Christmas Break Snapshots

We spent our last week relaxing and having fun with family and friends.  Priceless.

Love this picture, not one of the boys is looking at the camera.  Pretty typical.

The Fleeting Joy of Christmas

Before

Fifteen seconds later

Special Gifts

When your husband works in the health care field, you know he will not be present to celebrate some holidays with you.  Christmas Eve was going to be one of those circumstances.  He would not be joining us at our Christmas Eve service, but we took comfort in knowing that he would still be home in time for a late meal and readings by candle light (some of our treasured Christmas Eve traditions).  

What a surprise to have him home by late afternoon, in time to join the family for the Christmas Eve service.

With having my family together on this special night, what else could I ask for a gift?

Maybe peace among brothers

City Lights

We had a day with no plans, no work and no chores.  House was clean, shopping was done and school was closed.  Shawn indulged me by taking us all on a out to the city.  We had no specific destinations besides an Imax movie and a place for dinner.

We walked the town admiring the lights, sight and crowds.

It just about drove Christian crazy.  He not only needs to know where we are going next, but why and when and how.  He was slightly appeased at this point since we were heading across the street to pick our Christmas book.  At least there was some purpose to this madness.

All of my boys would rather be in the woods or on the snow, but they humored me and my need for a city fix.

No complaints when it came time for dinner and dessert, compliments of "Oma," who would love to prepare a Christmas dinner for us. 

Winter Break

These might be the shortest days of the year, but we did not run short on things to do.  As a matter of fact, I believe the shortest day of the year turned out to be one of the most productive one for me.  Before 8am I had already gone to the supermarket, gone for a lab test, taken the car to the car wash and was on my way to meet friends for breakfast.  The day ended with a beautiful walk back form our neighbour's cookie party under a clear sky dotted with millions of stars.

 When daylight is short supply, the games and imaginations come out.

Taking a break from the airsoft wars and fort building for some hot soup.
;

Teasing our Brains

 We gotta keep our minds functioning during this sugar high break from school.

 What better activity then a challenging puzzle for a boy with a broken arm.

However, I think is going to take a group effort to finish this one



 I love this time of year for celebrating God's great gift with family.  Growing up we had big & loud family gatherings, and even as a young child I anticipated the fellowship of the gatherings more than any gift. It's that time again, and my family was gathering for Christmas celebration at my brother's home.  The problem is, his house is about 5000 miles away!  The blessing is that some of the family that I gather with as a kid, is now also far from their roots, but close to us.  So the family still gathered on the same day, in two smaller groups with a wide gap in time & location.  The gratitude towards God and love to one another is the same, one that I hope I can pass on to my kids as well.

Ready to Celebrate

Excitement and sugar was abundant on this last day of school. 

But the real reason for entering the Christmas break was not forgotten.

We had a lovely time of worshiping our King and remembering His great gift to us.

Today our whole family is enjoying the break and having a perfect Saturday.  Shawn was ambitious and rose very early for a breakfast with the guys.  Christian cooked breakfast for the rest of us, and by the time Shawn got back we had most of the house chores done.  The boys got some XBOX time while Shawn and I went for an invigorating run.  Later Ethan went to play with his neighbour friend while the older guys sharpened their shooting skills.  The guys found their way home again, it must have been the aroma of the fresh cinnamon buns coming out of the oven that drew them back.  We savored the buns, sipped tea and played Apples to Apples.  Our Scrabble game was interrupted by dinner, but there was no objections raised.  We are now looking forward to our family devotion time which will be followed by a classic movie: Chevy Chase Christmas vacation.  Shawn and I already had some good laughs just talking about it.  It will be a first viewing for the boys, we are ready for some amusement.

P.S.  We have watched the movie by now and it's interesting how one remembers it being funnier and how one does not remember the parts that could have been left out in a family movie.  Oh well, we have some better ones in our queue.  Unless they are also better in our memories.

Breaking In a New Skill

Day 1

Day 7

When Nolan came in with tears in his eyes we knew something was wrong.  Of course these things seem to always happen on Saturdays evenings.  We kept him on ice, the pain subsided and we had hopes of  it only being a bad sprain. Our Urgent Care consultation on Sunday morning did not bring us closer to any certainties and we decided to wait until Monday morning for an Xray.  Once our family doc saw the pictures we had our answer: a torus fracture of the R radius.  Off I went to get Nolan from school to get his arm casted.  He ended up only getting a "gutter splint", so he is able to take it off to shower and it also allows him more finger movement (good for schoolwork).   All in all, not too bad.  We were wondering though if this is contagious, since his cousin broke both her arms just a week ago! 

Lowlights & Highlights

Low lights?  Getting low on lights while decorating your Christmas tree.  Seems like every year we have some sort of  light saga.  This year I ran out of lights before even getting close to being finished.  What happened to last year's lights?  Beats me.  The next day I bought more to finish the job.  Decorations were up and we were admiring our tree, and out go most of the lights!  Shawn, our appointed Christmas lights trouble shooter (by default not choice) found the culprit, and we got the rest of the lights shinning again.  I was unable to replace the broken strand since the store was all out of white lights.  Maybe we were not the only dealing these issues?  By now we are to used to the look and don't even notice the "dark spot."

In between dealing with lights and other commitments, we not only finished this puzzle but also got another 300 piece one done.  The latter was such a piece of cake that we are now tackling a 1000 piece Canadian flag puzzle.  Nolan is drawn to it and can not go by without attempting to put together a few pieces, but I have a feeling it will keep us busy for a while. 

Christian is also keeping busy with the High School swim team.  He swims daily for 2 hrs after school and comes home exhausted and famished.  His coach named him "top rookie" and he got a "grand slam," beating his own records.  Right now that is his goal, to improve and beat his own time.  That's an achievable goal, considering that their relative new and small team is competing against strong ones, including the number one in the state.  I'm proud of his commitment, hard work and he is reaping benefits like staying healthy and developing a nice physic to boot.

Another highlight was our hike to higher ground this past Friday.   With the boys at school, Shawn and I were about to go on our usual trail, but decided to hike up a logging road we had not gone on for a while.  It was a reinvigorating walk under the clear sky & crisp air.

Once we were back form our hike and about to tackle some chores, Shawn got a call from a co-worker inviting him to go flying with him.  Talk about a highlight for the day! 

A bird's view of our neighborhood

The Twin Sisters

It took Shawn a full exhausting day to get to this peak.  Much easier and faster by plane.

Skagit River

Form the county to coast

to the San Juan Islands in minutes

Our quaint town of Bellingham with Mt Baker in the background.

Blue Skies, Big Smiles

Once again Nolan was fortunate enough to be able to go skiing for his birthday.  Thanks to La Nina, thanks to a day off school and thanks to a dad that took the day off to join him.