It has been quite a weekend, we had a group in our house that, to use a word I learned today, was a bit of an olla podrida. For those of you as verbally unaware as I was, that means a hodgepodge, a motley crew, a jumbled mess of bodies of all shapes and sizes. At one point, we counted sixteen heads packed into the living room, dining room, and kitchen. And given this particular group, they were not sixteen quiet, unobtrusive heads. The house was all but impossible to walk into, the entryway filled with skis and snowboards, and all the gear that acompanied them. Add to the mess most of my former youth group, carrying on where we left off five years ago before we all moved away from Scott City (I think it's safe to say nobody has gotten any less crazy), one massive, collective sugar and caffeine buzz, a week of sleep deprivation, shared sleeping quarters, smelly ski boot feet, a poker set, three digital cameras vith video, deafening surround sound, Dominoes pizza and donuts, one forty dollar parking ticket, one percocet-munching invalid with his upper arm broken in two places, (finished his second run of the day on a sled, being pulled down the mountain by a hundred-pound ski patrolless), and one poor, unsuspecting kid who came along for the ride and did not realise that this group was not for the faint of heart, and you have your olla podrida. It was fun, but judging by the bloodshot eyes and dragging suitcases as we bade them all goodbye, they were as exhausted as we were. But when will it ever work for us all to be together like that again? The answer, sadly, is probably never.

Night before last, we celebrated B's dad's birthday, and last night, we had the newlyweds over for dinner. They are spending their honeymoon in Keystone, in one of our condos. Now tonight, my cousin Heather is here, moving into our den. She will be working for us through the busy Christmas season. So much excitement, it's no wonder we have all come down with colds. It probably didn't help that we all shared the same water bottles, ate off the same silverware, slept on the same pillows as a dozen other kids this weekend. But there was no keeping it all straight, and with that group, nothing is sacred. One stops trying. When it was time to go to bed one of those nights, B had to wait until the invalid woke up and moved himself from our bed, then one of my girlfriends and I escaped up to our room for a long-overdue girl talk. Finally, poor B had enough, and without further ado, even though his bed was occupied with giggling girls, he climbed in it, burrowed beneath the covers and promptly began snoring. We girls looked at each other, shrugged, and since our conversation has been so unceremoniously interrupted, decided it was perhaps time to go to bed ourselves.

I started inspecting for a wall of bookings this weekend. Night skiing is going to be open seven days a week starting this weekend. Christmas season is upon us. We all need nyquil, lots of sleep, and kleenexes, not high paying, demanding guests and a busy season. But oh, well. This is why we are doing this when we are young and resilient. We'll get through it.