this week.

is off to a rough start. like seriously.

monday was a long day. we didn't have a show that day, so the boss-men took the majority of the crew and went and played lumberjack on the mountain. 100 trees, cut for posts and rails, and 12 soaked and sore crew members later, they were really ready to come home. celeste, baby tiff, pat, and i were asked to stay down here and cover the office and prepare for the week. i helped pat in the office until lunch, and then celeste and baby tiff gave me a baptism by fire into the life of a cook. i helped make ranch, bagged brownies, sorted raw chicken, and pretty much just tried to keep up with these lovely ladies. we stopped a little early and had dinner ready for the crew when they got back. and we cleaned the house. but guess how long a clean house lasted. if you guessed less than 12 hours, you were right.

tuesday. can we just take a moment of silence that this day is over? like really. let me preface: two weeks ago, we got a phone call asking if a group of 200 people could come to the show. we can only take 170 people on ten wagons. 200 people would require bringing over two wagons that are used on the mountain and praying that they didn't bring any more people. we let the lady know we could work it out and the stressing began. the coordinator for the group decided that it would be too much of a distraction to have alcohol at the event (which is usually not allowed, but with private events, we give them the option, but they have to work it out and we just lay it out.) she sent us payment for the tickets, as well as the gratuity for the evening, a couple of days in advance, but then we got an email a couple of days ago, asking how many ABOVE 200 people they could go. we cried a little inside and said, we could do about 205 before we had to started strapping people to the top of the wagons. (sarcasm, of course.) we had a lot of people booked on the other show, so we had a double last night. which is UNHEARD of this late in the season [our last day is friday]. david, our foreman, pulled all sorts of strings and brought oodles of help in to drive teams and help the cooks feed 200 people before midnight. i don't know if i should be grateful or cry because i missed the opportunity to see a 12-wagon show, but the group didn't bring 30 people (something they can't even explain), but it relieved a huge burden for the cooks. feeding 200 people is a lot of chicken, beef, beans, corn, the works. and we don't have hours to get them from the chow-line. plus, it's a tad bit stressful to keep 200 people warm while it's 40 degrees outside and you only have enough lap blankets for about 170 of them. needless to say, david and chris were stressed. which in turn had pat stressed. who in turn had me stressed. it was a relief to have that crazy day OVER with.

and the week is about to get crazier. we will have 11 wagons on our last night and the next couple of nights are over 100 people. those are good sized shows for the end of the season. i'm excited for the next couple of days because anything will be easier than the last couple of days. let's just pray that no one else calls and asks to bring 200 people tomorrow.