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. 

12-2-2011=12

Our whole household was up @ 6am to witness Nolan open his gift.  Of course he got hugs,kisses and birthday wishes before he was able to reach the gift.

Just as dawn broke he was ready to try his new toy out.

After a fun day at school, where he had some surprise greetings and shared ice cream sandwiches with his class, we took him out to his favorite drive in burger joint.

Finally, at the end of the day, we were all home again and finished celebrating his special day while enjoying deep dark chocolate cake.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY DEAR SON.

Knocks, Boosts and Weirds

I have several miscellaneous items I want to record on the blog, so I was going to call it Tuesday Tidbits.  However, Tuesday came and went and I did not blog, so now I can't use the title anymore.  Most families have their version of sharing time, like WGB (weird, good & bad).  I was inspired by Jill (she inspires me quite often) to rename our bads and goods to knocks and boosts. 

Knocks

Last Friday one of our kids got sick and I found myself scrubbing floors and walls at 1:30 am, only to repeat the process an hour later.

Boosts

The same child who got sick was able to climb down from his bunk and walk to the bathroom before the explosion.  Scrubbing tiles in the middle of night is definitely better than trying to clean carpets. 

Family time also got a boost since we had four days to relax , spend time with each other and start a puzzle.

I was able to savor some delicious Italian coffee while enjoying the company of three great friends.  Girl time certainly gets a boost.

The guys were not forgotten as they got their tools out and made some noise cutting logs while stocking up on heat fuel for the winter.

Weirds

An owl is free to hunt the woods again.  Upon returning form our jog, Shawn and I decided to peek inside a new house being built.  To our surprise, we were greeted by a huge owl who was trying to fly out a closed patio door.  We made a quick exit (owls talons can be sharp) and watch the owl perched on the scaffold while we formulated a plan to help her find freedom.  I gave Shawn a boost so he could climb on to the deck and with a long stick he opened the sliding door.  It took a bit of encouragement, but eventually the owl did find the open door and flew out.  We know had a good story to share with the boys.