The first day of the month we had some snow flurries around the valley in the morning replaced by rain and wind, but on the bright side the mountain is getting snow like crazy. It shouldn't be too long before we can get up for some snow shoeing. We spent the weekend largely staying around the home with the exception of a few forays out on brief errands. In the evening while we were getting ready for dinner, the girls used a window cling that Jada put up of the Nativity scene to re-create it using their blocks on the floor. They have quite the imaginations.
For the next weekend, we had a pleasant, sunny day if a little chilly. After our usual morning of errands. In the afternoon, Jada, Ellen, and Phoebe went with Jada's friend Meryl to a Holiday Tea party put on by the sorority of another friend, Janet. They got all dressed up and had a lovely and, I'm sure, dainty afternoon. The theme for the party was trains and the girls spent most of time in the garage with Janet's husband Ned learn to run the train sets. While they were all out, I took the opportunity to get some of my Christmas shopping done by bike. I covered 26 miles and hit 3 different stores all over the 'burbs under sunny skies and temps in the upper 30's. I had to skip one stop because I couldn't figure out how to safely get there by bike. On Sunday, we had intended to go to pick up a tree in the morning, but I ended up getting called in to work for a couple hours to help with a factory issue. That evening, we were invited to a Hanukkah dinner at a friend's house. The girls had fun eating the latkes and playing dreidel. Other than that, Jada spent a lot of time visiting her mom in the hospital and making sure that she was well care for.
As a result, we didn't get around to picking up a Christmas tree until Monday night. I picked up the girls after work from Jada's BEA meeting, and we stopped off at a store that had trees out front from a garden center. Plus they were great prices. It would be another day before we put it up and another few days before we actually got lights on it. Tuesday night, Jada was busy, so I picked up the girls and took them to their swimming class. They really do a good job. Ellen is taking after her daddy with how well she can kick on her back. She beat everyone down the pool with her back kick. I couldn't see a lot of what Phoebe was doing from the stands, but her report card from Thursday's last class said she can do just about everything well. Phoebe's last class for gymnastics was also this week. The only thing she couldn't do was cartwheels, but she could do a bunch of the more advanced moves and tumbles. On Friday when we were actually all home to sing songs, I started channeling the Ramones during a rendition of "Jolly Old St. Nicolas". It sounded pretty good, and I think we needed the release since Jada had spent the previous night up in the hospital while her mom had a scary reaction to the medications she's taking. Now I just need to work on my scissor kicks. During the week, we also worked on getting our Christmas cards done and gifts wrapped for shipping back to Illinois. We're getting them out a little late this year, so hopefully they can still make it in time.
On the second weekend, we had our now 10th annual ornament making party. This year, Ellen and Phoebe each got to invite some of their school friends. We had two sittings this year. The first was for the school friends, and then the second was for the family friends. We had 12 kids there for the first sitting. We had the traditional free-for-all table and one with the more little kid friendly art. Then this year, we added a table for making ornaments with the clay I brought home from Phoebe and my clay class. We had a good time and a good turn out. The kids seemed to have a good time, and I was amazed at how polite they all were. Sunday was spent making cookies for Jada's classroom volunteers and the girls' teachers. We also finally finished decorating our tree.
The week before Christmas break, I took "off" from work. I still worked a bit from home, and I attended staff planning meetings Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. However, on Monday, I volunteered in Ellen's classroom in the morning. I brought in my electric guitar and amp, and we sang amp'd up Christmas carols as well as some of the songs Ellen's teacher usually plays. I helped do some work around the classroom, went to music class, and ate lunch in the cafeteria at Ellen's table. After that, I went to ship off the gifts to Illinois. The line was long, but it moved pretty well. After running a few more errands, I picked up everyone from school to go over to submit the info for passports for everyone. That went surprisingly quickly too.
The rest of the week went by uneventfully. We handed out the cookies to the girls' teachers and Jada's volunteers. I dropped off and picked up Phoebe from school, attended a few work meetings, and Jada went up every day to visit her mom in the hospital. We got grandma's apartment packed up and into storage for if she gets well enough to move back to an assisted living center since at this point, she requires 24 hour care.
On the Friday before Christmas, we had tickets for a performance of the Nutcracker Tea put on by the Northwest Ballet Theater. They put on a more child friendly production that is only an hour in length. We got all dressed up in our best clothes. The girls wore their Christmas dresses and new dress coats. They looked so grown up. Jada looked grown up too in her new coat. I just had the only dress outfit I own with my now 11 year old wool jacket. Not considering the fact that this was also the Friday before a 4 day weekend, we foolishly thought we'd be able to get into our restaurant of choice as easily as we normally do when we go before 5pm. With the first reservation not available until 8:45pm, we went to plan B. We headed over to New Seasons to eat from their food counter, then set off to the Portland Community College performing arts center. We got there early and got in line. While we waited, we got a picture of the girls with a couple of the dancers in their pretty Christmas dresses. Then we went into the performance. To say the girls were excited might be understating it a bit. Ellen was sitting upright and mesmerized by the dancers. She started to shake when the mice were about to come on stage. She was so nervous that she was incapable of whispering, "I know she's (Clara) going to win" even while she was shaking. There was no sword play in this one even. Towards the end of the performance, she even cried out, "there's the Sugarplum Fairy!". The ladies in front of us just turned around and smiled. I don't know how to say just how excited she was. Phoebe was enjoying herself too. She was bouncing to the music and leaning on Jada. The loud drums (from the recorded music, not live orchestra) made her cover her ears. After the show, the chefettes were serving cookies in the lobby. There were lots of yawns in the car on the way home since it was almost 2 hours past their bed time. We actually got to sleep in until almost 7am the next morning.
Saturday we spent doing errands along with Jada's daily trip to the hospital in the afternoon, but we also stopped by the house of some friends to drop off presents for their children. We had a pleasant time with our two girls playing with their two boys. Sunday morning, Jada wanted to go to Mass. The girls wanted to go, but they were very fidgety and a bit rude during the service. That was followed by a stop by Phoebe's Godmother's house for her birthday brunch. Her whole family was there. It was a pleasant morning.
Christmas Eve day started with our traditional run to the store. We have this down to a pretty good routine after 6 years. I drop off Jada outside the Honey Baked Ham store in Beaverton near highway 217 just before 7am so she can get in line to pick up our Christmas Eve ham while I head off over to the Washington Square Mall to pick up our Cinnabons for Christmas morning. It ran like clockwork. Jada was even done before I made it all the way back to pick her up. Then Jada spent the rest of the day up at the hospital with her mom waiting to find out if she could be discharged. Finally, they got the word that they found a long-term care facility that had a bed available to take her. She got lucky and got a room that only has her in it currently. We all went up to see her before they transported her out so we could do a quick round of presents. We took over the guest waiting room, and sang Christmas carols while I accompanied on my guitar. Laurie came up to meet us there too since we had to postpone the Christmas Eve dinner. Jada followed her mom out to the facility to help get her settled in while I took the girls home to prepare a Christmas Eve dinner for 3. We had some of the ham (I wasn't too worried about using it up since I had ordered an 8lb ham after misunderstanding Jada's written instructions.), salad, and bagels with cheese so the girls could make sandwiches if they wanted to. I even put a candle that Ellen had made in Kindergarten on the table to make it a little festive. Not surprisingly, the girls had a bit of trouble falling asleep. Ellen started coming down with a cold, so that didn't help. When Jada got home, we finished wrapping up the presents to the girls from us.
Answering the musical question, "do they know it's Christmas?". Yes. Yes, they do. We were up bright and early as usual for Christmas. The girls aren't allowed in the front room until after breakfast for which I made scrambled eggs with ham (again with the ham), yellow peppers, and cheese with a side of toast and a small Cinnabon. Then it was time for presents. The girls really enjoyed all of their presents, and I think they tried to wear, play, or otherwise carry around just about everything they could. Thanks to all for the terrific gifts. Following the opening of the presents, the girls got dressed up in their Christmas dresses to go see Grandma again out at the new facility. We brought a few things to spruce up the room a bit. The people there are very nice, and they are taking good care of Jeannie. Once she got tired, and went down for her nap, we did the same heading home to grab some lunch and a nap before the yearly dinner at Mike and Carries. It's always fun to see everyone over there every year. New babies, kids growing up, people we only see once a year at this dinner but still seem like old friends, great home-made food, and Blazers basketball (11 wins in a row following the Christmas day game. It's an early season streak, but considering no one thought they'd do anything after Oden went down for the season before the season even started, we'll take it). It's a great family dinner for all of we orphans out here separated by the miles from our families for the holidays.
On Wednesday, we rescheduled our Christmas Eve dinner to the night after Christmas. We went to the store to pick up a few things for Jada's mom including a new present so we wouldn't have to lug her old heavy TV around any more. For dinner, I picked up grandma (and setup her new TV) while Jada made the dinner. Papa came over too. We had a nice dinner with ham (I sense a theme here), green bean casserole, mashed yams, a big salad, and cinnamon bread that my goddaughter made. Then we had the Pearson family caroling with piano and electric guitar. This was likely the last playing of the rockin' version of "Jolly Old St Nicholas" for the year. We never did get video of that. We'll break it out again at some point.
On the 27th, while Jada went off to get a haircut and see her mom again in the morning, the girls and I took down the ornaments, and got the tree ready for recycling. We bought a tree storage box for Jeannie's new artificial tree, so we were able to put some additional things in there as well to clear out our closet a little bit. Now we just need to figure out where to put that.
Ellen's left front tooth has started coming in now, but not the one that got pulled. That one is still missing in action. She has her dentist appointment the first week of January, though, so maybe they'll find it. She also says she has some more molars coming in, but I couldn't see them so it may just feel like it as the new front tooth pushes its way into place. Phoebe has started throwing almost identical types of tantrums that Ellen has thrown. It's as if they're working from the same script that got handed down like a pair of pants....which, by the way, Phoebe is now catching up to wearing the clothes Ellen wore in the fall. We'll be buying them the same size very soon, me thinks.
With Grandma settling in and being well taken care of at her rehab center, we decided to take a short trip to the mountain. We went up to visit Pete at his mountain home and spend the night. It was snowing pretty good, but the Subaru made it through just fine. We had dinner and after the girls went to bed, we broke out Ellen and Phoebe's games that they got for Christmas. We played with the Wedgits for a while. Then we played a new game from the folks at Cranium called Zooreka (Thanks, Mike and Carrie!) where you create your own Zoo. It's really pretty fun, and has some nice math concepts in it. Then we played Monopoly Jr (thanks, Auntie Mandy!). We had a great time with that one adding in some of the Monopoly rules and things in so we could keep playing after people (Ahem... Jada) started running out of money. Plus the usual jokery and tom-foolery that accompanies games when we play with Pete. We had a great time. We slept in until nearly 7am the next morning, and had breakfast. I made my famous oatmeal, and Pete whipped up some home made "cinnamon-bons" (as Phoebe likes to call them). Then we thanked him for his hospitality so he could go off to ski, and we headed off to Trillium Lake to do some snow-shoeing. It had snowed all night (~8in), so I had to dig the car out, but again, we had no troubles. We were the 3rd car in the parking lot. Phoebe did a great job. No crying at all this time, just a little complaining about being hungry. Ellen did her usual energizer bunny, though she did slow down on the walk back up the hill to the end. She has been sick, after all. It was a good 1 mile start to our snow shoeing year. Then it was off to the Huckleberry Inn for pancakes! It snowed all the way down to Rhododendron (that's a small town at the base of the mountain about 10 miles from Government Camp where Pete's house is). The cars going east up the mountain were bumper to bumper all the way from Government Camp to almost Zigzag (another small town) where there's a forest service head quarters ~12 miles away. And this was already after 12pm. We hope they weren't all thinking they were going to make it in to ski, but we talked to Pete around 5pm that night, and he was in traffic coming back from Mt. Hood Meadows for 1.5 hrs. Normally, this drive is only 15-20 minutes at most with no traffic.
Finally, New Year's Eve arrived. I went into work, and Jada and the girls went to visit Grandma in the morning. It was a little slick on the roads in the morning, but it was clear by the afternoon. We had our friends, the Thorntons, over for dinner of pizza pie and cream pie (both chocolate and coconut) all home made. Their two boys and our girls had fun playing games of Monopoly Jr, charades, and Zooreka. They left around 9pm to celebrate New Years on the east coast. We'll do our annual celebration of New Years for the Central Time Zone and then go to bed after 10pm here.
It was another fruitful year. My final mileage shortage came up a bit short. I was just 38.5 miles shy of my goal of 3000 miles for the year. Though I did get over 2000 miles just commuting to work which is twice the amount that I've done in the past so that's pretty cool. Jada ended the year with 724 miles, and Ellen with 509miles. Of course, Phoebe also had that 509 miles logged sitting in the trailer which is a feat of mental fortitude as much as anything and certainly nothing to sneeze at. We're finishing up the year healthy for the most part. Grandma is doing well with her rehab, so we're hoping she stays on the path to better health in 2008 and beyond. She's not got an easy road to travel, but she has a daughter who is committed to keeping her that way as much as she possibly can. We hope we all have a happy and healthy 2008. We have Phoebe starting Kindergarten in less than a year!!! and Ellen will move on to Second grade. My little sister's wedding, as well as the wedding of some good friends. More cycling and trips plus soccer, gymnastics, piano and swimming for the girls. We're looking ahead to a good snow shoeing season. All in all, we'll be continuing to stay active.
Happy New Year.
Journal Entry: December 31, 2007