Sugar on Snow

As I mentioned before, Sugar on Snow was a lot of fun! I hadn't decided if I wanted to go or not until Thursday morning/afternoon just a little while before we were going to leave. So I showered and packed quickly and we left around 3:00, we didn't get there until around 7:00 I think. Friday was mostly just school children coming through, I hung out with Melisa all day, which was a lot of fun, I hadn't seen her since Youth Rally at our church, fall 2009. Saturday was a little more busy since it was the official day. This year they didn't have a General Store like they have in the past years, but they had a chocolate maker, that was cool, I talked to him for a while. He said the chocolate he was making was 80-90% chocolate, it was very chocolaty tasting and slightly bitter. He melted the chocolate in hot milk and added sugar to make hot chocolate, it was less sweet than other hot chocolate and was very good! There was also a soap maker, a candle maker, a milliner, a blacksmith, a miller, a carpenter/woodworker (dad), a 'colonial' kitchen, a weaver, a spinner, a lady talking about whaling and several others. My friend Jenni was there as well so I got to hang out with her which was a lot of fun!
Saturday evening, after Sugar on Snow was over we had all the taking down and cleaning up to do. Then was supper and we went back to Latin's by 8:30 or so.
Sunday morning the workers that were still there came back to the community center for breakfast, church and lunch.
The speaker (the chocolate maker) preached about the prodigal son. He explained some cultural things that made me view the story differently. I've heard the story of the prodigal son many times, but I never really thought about it the way he put it. He actually called it the Prodigal Father because the word 'Prodigal' means 'extravigant' and he was talking about how the Father is an extravagant Father. Some things that really stuck out to me were, how low the son sank, he worked for a hog farmer which was socially as low or lower than the prostitutes, also his father's love, he was waiting for his son, he hadn't given up on him, he knew that his son was coming home and when he finally did, the father was watching for him, and the father's forgiveness, even though his son had squandered his inheritance on who knows what, the father welcomed him back with open arms and held no grudges against him!
We left after lunch and on the way home stopped for about 1/2 an hour at Dan's and around an hour at Nate's. We got home by 9:30. I'm still slightly tired from it all, but it was definately worth it! :)