December 11
Here we are at the end of the year already. This is also the first time I’ve been able to journal, so hopefully I don’t forget everything.
Last weekend was spent at our favorite beach near Haystack Rock celebrating Jada’s mom. A couple of photos from our celebration and poems that the girls read can be found here. We spread her ashes and rose petals on the beach in the sunshine taking advantage of an oddly dry and windless day at the beach, Jeannie’s favorite place.
When we got back from the beach on Sunday, the girls had their holiday concert recital. They have been playing Christmas songs since Halloween to prepare for the concert. They dressed up in matching dresses and both performed beautifully. Phoebe’s 2 pieces were the duet with Ellen for which they were selected for the state recital called “Copy Cat” and “Ding Dong Merrily on High.” Ellen played a rocking version of “Jingle Bells” and “What Child is This?” The great thing about the girls’ piano teacher is that she keeps the arrangements varied enough that even though 4 different students played an arrangement of “Carol of the Bells”, they all sound different. In the evening after we got home, my external hard drive where all of my pictures, videos, and music are stored. I opened up a support call to Western Digital to try to get it replaced. I’m hoping it’s just the power supply. It’s been a week since that happened. I haven’t gotten the power supply in the mail yet. Hopefully it comes soon.
Last week was a pretty busy week for the girls. Ellen and Phoebe, along with the other top money raisers for their school Fun Run, got to take a limo ride out for breakfast. Then Ellen made it back to the school just in time to catch her bus over to Washington Square Mall where the 5th graders got to sing their holiday concert. Since it was in the morning, Jada got to go watch before her class time started. On Thursday, all the grades had their concerts. In the morning, they had an assembly where they all got to perform. Jada’s dad came to watch the performances that morning. In the evening, they performed again so I finally got to see them.
At work, we had a holiday party on Wednesday where we had a competition to see who could make the best gingerbread houses. We had 20 minutes, and my group of 5 was the only group that went against the traditional house form which the kit was designed to be used for. Instead, we came up with the idea to create a ginger factory based on our new fab. It was difficult, but we dubbed it G1X. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the most original. The factory managers who were judging the competition didn’t even give us honorable mention for going against the grain and refusing to accept the limitations of the kit we were given. I guess we were just too much ahead of our time.
On Saturday, I took Phoebe to another practice chess tournament in Hillsboro. Her chess coach started her at the intermediate level where she played five games. She played to a draw in the first two before going on a winning streak on the last three. When she took her match card to the table after her fifth game, they bumped her up to Advanced level. Sadly, it was near the end of the tournament, and we needed to head for home to meet up with Jada for lunch. However, she was very proud of her achievement, and going out while she was on top was a good way to end the morning, I thought.
We met up with Jada at home, and we all went to pick up Ellen before meeting up with a friend of ours at Panera. We got there at 12:30pm, but we didn’t leave there until maybe 2:30-ish? We showed her our pictures and exchanged gifts. We followed that up with a trip over to Sports Authority to pick up my skis. We also looked at skis for Jada, but she opted not to choose anything there at the time. Then we picked up a Christmas tree at a lot on the way home. We ended up picking up a Douglas fir for $25. On Sunday, Phoebe and I had our guitar lesson in the morning because we were going to a Holiday Cookie Decorating party at our new tandeming friend’s house nearby. When we got home, Jada was already making her chocolate crinkle cookies. I got the tree in the house and put the lights on so Ellen and Phoebe could start decorating. I put up the lights on the house as well. One of my icicles lights had dead sections, but luckily I had a second set to put up in its place. We also put Gramma’s old artificial tree up in the family room and decorated that as well. In the afternoon, we attended that cookie decorating party I mentioned earlier. It was loads of fun. The hostess had made up a bunch of dough in both sugar and gingerbread varieties for people to use. Phoebe chose gingerbread, and Ellen chose sugar cookies. They had around 100 different cookie cutters. The girls rolled out their dough and chose a bunch of different cutters. They both chose a TIE fighter. Some of the others they chose were a lobster, palm tree, angel, boat, umbrella, fish, ninja guy, Christmas tree, and Phoebe chose a hammer as well. They decorated them with sprinkles before they got put in the oven (there were 2 ovens going), and then the frosting afterwards. We were there for only a couple hours so we could get home for dinner and Jada had her massage that night. I wrapped the presents (sorry Elgin, Pekin, and Bloomington Pearsons) so we could get them shipped off in time for Christmas. I also wrapped Jada’s and put it under the tree (shhh! Don’t tell her, but it’s a puppy.)
December 12
I made my peanut butter balls after dinner. I tried to halve the recipe, and the consistency was off on the balls. I think it may have been partially because of the way I melted the butter before putting it into the mixture. Then I took a deep breath and paid my Visa and wireless bill from the trip - neither as bad as I was expecting.
December 13
This morning wasn’t a great one. I got a flat just under half-way to work this morning. It was 28 degrees which made removing my tire difficult. My spare wouldn’t inflate all the way. So I called Jada since it was early enough to rescue me. While I waited, I tried to patch the first tube. I actually had glue in the tube but it came out all gloppy. I was able to get the patch to stick eventually and the tube held air. Then I just waited for Jada to come take me home.
December 17
Wednesday morning Jada and I volunteered for the Passport program at the school in the morning. On Thursday after school, the girls went to My Masterpiece Art Studio to make some things for the holidays. Phoebe made an interesting sculpture which is supposed to be an underwater theme. Ellen continues to crank out Christmas refrigerator magnets. I was able to get back on track riding to work after spending Wednesday night making sure that my spare tubes could hold air and patching where necessary. No other issues the rest of the week. I took the Outback to the shop for it regular maintenance (60000 miles now after 3 years. It’s the one we drive the most). During the day on Friday, Jada hatched a plan to get Nana and Bapa out here for Christmas since my brother and sister had their other family obligations on Christmas day. I didn’t think Jada would be able to talk them into it after the snows the last time, but somehow she did, and we’re very excited and happy…though we’re not telling the girls yet. We’re trying to come up with some sort of story as to why we’re going to the airport on Christmas Eve day. We don’t have a Cinnabon in our airport (oddly enough), so we’re thinking of making up some sort of story about having lunch there. I don’t know. We’re still working on it. They won’t notice that we’re there until we have to get out of the car anyway because their heads will be buried in their books. On Friday, Jada also met up with her mom’s former Hospice nurse to chat. The girls had their gymnastics class in the evening, and Ellen finally did her kick over from a back bend. She’s been working on that for a long time.
On Saturday, we had 3 parties to attend. The first one was a birthday party for Phoebe’s Godmother’s son first thing in the morning. We followed that one up immediately with another open house for some friends of ours who moved to a new house, and sadly a new school. So it was nice to see them. They have boys that are Ellen and Phoebe’s age that they went to school with before they moved. The afternoon was mostly spent getting things done. I cashed in some change, strung some lights on the back deck, and finally started putting chains back on the quad. The girls did some cleaning around the house, and Jada worked on creating the thank you’s for the Fun Run. Then we headed out to the last party at 6pm and had a fun time there as well. Jada had put together a small collection of pictures to bring along in case anyone asked to see them. A few people did, so we go to relive our trip a few more times. The kids were all out in the garage where an air hockey table and a small TV were setup. The girls ended up staying in there all night. We got home late, and we all went to bed at pretty much the same time.
December 21
The kids are off school this week, so they’ve been busy doing this, that, and the other. On Monday, Ellen went to Sylvan while Phoebe and Jada took care of a bunch of errands. The girls went to Maryville Nursing home to play Christmas songs on the piano. On Tuesday, the girls went to a friend’s house to play in the morning, and then in the afternoon saw a “Do Jump” performance. They’re sort of dance, gymnastics, Circ de Soleil sort of thing. They really liked it though. On Wednesday, Phoebe got her special painted desk from the same woman who painted the girls’ rooms and Ellen’s desk. In the afternoon, she and her daughter threw a cookie exchange party so they made Jada’s oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies in the morning. Meanwhile, I broke a spoke on my bike on the way to work. I got a flat on my front tire on the way home from work after stopping at the Bike Gallery to get my spoke fixed.
December 24: Christmas Eve
Thursday, Jada hosted an ornament party at our house for Ellen and Phoebe’s friends. They managed to scrub clean the whole house afterwards with only a little bit of glitter left over as evidence of any sort of activity. On Friday, they went a errand-ing about and visiting with friends. Work was pretty slow for me, so I left at 4:15pm as the building was emptying out. Since I was on bike, I wanted to leave before the big traffic crunch started with people not paying attention on the road.
Christmas Eve morning, I had my errands to do picking up my Cinnabons, dinner rolls at Bungalow Bread, and our Honeybaked Ham. The wheat rolls weren’t ready at the bread company, and I didn’t have time to come back later. They ended up letting me have 2 dozen of a different kind and only charged me for 1. Then we had to run out to pick up Nana and Bapa from the airport. The girls didn’t know this yet. We told them that we wanted to go to Ikea (near our airport) to pick up some plush presents that we found in an ad. Ikea is interesting in that you can go in before the official opening time, but they just keep the exit down to the bottom floor where you can check out closed until 10am. On the way to the check-out stand, there is a massive poster of a hotdog with an asterisk in the corner stating “not actual size.” Jada thought that was funny. Then when we were walking to the car, Jada asked the girls if they would like to just go down the street to the airport to have lunch since they like having the options to eat. They said yes, but Ellen gave us an odd look when we asked. However, she’d rather eat that than going home to make a sandwich. Plus she really likes the Mexican place there. So we set ourselves up at a table near the Beaverton Bakery and made sure that they would have their backs to the gates from which Nana and Bapa would be coming. Phoebe was playing a Tangrams game that she got in her Wendy’s meal, and Ellen was just looking around. When they came walking up, Ellen looked up, but she didn’t seem to be able to process what she was seeing. She was completely dumbfounded. Phoebe just started laughing. They were both so happy. Of course, none of us thought to have our cameras ready to catch their expressions. It must have taken Ellen 5 minutes to come to grips with it. The ruse could not have gone off better. I picked up Phoebe’s chair for her desk after we got home, and I spent the afternoon making Pizza. Papa came over to visit for a bit in the afternoon as well. It was nice to get to see him for a while. He brought gifts for the kids and something for us as well. After dinner, we read the Polar Express, and tracked Santa on Norad. Then we put the girls to bed and finished putting out the last of the presents, and we set the stockings out on the ottoman next to the tree so it’d be easier for Santa to put his presents to the kids there.
December 25: Christmas
The girls were awake early, but I took my time coming out. I made some oatmeal for breakfast, and we waited for Jada to come out before heading in to open presents. We all got some terrific gifts. Then the girls spent the rest of the morning playing with their toys. Jada made quiche and pancakes for brunch, and we all over ate again. After lunch, the girls finished watching Elf, and I tried out my new white noise generator. Then I worked on downloading video to send home with Nana and Bapa. Jada started up cooking again for our Christmas dinner of Honeybaked ham, mashed yams, roasted ptoatoes, green bean casserole, salad, cranberry-orange chutney, rice pudding for the girls, home-made whipped cream, and pumpkin pie. Our friends from our Spain trip came over as well for dinner, and we had a fun time. They brought some English crackers which are things that you pull apart with little presents inside. These had a whistle in each one and music to play. There were 8 of us, so we could cover the whole octave. We had loads of fun with our friend Paul (not to be confused with my dad, Paul) conducting. Each of us had a note to play, and he would point to each of us when it was our turn to play our note in the Christmas carols. We played “the First Noel”, “Deck the Halls”, “We Wish you a Merry Christmas”, “Good King Wenceslas”, and then Jada and Paul figured out “Joy to the World” on the whistles too. We put the girls to bed, and then we just stayed up chatting. It was lots of fun.
December 27
On Monday, we spent most of the day eating too much (starting with eating breakfast out at Biscuits Café and lunch of left over pizza). We went to Powell’s so Jada could spend some of her gift certificate, but Bapa and I also both bought books. In the afternoon we did a whole lot of nothing except for my burning of DVD’s for Nana and Bapa of video’s and pictures. Then I fell asleep sitting on the couch in the music room. We went to our friend’s house to celebrate the 7th day of Hanukah with them. Bapa played dreidel with the kids and Meryl, and I tried to help them understand a new Lego game they had gotten – Lego Hogwarts. Mark made a delicious dinner of beef brisket, baked chicken (Jada had cooked one of them), and potato latkes. We were there until after 8pm, so we got the girls to bed late again.
Phoebe was awake early again on Tuesday. Ellen actually slept until 7pm. I was at my laptop around 7:15am since I was working today. However, it was also Nana and Bapa’s last day, and we were taking them to airport later in the morning, so I just worked from home. The girls did some dancing in the front room pretending they were dancers inside the Dance Dance Revolution game. Traffic was light on the way to the airport, but the line through security was very long. While Nana and Bapa went to get their bags dropped off, the girls and I tried to hold a place in the long line, but we got kicked out of the line since we didn’t have a boarding pass by one of the TSA ladies patrolling the line. We said our goodbyes at the line since we were getting shoo’d along again when we were standing next to the line saying goodbye as if we were holding up the line or something. Once home, we had lunch and got laundry started before I got back to work. The girls worked on their piano and thank you cards in the meantime. Eventually, we let the girls watch one of their presents from Auntie Mandy, “The Muppet Movie.” They seemed to like it. We’ll have to get some of the seasons so they can see who all the characters are that they saw in the movie. We had yet more left-overs for dinner as well, and we put the girls to bed early.
December 31: New Year’s Eve.
Winter like we’re used to returned to the Pacific NW this week. Rainy and temperatures in the upper 40’s/low 50’s were the norm for the day. I was able to ride my bike to work Wednesday and Thursday. The girls and Jada went on a river cruise on Wednesday in the rain with a friend to celebrate a birthday. In the evening, the girls had a make-up gymnastics class where I heard they did quite well. Thursday was a day of rest for the most part. The girls did some cleaning to earn money around the house, and they enjoyed watching the movie Secretariat. I had a massage when I got home from work. I was off on Friday so we did our grocery shopping in the morning. Ellen had finally saved enough money to buy herself an iPod Nano. I’m not sure what she really needs one for, but she saved for it for months, so I loaded it up with girl rock for her. Jada went down to Salem to visit some friends from college that she hadn’t seen in a long time. I cut up all the boxes that were littering the garage, and then we watched the Great Muppet Caper with the girls in the afternoon. I didn’t remember that Charles Grodin played a main role in that one. I remember very little about that one other than we collected the glasses from one of the fast food restaurants when I was a kid. We took down the Christmas tree in the afternoon, and then we took the girls to their gymnastics class. This was the last class of the session, and their teacher was saying that they would probably do just fine moving up to the next level. It was up to Jada as far as the class schedules go since they also had things to work on in their current level, so it wouldn’t be a waste of time.
Saturday, the last day of 2011, we went to visit some friends and exchange gifts with their boys. They had gotten those big floating remote controlled fish. They were flying them around the entry hall making it feel like we were in a giant fishbowl. It’d be a nice gag to get some pebbles and a small castle in there to complete the feeling. Maybe a volcano (Sharkbait. Hoo ha ha!). I spent the afternoon making pizza, and running out to get ingredients that we had missed on our shopping list. You know unimportant things like flour and canned tomatoes. We didn’t find them at the same time, of course so Jada made the first run to pick up flour, and when that first crust was rising, I moved to start on the sauce, and I found my tomatoes missing as well. So I ran out to get those. We had friends over for our traditional New Year’s Eve party (that ends at 8pm). The kids all made their own pizzas, and I made a big one for the adults. I took my USS Enterprise pizza cutter on her maiden voyage, and I cut my finger drawing blood. There’s no wheel guard, but it still looks cool. We ate in shifts, so the kids ate theirs first, and then they went to play while we ate ours. Then we played a couple games. The first was another Cranium game. Then we played Apples to Apples Jr. which is always a crowd favorite. After they left and the girls were in bed, Jada got the black-eyed peas soaking and ski gear packed. It dumped on the mountain Friday – 14 inches in 12 hours. We were in bed before 10pm. No call to Illinois tonight. We have visions of fresh tracks, or “freshies” as the kids say.
It’s been quite a year, and it’s only going to keep getting more crazy and hectic as we go along. We’re looking forward to 2012.