I went to Mountain Village on the 23rd of December with my granddaughter, Veronica. We went down by plane to spend Christmas, New Year's and Slavic with my family and friends. Everyone couldn't wait to see Veronica. She was just two months old then. On Christmas Eve, we went to midnight mass and then we went home to open presents. They had New Year's games, but I didn't get to go. I watched the brilliant fireworks display, though. The fireworks went on for an hour or so and were the fanciest and longest I've ever seen. For me and my husband, Christmas went by too fast.

During Slavic, when the star was brought to my mom's house, there were not as many singers as there are here. The only people who were following the star were the singers because the kids were in school. They only had a big star, and there was no little star. They didn't stay very long in the houses either.

Another thing that happened down at Mountain Village was that they dedicated the school cafeteria in honor of Betty Peterson on January 14, at 7:00 p.m. Betty retired from being the head cook at Mountain Village School. Afterwards they had refreshments and fiddling, featuring the St. Mary's band.

We didn't get to do much outside during the vacation because it was always cold. I really wanted to go ice fishing, but it was just too cold out. People were wondering if I was going back to work in Marshall because I stayed in Mountain Village so long. We finally came home on January 17. By then everyone at Mountain was already back to work at the school.