I woke today to having my family all in one place. Max came home around midnight his morning. It was wonderful having both boys together. They spent some time this morning exchange music mix tips.. It was cool to watch and listen to.

Just after noon we all bundled up and drove up to the mountain. .. for our now yearly ritual of hiking to the top in Sam’s honor.. It was 12 degrees F. at the base not including wind chill….   THey already had about 18 inches of snow..

It was a looooong and cooooooollllld hike up to teh top

The closer to teh top we got, the worse the weather..

We got to to the hut in the top just as we were all starting to freeze. We were happy to find some of our firends up there too.. there was Eric, Devon , Collin. and Corey. We had one red bull between us, so we passed the can around and toasted Sam …

Gabe, Max and I decided to hike to teh fire tower to launch a firework for Sam…
On the way we went through drifts that were over our waistes !

Max and I crawled up the rickety steps… several rungs in the ladder were missing from last year.

We got up to the top and it was insane.. almost like being on another planet.. the wind was howling, I’m guessing it was about 2 degrees at the top… with a 30 MPH stiff wind.. I think that gave us a windchill of about -20F !

Soemone had put a samstone up there already !

Max poured the rest of the red bull for Sam..

Then we lit a small mortor … no small feat in the howling wind.

We couldn’t get down quick enough..

We all slid, sleddde , boraded and skiied down the mountian.. itw as getting dark by the time we got to the car..

As soon as we got home, I had to switch gears and start finishing the burning man. That called for a bit of creative pyrotechnics.

People started showing up around 6.   I had a whole bunch of kids out there helping me decorate the man with flamable things..

Here’s his head, that’s steel wool for hair… magnesium ribbon for eyes, a spark shower for a nose

We put all sorts of stuff in there that I wanted to burn.. including the phone that we got the call about Sam’s accident.. I wanted to see it burn.

Finally we were ready.. he kids picked the man up and carried him outside.

We lashed him to some pipes driven in the ground.

We called folks out… then started the fire .. On the 2nd attemp.. it took !

We all went in as soon as we could.. it was so cold !.. We had new sam stickers for folks…

We did a red bull toaste to Sam… there were more than a 100 poplein the room when we did that…

It was also Kevin (and Shelby’s ) birthday.. so we did a cake for him

Here’s a short montage of stuff at the party…

Then it was time to make SamStones.. We had some of Sam’s slideshows running while we did…

Max made a hand of clay.. very interesting.

Sometime in the party Tyler and Nate got a whole of hair clippers and gave temselves ‘Flock of Seagulls’ haircuts.. strange !

By 8:30 the plae was packed.. and the mood was good… we were talking about Sam.. and.. beung happy to all be together. … It’s about midnight now and thee are only a few folks still here… I’m ready for bed..

It’s been a long good day… Sam would have loved it..Gnite my son.. We miss you and love you….!

-dad