December Stuff

Right after Thanksgiving, I knew I had to get this advent calendar made for Jesikah. I knew this would be important to her and I wanted her to have something to do and open each day, so I made her this lightweight foldable advent calendar with clear sheet protectors made for baseball cards. Each day had a scripture and song. In the back, I tucked a chocolate in for each day. It made it to her on time and she loved it!! I was happy how it turned out and how quickly I pulled it together. :)

We got our Christmas tree up!!

The sunrise over Mt St Helens is just breathtaking some mornings! I have so many pictures of it!

I am so fascinated by the fog that settles over the valleys below us at least 1-2 days a week in the winter. That white blanket of clouds behind the house is all covering the Battle Ground valley and it is on the other side of the house too in the Vancouver valley. I don't feel like I can capture it very well on a camera, but it looks like this soft fluffy white blanket covering the valleys. And what's even cooler, is we get the sun while they have the fog!! :) But if we drive into Vancouver or lower elevations, we drive into the fog and clouds. The sky and clouds up here are very intriguing.

Another view looking at the clouds over the Vancouver valley

Again looking at Vancouver valley to the lower left

Cloud cover from our back deck

Micah with his Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer headband he made at school. We got some good chuckles out of this. :)

Tessa's choir performed at the Grotto during the second week of December. Jesikah performed there two years ago with the same choir and I absolutely loved it, so I was really looking forward to going again. It was awesome. The acoustics in that church make the music even more beautiful! This year they performed the entire Vivaldi Gloria with orchestra! It was amazing! The Grotto is a Catholic cathedral in Portland with a really cool grounds and cavelike area. At Christmastime, music groups go and perform each night in the Cathedral and they decorate the grounds with lots and lots of lights and they have a nativity displayed in the cave/grotto area. They also have live animals like donkeys and camels. Eric and I took the boys, and we really enjoyed it.

Jarem, Tessa, and Eric looking at the lights after her concert

Alex flew home directly from Washington DC on Dec 15th. It was nice having him home again. We spent the first day outdoors on our property, cutting down some trees and planting grass and doing outdoor stuff. He loved it after being in the inner city for 4 months. Eric had the whole week off of Dec 17-21 plus the weekends, so we decided to have a staycation and just enjoy having Alex home. The first night for family home evening we all went to a showing of the Sound of Music in the classic Camas Liberty Theater. I just love the Camas downtown area. It is so quaint and so festive for Christmas. It was awesome! It was Alex's first time seeing it (I'm embarrassed to say).

Tessa and Micah were still in school but we had dinners together and played games every night (mostly Bang). During the days, we enjoyed some outdoor time and some down time inside. We went on this beautiful hike one day called Latourell Falls Hike. There was a lower falls at the beginning of the hike and an upper falls that we hiked to. It was very beautiful and refreshing. One day we went to The Grinch movie.

Lower Falls

Upper Falls

It had kind of a cool twisty waterfall

Can you see Jarem and Eric on the other side?

We put a wood burning fireplace into our new house with kind of a wood stove effect that heats really well. We love the warmth and coziness that comes from it. We enjoyed some nice fires in the fireplace in December.

The Nutcracker

Tessa and I enjoyed a girl's night out the Saturday before Christmas. We went to the Nutcracker Ballet in Portland. The Oregon Ballet Company is really good and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We did have a little parking situation when we arrived though. I tried to parallel park in a parking place that turned out to be too small and I couldn't get in far enough and then I couldn't get out. As we contemplated what to do, a miracle occurred and the lady behind us got in her car to leave. I was so grateful. She wanted me to help her out, so I sacrificed the time I spent curling my hair to stand in the rain and safely guide her out of her parking place, but the upside was, we had enough room to park there after she left!! :) And it was FREE parking!!

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The Pit--Tessa was so impressed with the talented musicians, particularly the flutist

We noticed some empty seats a few rows ahead of us, so we moved up after intermission and I was able to more fully enjoy the rest of the show without the big head in front of me. :)

Tessa wanted so get these pics in the restroom in front of the lighted mirror before we left.

I thoroughly enjoyed a night on the town with my Tessa girl. I am really going to miss her when she leaves home this fall. She has been by far my easiest child to raise in every stage of her life. And she is an absolute joy in our home almost all the time. She is cheerful and happy and motivated and just makes everything more fun. Whenever there is a time that she needs correction, she almost always says, "I'm sorry. I won't do that again", in a most humble way. She is my friend and buddy. I love hearing all her stories. It was so fun to spend this night together!

Thanksgiving 2018

Well, it is going to be quite shocking that I am posting something, but I miss my blog. It was a great way for me to journal and I have been very poor at it since I stopped blogging, so here's trying again.

For Thanksgiving, we couldn't decide how to make it special and still accommodate Eric's schedule. He was on night call all of Thanksgiving week, so being home with the kids was going to be hard because he sleeps during the day and works at night. It is hard to keep it quiet and I didn't want to be shushing people all week. Then, my cousins decided to have a Cousins reunion on the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Utah, so my parents invited us to Burley for Thanksgiving. I talked to Eric and he was fine with me going, so we decided to go and have some cousin time since Eric would be working anyway.

It was lots of fun. The kids had fun with their cousins and played so many active games. Jarem really needed the social bonding after homeschooling this year. He has missed his social interactions a lot. I couldn't believe how much more happy he was being with his cousins. It was a great time for all. I enjoyed the interactions with my brother, Mike and my sister, Candace, and their spouses and families as well as my parents. It was great bonding time!

On Saturday, we all went to Utah for my cousin's reunion in Salt Lake. It was so great to see so many of my cousins that I haven't seen in years. I am disappointed that I didn't get any pictures though.

Anyway, it was a wonderful weekend and good to get away. The only downfall was all the driving!!! Driving to Burley was 9 hours, another 3 hours to Salt Lake, another 3 hours back to Burley, and 9 hours back home. Tessa did drive some, but her experience in driving 70-80 mph is limited, so I got a little nervous when she drove. But she really did pretty well and gave me some needed breaks.

When we got home Sunday evening about 7pm, I was SO grateful to have a clean house, all my laundry done, and a warm delicious dinner of chicken enchiladas waiting for us. My husband rocks!! He did something like 9 loads of laundry while I was gone (most of which came from Tessa's room). And he cleaned every room in the house including Tessa's room really good including her closet. In all the time he wasn't working or sleeping, he cleaned and did laundry! I was impressed. It was a great surprise!

Luckily this was all the snow I saw on the top of the Blue Mountains!

Arm wrestling with his cousins

Little kids table

Older kids and adults

Micah's Thanksgiving feast at school