Christmas

Happy Birthday Jesus!

And Merry Christmas everyone!

Icicles Too!

We not only have more snow than we have ever had at one time since we moved to Washington almost 27 years ago, but we also have icicles hanging from the house. We don't ever remember having icicles before.

One more picture of how deep the snow is. This is the crane that stands in my pond with his head held high. He is barely able to keep his head out of the snow. His partner, who has her head bent down like she is drinking out of the pond, is nowhere to be seen.

The real icicles look pretty next to the icicle lights.

Sorry, all of you who get icicles all the time, but having icicles is a thrill to us over here, especially since they have gotten so long. I am really starting to feel like I live in N. Dakota, Minnesota, or Buffalo, N.Y., one of those states, where I've always felt sorry for the people who live there, who have to deal with so much snow and cold weather.

Fun in the Snow

Monday, after making it over the pass and back we figured the trip up to Bellingham would be a piece of cake. Once again the worst roads were between our house and the freeway, then between the freeway and Kari's house. Before we headed out to play in the snow, Saben thought he would rest awhile, and decided that Papa looked like a pretty comfortable place to rest.

Here we go with an unhappy Annika on the sled. For some reason, she really didn't want to be pulled on the sled, but it was to deep for her to walk very well and when she did walk some, she would fall down and be unable to get up. We tried to make a snowman first, but the snow wouldn't stick to the ball we formed to roll in the snow. You could make a snowball, but you couldn't roll it and gather more snow.

We discovered, after some trial and error, that Annika liked going down the hill in the sled, if Papa or Grandma held her. She didn't really like going down with Saben, but she wore her grandparents out with trips up and down the hill. Luckily, it was a small hill in Kari's front yard, because we had to carry her up along with the sled.

We found two snow angels in the yard. Later in the afternoon, after we were back in the house, we were watching a video of a baby elephant playing in the snow. It was running around and rolling in the snow and Saben asked if elephants knew how to make snow angels. It looked like it was trying because it was moving it's feet back and forth.
Kari made a snow house for Saben, that he was excited about. But he thought he needed a rabbit to live in the snow house.

Enough Already!

Sunday morning when we got up we had 4 more inchesof snow and it was snowing. We made it out to church, with very few others, as it continued to snow. We probably got a couple more inches during the afternoon, while I watched the Seahawks win and Ken shoveled off the driveway again. We were supposed to have some members of our life group over for dinner after making boxes at the food bank for the Christmas basket distribution tomorrow. Since there is no room to park on the street right now, Ken wanted to make sure people could get in the driveway. We ended up with only Tim & Mary Beth coming for dinner. It continued to snow all evening and this morning we had another 7" of snow on the driveway and the yardstick on the table was up to 21". It has been going up and down as the snow settles, then we get more. I think that's enough for awhile!

Christmas in Wenatchee

In spite of all the snow at our house, we drove to Wenatchee Friday afternoon, so we could go to the Elliott family Christmas on Saturday. Of all the roads that we drove on to get to Wenatchee, which included Hwy. 9 and 2 over Stevens Pass, the roads were worst in our neighborhood. We had more snow than Wenatchee and even Stevens Pass didn't seem like it had as much, at least the trees didn't look like they were as heavily laden as ours were. Something that hardly ever happens! The picture above is of my parents and the gift that was given to them. Kari gathered pictures of my parent's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and put them on a nice canvas that she painted and decorated. It was a great gift for them and they loved it.

21 of us gathered at my aunt and uncle's house for lunch and to celebrate Christmas together. This is my niece, Meera and her boyfriend, Zach, waiting for things to get started.

My 3 great-nieces got to open their gifts first, then the adults did theirs. We did something a little different this year. Instead of getting a bunch of miscellaneous gifts, we had a theme, everyone was supposed to bring a DVD or a food item to put under the tree. We drew numbers to see what order we opened gifts in, then you could either open a gift under the tree or take a gift from someone else when it was your turn. It was a lot of fun and there were only 2 duplicate gifts. Ken opened a gift that was a big box of "moose munch", a treat we really enjoy. It was taken from him and when he chose another gift to open, it turned out to be another box of "moose munch". Unfortunately, it got taken from him also so he ended up with a DVD. The other duplicate was one of the DVD's. Jason opened the first one and really wanted to keep it, but when it was taken from him, he opened another gift and it was the same DVD that had just been taken from him, so he got to keep the one he wanted after all. We had a good time and I think everyone was pretty happy with what they got to take home.

Ken and I had planned on staying in Wenatchee last night and coming home on Sun. morning, but the weather report called for a storm to hit again Sat. night, so we decided to head home and left town about 4pm. It snowed most of the way home, but the roads weren't to bad and we made it home with no problem. Sometimes it was difficult to see the road because of the wind blowing snow across the road, but that wasn't to often, so we got safely home. Our church had decided earlier in the week after all the snow, to just have one service Sat. night and one on Sun. I don't know how many people attended Sat., but there weren't very many there on this morning. The roads were a lot better by the time we came home after lunch, so maybe the worst of it is over. I hope so!

Christmas Long Ago

In response to the funny Santa picture of Saben and and Annika on Kari's blog, I thought I'd put a picture on my blog of how the Santa picture is supposed to go. Of course, Deanna and I were a lot older than Annika when we had our picture with Santa taken. Since Tim isn't in the picture and I would think that he was born by then, maybe he reacted like Annika did and that's the reason he isn't in the picture. Don't you just love my coat and with it's matching pants and hat? I just wish my eyes were open, I love the picture of Deanna though.

More Snow!

After I posted yesterday, it started to snow again. This picture was taken as we headed to bed at 10pm last night. There was almost 18" on the top of the table. We had to stop using the little 12 inch ruler and go to a yardstick. We also lost power at 8:30, but it was only for an hour. We lit our propane lanterns and played cribbage (I won both games), it was almost like going camping.

It apparantly didn't snow too much during the night, when we looked at the yardstick this morning, the snow had settled a little and we were back down to 17". I made my way out to the paper box, even though the snow was over the top of the little boots I have, but there was no paper delivered this morning. I was supposed to go stock shelves at the food bank this morning, then I had a dentist appt. and was going to go to Fred Meyer for a few things, but I'm sitting at home instead. The director of the food bank decided to close the food bank tomorow due to the snow and that hasn't happened in the 6 or 7 years that I've been working there.

This is the mail box this morning. And guess what?! It's snowing again!

Snow! Snow! Snow!

This is a copy of the picture I took on Saturday, when I was excited about getting some snow. Little did I know, what was coming this week!

This is the amount that was on the mailbox at about 3pm after we got back from getting some groceries.Ken worked from home today and decided that he would feel better about me going out, if he drove. I was more than willing for him to be in charge of driving, since I don't like to drive on snowy or icy roads. As is many times the case, the roads were worst between our house and the freeway.

It has finally stopped snowing, and I measured 10" on our table on the deck. We had about an inch left from the snow on Sat., so we got 9" today and may get more tomorrow. The Christmas lights sure look pretty under the snow.

"Quantum of Solace' Review

Yesterday was Ken's actual birthday, so we decided to have a quick dinner and go to the newest James Bond movie, "Quantum of Solace". We had decided to eat at a BBQ place in Marysville, but we had the same luck as Shaun and Andrea and discovered that it isn't open on Mondays. We ended up at a mexican resturant instead. After dinner, we got our popcorn and drink at the theater and settled in for the movie. After the movie was over we talked about whether we liked the movie or not. We both thought that it wasn't as good as the old "James Bond" movies. The action was to fast paced and we found it hard to follow. We also didn't like the way the director chose to show off his style instead of making it seem like a "Bond" movie. One of the things I've always liked about the "Bond" movies is the clever gadgets that he uses. There were no clever gadgets and no "Q" in this movie. It was more a movie about revenge, both by the hero and heroine, and not about trying to save the world from someone. It pretty much killed my taste for any other new "Bond" movies. Anyone else see it? What did you think?

Ken's Birthday Surprise

I planned a surprise birthday trip for Ken as one of his birthday presents. Both of us had a surprise Saturday morning, when we woke up to snow on the ground. This is the amount of snow we had early Sat. morning.

Ken's surprise trip was taking the special snow train to Leavenworth for the day. Here I am on the train with some of the special entertainment in the background. There were different groups coming through the cars singing or performing during the trip, and it made everything very festive. It really was Christmasy, especially since there was snow falling during most of the trip and most of the time while we were in Leavenworth.

After we got to Leavenworth, we rode school buses into town from the train. After getting off the bus, we decided to take a walk by the river on some trails we had discovered last summer when we spent the weekend there. It was a gorgeous walk with snow on the trees, etc. After lunch we went into the main street area, which was closed off to cars, and met up with Father Claus. We also did a little shopping, and enjoyed some hot chocolate while huddled around a fire in a burn barrel with several other cold people.
The culmination of the trip is the Christmas lighting ceremony at dusk. We were amazed at the number of people that gathered for the event. We had no idea that it was such a big deal. You can get an idea of the crowds from the picture below. It was a fun atmosphere and we really enjoyed the whole day.
After the lighting ceremony, it was time to head back to the buses and then to the train. The trip home wasn't as much fun, because you couldn't see the scenery and there were 2 rather long delays, while other regularly scheduled trains came by. We got back to Everett at 10pm and discovered that it had been snowing most of the day at home also, so we had 3 inches of snow at our house by the time we got home. It was a wonderful pre-Christmas outing, that we throughly enjoyed.

Decorating Cookies

Tim & Mary Beth came over Friday evening for dinner and to help with decorating cookies. We got all the frosting colored, the decorative items out and we were ready to go.

My favorite decorative addition is the red hot candies, which I try to have on each cookie that I decorate. I put them on all my cookies, because those are my favorite things to eat.

We had fun getting all the cookies decorated and some were very creatively decorated. Ken made one of his cookies so it looked like a fried egg and in the picture above, is ready to eat it.

Rememberances - Past & Present

My rememberance from the past. At our life group on Sunday nights, we always have a question to get the ball rolling and last Sunday, the question was to describe an important Christmas event/tradition in your family. My answer was making and decorating sugar cookies. This is something that I did as a child, as a newly married couple, with our children, and we continue to do it as empty-nesters. Often after we were married, we did it at our home, but from time to time we were in Wenatchee at my parent's home for Christmas and did the cookies there. One of my rememberances of doing cookies in Wenatchee, is having both my Mom and my sister, Deanna, make cookies. Deanna was always worried that we wouldn't have enough cookies, so she would make a double batch. We would end up having so many cookies to decorate that it would take all day to get them all done, even with all the kids (there were 7 of them) helping. One of the hardest things was trying to clean up afterwards, and get all the frosting, sprinkles, etc. gathered up, but the cookies were so yummy, it was worth all the work when we were done.

This year we may start a new tradition, we have invited some friends over to help decorate cookies tomorrow night. It's always more fun to do it with someone, so hopefully we won't wear them out.

My present day rememberance. When I was at Kari's on Monday, Saben started talking about the trip they were taking on Friday. He asked if I was going to be sitting by him on the airplane. I had to break the news to him that Papa and I were not going to be going with him on this trip. He wanted to know why, of course, so I told him that sometimes we would go with him and sometimes it would just be Mommy, Daddy, Annika, and him. His reply was so sweet, he said, "I'm going to miss you Grandma." Another heart melting moment for Grandma.

Uh Oh, I forgot to mention Sunday

Not that there is anything all that exciting to say about what we did on Sunday, but I just want to put it down for posterity. We went to church as usual, but did have one funny thing happen there. One of the women I know from MOPS, walked by us after church and asked Ken if he was practicing his dancing for next years contest. Ken replied, "No, we're going to be looking for a new church where they don't dance." (We aren't really.) Anyway, she laughed and went on her way, but it shows that the dancing contest is not going to be easily forgotten. (Especially since we noticed that some people had cameras out and were taking some pictures.) After church we ate lunch at Red Robins, then came home for a few hours, which I used to finish decorating the house. We headed back to church at 4pm for the children's Christmas program, which was very well done, then had our life group meeting at 6 and got back home around 9:45, in time to head to bed. It was a busy weekend, but we had fun, and still got some things done that needed to get done. All in all, a good weekend.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday morning we went out and got our Christmas tree, and didn't have to do it in the rain for a change. As always, the cats were very interested in this new thing that was coming into their house. We spent the afternoon decorating the tree with the result below.

We were able to spend a little time sitting on the couch and gazing at the finished product before I needed to get a salad and a white elephant gift put together for my MOPS group Christmas party. I spent the evening there, eating, playing games and getting to know some of the Moms in my group better. There were only 5 of us that were able to come, but we had some good conversations and a lot of fun playing "Taboo".

When you don't have kids to help you decorate and to take pictures of, you take pictures of the "helpers" you do have. Both of the cats love to play with the garland on it's way onto the tree.

The First Week of December

This has been a very busy week and I'm hoping that the rest of the month won't be quite as crazy as this one was. I know it's supposed to get worse the closer to Christmas it gets, but for me it's usually busiest the first part of December. That may be, because I'm trying to get the house decorated, my Christmas shopping done, cards addressed, etc. all in the first week or so. We also had most of the Christmas parties that we have been invited to take place this weekend. In addition to my regular activities and Christmassy things I was trying to do this week, I had 2 Dr. appointments, a dentist appointment and needed to get my hair done, so I wasn't home much to get my decorating done. (I'm about half way done and will hopefully finish up this weekend.)

Last night we attended what we thought was a life group leaders Christmas party with Tim & Mary Beth. When I asked if we were in the right place for the life group leaders dinner, I was told that it wasn't just for leaders, it was for anyone in a life group. It turned out that everyone except for 3 or 4 couples were in the 30's age group. I knew or recognized about 80% of them as being MOPS members. I had a good time because I knew so many of the women that were there, but I think I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much if I hadn't known so many. We had a nice dinner, then some games were played (MOPS people were in charge of all the games also), and we had a short talk by one of the church staff members. Everything was going pretty well, until they asked for 5 couples to volunteer for one of the games toward the end of the evening. Since they didn't get enough volunteers, they started calling people up by name, now this is where it was a disadvantage to know and be known by the game leaders. They called my name, so a reluctant Ken and I went up to the front of the room. After everyone had assembled at the front of the room we were asked to line up by age, with the oldest first and on down. Ken and I were first of course and Ken tried to bolt, when we were informed that we were going to be in a dance contest! Anyone who knows Ken knows he is NOT a dancer, and I've always wanted to be able to dance, but never have done it much. I got him to stay and they started some music that we were to dance to, (we were dancing one couple at a time, so all eyes were on us) the music was some oldies from our era including "The Twist", so we bopped around a little, (mainly me), then were able to go sit down while the others did their thing. At the end, everyone voted on which couple did the best job, we didn't win (big surprise!). But I was just proud of Ken for going along with it, although he wasn't and still isn't happy about the whole thing. Tomorrow the rest of the weekend.

Thanksgiving Weekend - Part 2

Friday, Debbie, Mom and I went out Christmas shopping. We just went to Kohl's and the Outlet Mall in Marysville and were able to get some good deals, especially at Kohl's. I think Mom did the majority of her shopping there. My goal over Thanksgiving is always, to help Mom get her shopping done or almost done, which we were able to accomplish. Usually, I also need to help my Dad get something for Mom for Christmas, but this year they are going to get something for both of them from both of them, so that makes it easy. Then on Saturday, everyone, but Ken, went up to the Bellis Fair Mall in Bellingham for more shopping. Ken's job over the weekend every year, is to get the outside lights up, which as you can see he was able to do. We ate lots of leftovers, watched a lot of Christmas movies on TV, worked on puzzles, and enjoyed the service at church on Sunday morning over the rest of the weekend.

One of the things they did during the service was to ask people to stand up and say what they would like to give thanks for. I don't tend to do that very often, but I felt like I needed to give thanks for someone that I had neglected to give thanks for previously. So, I stood and said "that I wanted to give thanks for a 15 year old girl in California, that chose to have her baby, instead of taking the "easy way out" of abortion, and that she chose my son and daughter-in-law to raise her baby." We are so thankful for her and are anxious to see our new grandson, sometime this month, hopefully for Christmas.

Thanksgiving Weekend - Part 1

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend, with 12 at our house for dinner on Thanksgiving day. Our kids and their families, plus my parents, my brother and sister-in-law made for a full table. Annika was hungry before dinner was ready, so she got to eat some turkey ahead of time and head for a nap. It was our last time to see Todd and Betsy as DINKs. (Who remembers what that stands for?) It was exciting to say good-bye to them knowing that the next time we saw them they would have a baby. We can't wait to see our new grandson!

After dinner some of us played a game called "Whoonu", while others watched a football game (Seahawks lost again) or took a nap. Our kids all left to go see in-laws, while those of us left played another game of "Whoonu", which was fun because there are very few games that my Dad can play and he was able to play that with us.

One of our traditions is to put together jigsaw puzzles over the weekend. I had gotten a new one that Ken and I had worked on the evening before Thanksgiving and we finished it up that evening. The weird thing is that this new, unopened puzzle was missing 5 pieces. Ken kept thinking that the cats had carried off the pieces until we discovered that there were not only pieces missing, but there was an additional piece. I have never had a puzzle like that and since a puzzle with pieces missing is no good, we just threw it away. We ended up putting together 3 puzzles over the weekend. It was a nice way to relax after a day of Christmas shopping.