Valentine's Week

Valentine's Week has been a virtual whirlwind (that's speaking metaphorically, of course). It's been a good week for chocolate. The kids and I made heart shaped sugar cookies, based on the success of cookies baked the previous weekend for a trampoline meet, as well as fudge, cut out in the shape of hearts. Even with giving lots away, we consumed plenty ourselves. Valentine's evening, we had dinner with our good friends, the Thompsons, which meant the kids went to bed an hour after bedtime. I did not help put them to bed, as I volunteered to shut the chicken coop door to keep out unwanted critters. Ever since our Christmas night encounter with the most ENORMOUS possum in the coop, eating eggs and chicken feed (one chicken as well - but not that evening), we have been shutting them in at night. We've only forgotten once to let them out the next day. Anyway, I put on my boots and marched out into the night with my flashlight, only to discover a new, smaller possum in the coop. I won't say how we dispatched the creature, but it won't be eating my chickens or their organic $22 per 50 lb. bag of feed any more either.

Just so you know, the best way to deal with possums is to drive over them with your car - it's compassionate and quick. Also, this evening marked our 22nd engagement anniversary, and I must say we have become quite the efficient possum dispatching team.

Last night, Jack and I enjoyed an authentic Brazilian meal in the U District, with friends Uschi and Luis. The kids had pizza at Grandma Bev's house. The food could not have been better, and it was nice that Uschi and Luis speak fluent Portugese. As a bonus the restaurant is right across from R&E cycles, where we bought our first mountain bikes many years ago.

Emma had a gymnastics meet today at our home gym. She had plenty of family to watch, although Rilla & Cian spent much of the time eating chips or jumping in the pit of foam. As soon as Colin hooked up with his friend, Spencer, he was lost to the world of Nintendo DS. Caleb brought art supplies and generally wandered around.

Christmas Wrap-up!

We had a great Christmas! Let's see...here is a numerical account:

1 = The number of Christmas cards that were returned due to an incorrect address.
2 = The number of glass Christmas tree decorations broken (tied with last year's record!)
3 = The number of packages for distant relatives...which incidently were shipped on time.
4 = The number of gifts that had to be returned or were missing parts (all purchased by Jack & Gail for Brenchley kids).
5 = Number of Brenchley kids.
6 = Number of hours added up on December 16th for performances (both The City Church kids' Christmas program & then the kids' piano recital in the evening). This doesn't include lunch with the Marquees at the Kitanda Brazilian restraunt.
7 = The number of days it took Papa Ray and cat Ojo to cross the country via RoadTrek camper.
8 = The number of plates of cookies passed out to neighbors while Christmas Caroling.
9 = The date in December that the family went to the Lobb's Gingerbread making party.
10 = The number of December events (either hosted or attended) according to Emma.
11 = The number of hours (including travel time) for the Christmas Day celebration at Good Beach with the Ostling side of the family.
12 = The number of different "Twelve Days of Christmas" lists the Brenchley kids created this year.

All in all we accomplished just about everything we needed to...although we did pospone viewing the Bellevue Botanical Gardens d'Lights display until after Christmas and only just yesterday dropped a gift off with Jamie.

R2-D2 in Prison!

Caleb (11) is one of our budding artists and here is his first stab at electronic art (using Windows Paint no less!). He thought the zoom tool was really helpful. So...when do we start him on real drawing programs like Illustrator or Freehand?

Caleb 12.23.07

2007 Christmas Newsletter

This year we tried for a less, "tell everything that happened over the year" approach and made cutouts of the kids that folks could include in their Christmas Creshes. Here is a thumbnail of the page:

Christmas Newletter 2007

Snow!

So we woke-up on the first of December with a dusting of snow - which melted by noon. Then it started snowing heavy in the late afternoon. The kids went out and were joined by their cousin Sterling. Later the older cousins even ambushed the house for a snowball fight. Here are a few shots on Photobucket - including the cold flamingo.

Cold Flamingo 12.1.07

Thanksgiving 2007

We had a great Thanksgiving with two turkeys, tons of food, and a houseful of people. This included Grandma Dot, Grandma Bev, Uncle Jack and Aunt Shirl, George and Anne Kordwig (neighbors down the street), Uschi and Louis and their two children, Beatrice and Pedro, Franklin and Joy Lobb, and their two children, Gabriella and Graceson (the youngest attending at only 6 months), also the Ostlings and Wade. Coming to a total of 30! Things went very smoothly for that many people!

The mix of folks was unique...George was born in Germany and Uschi and Louis are from Brazil, but most recently from Germany . The other interesting find was that Anne and Uncle Jack were born in relatively close proximity in Scotland, but ten years apart!

We are thankful for our friends and family and really enjoyed hosting this year.

Just to remind Jack...that at the end of the evening we did play the board game Therapy with Uschi, Louis, Kyna, and Shannon.

And just to remind Gail...Jack would have won if she hadn't given Uschi the peg reward for successful group therapy instead of him! Maybe next time he will not suggest that she is what she eats.

Here is a turkey that Emma (8) drew this year, using her hand of course for a template:

Art by Emma

Freewinds pull-out voyage

Okay, so a cruise from Everett to Seattle in November may not have been the calmest adventure our family has ever been on, but the boat was in desperate need of deck repairs and today was the day to take her in! Here is a GoogleMap of the adventure.

After a couple of nice, mild days we woke up to some fairly stiff winds at the house. Undaunted, we forged ahead. The marina was fairly calm, and at least it wasn’t raining! Well, it wasn’t the smoothest ride we had. In fact, with 20 mph winds in our face (and gusts up to 30 at times! Hmmm…just below small craft warnings.) and a changing tide, we had plenty of chop and slop with an occasional roll from the Straits. Since we didn’t plan on tacking much we didn’t even put the sails up. Still the boat did great.

The other adventure was navigating through the multitude of gill netters (who else would be out on a choppy/windy day like today?). More than once we had a panicked fisherman come full throttle towards us as we were merrily bouncing along, oblivious that the white caps ahead of us were really net floats. Caleb, who was the undisputed net finder, took the helm for most of this excitement so Dad could stand on deck and make reassuring gestures to the irate fisher folk. Let’s see…that was about when the littles decided to upchuck. But the winds were declining.

As we were coming to Shilshole, the huge mega-yacht Laurel crossed our bow and tied up. We were pretty impressed! Come to find out the Laurel is listed as the 8th largest American-owned yacht and was built right here in the Northwest.

The trip started going pretty fast after that point. The BNSF bridge was up so we scooted right past – good thing – the bridge clearance is 43’ at hightide and our mast is around 50’. Then we were ushered right into the large locks with only a barge and tug and one other small powerboat with us. Pretty good for the first time through the locks in our boat. Exit the locks, veer starboard, and back right into CSR’s travellift.

Freewinds pull-out 11.9.07