I brought Luke home to be with Holly, who was still couch-ridden in the sleeping bag. Then we joined up with Mark and went to the book fair with number three in a back-pack. I ALMOST bought a few of the “Bone” books by Jeff Smith. i used to read those back when they first came out in B&W, and hadn’t seen them in the colorized version before. The art makes the books look like they ought to be for kids, but when you read them you see that the humor is more for adults than kids-which is kind of strange. I don’t know if Mark is old enough to understand the humor or not. Perhaps I’ll check out a book or two before I buy any.
The shot below is actually a photo-merge of two photos. I shot the fire once and the people once, then combined the photos to make the flames of the fire visible, using 3-4 layers in PS.
If you’ve ever shot a fire, and people at the same time, you perhaps have dealt with the issue of having two such disparate exposures in the same frame. Taking two photos and merging them along with some opacity changes, plus a bit of doging and burning really helps make the scene look the way the eye sees it.
Anyway, after the morning fun, I took the boys back home for a brief nap and then it was off to Tresham Greg’s cabin in the middle of the fort to attend the Nativity pageant. 
Dwight and Nancy Nash came and did the Emcee work, with Dwight reading the text and Nancy leading the songs. Russ Simpson and his church, along with another church brought the kids and costumes for the nativity scene, and the fort residents put up all the lights and supplied the food for the cook-out. They really have it down to an art, as a local community event and it really gives me a sense of community to be there with the rest of the town that turns out for it.
They always serve hot-dots, chilli& cheese, chips, and marsh mellos with to go with the bon-fire. Perhaps I didn’t notice it last year, but this year it seemed to be new that there were a big pile of sticks to roast hot-dogs with, all sharp and ready to go. I suppose if there is anything lacking, it’d be some carol singing around the fire–but in all honesty, I’ve never been to a winter bon-fire where there was carol singing, as usually the temperature kind of ruins the fun of sitting around singing unless the fire is just right.
I suppose this tree picture is my favorite shot of the night. I like the reflection in the water (from the melting snow, as it rained), right in front of Tresham’s shop. the puddle was actually very small, so I had to have the camera about six inches off the ground to take the shot, so I used the live-view feature of the camera to help me make sure the star was in the reflection. You can see that I messed up on the framing and have the photo at an odd angle, nonetheless. The idea of shooting the reflection wasn’t actually mine, but I shot a few of them anyhow, as it was a good idea that another photographer showed me he was trying to do.
Another nice feature of this year’s “Lighting of the Fort ceremony was the women’s singing group lead and directed by Nancy Nash. It’s interesting that they rehearse once a week on Thursday’s at six PM, just like the men of note, and also are a single gender group. It may be that we will combine our efforts for the first time this 
Christmas in singing a piece from Handel’s Messiah, with, shall we say, mixed results. I was impressed with their organization, as they all had matching headlamps and Nancy had all the music in plastic sleeves so that it would not get damaged in the weather. And they sounded quite nice too.
Luke was not feeling well at all and wanted to sit down and eat his food…
So I found them a place to eat at a small table at the base of the stairs and under the sharp pointed sticks. I thought they were cute over there nibbling away on their chips and hot-dogs.
Hopefully, we’ll have our mommy back to full health again and I won’t get sick like the rest of the family. I may just sleep in the guest room tonight, as the main bed is rather crowded and full of sick people.
Filed under: Alaska, Family Stories, Haines Stories, Music, Photography, Technology News | 2 Comments »
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