Oddly, George, it’s only about 45 minutes from Pasco City — but what a profound difference between the two places. It’s achingly sad to think that Pasco obviously used to look just like this!
Roberta just reminded me of sieothmng else: I grew up with family friends who had 14 kids. Obviously, a full gift exchange was impractical, so every year at family camp (Labor Day weekend) they would draw names. They had separate drawings for kids and adults. The only rule was that all gifts had to be made. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they came up with!One year a pregnant sister got a hand-carved rocking horse from her brother-in-law. Another sister crawled through her mother’s attic to sift out her person’s share of the photos, then put together an handmade album. One sister bought fabric and embroidered her brother-in-law’s initials all over it in tiny letters; then she borrowed a pair of his pants, reverse engineered a pattern, and made the embroidered fabric into custom golf pants!Can you even imagine how much fun it was to gather at their mom’s house and open gifts? At some point the spouses and grandkids added up to sieothmng like 65 people, all exchanging handmade presents and having a big family feast.
Heifer 12 x 12 
Indeed, it does look glorious! And, very isolated.
Oddly, George, it’s only about 45 minutes from Pasco City — but what a profound difference between the two places. It’s achingly sad to think that Pasco obviously used to look just like this!
Roberta just reminded me of sieothmng else: I grew up with family friends who had 14 kids. Obviously, a full gift exchange was impractical, so every year at family camp (Labor Day weekend) they would draw names. They had separate drawings for kids and adults. The only rule was that all gifts had to be made. You wouldn’t believe the stuff they came up with!One year a pregnant sister got a hand-carved rocking horse from her brother-in-law. Another sister crawled through her mother’s attic to sift out her person’s share of the photos, then put together an handmade album. One sister bought fabric and embroidered her brother-in-law’s initials all over it in tiny letters; then she borrowed a pair of his pants, reverse engineered a pattern, and made the embroidered fabric into custom golf pants!Can you even imagine how much fun it was to gather at their mom’s house and open gifts? At some point the spouses and grandkids added up to sieothmng like 65 people, all exchanging handmade presents and having a big family feast.
I love this idea…. what a brilliant solution to the materialistic buying fest that surround the holidays. SO inspiring!!