No Christmas Tree

Our tradition is to go get our Christmas tree today and decorate the house for the Christmas holiday like we did last year. But since we are leaving for Hawaii in less than two weeks and we will be there for two weeks, we won't get a lot of time to enjoy one so we decided not to do that this year. Mom is going to come over on the 22nd and put up a little tree for us, so when we get in the next day there is a Christmas tree waiting for us. Thanks Mom!

So today was consumed with shopping online and resting and carbing up for my 2nd half marathon tomorrow that I'm running with my Dad and Brother. Oh yeah and trying not to too stress about it too much. :-) At least I'm not John (Renee's husband) who is running the full marathon. I'm not sure if I could keep food down if I was about to do that. I know you will do GREAT John!! :-)

I think I'm all packed and ready to go first thing tomorrow morning.

Pray for me!

A Full Day of Holiday Fun!

Friday, 11-26-10

A beautiful day to wake up in Seattle!

THE PARADE!



I'm not sure if the parade was really a hit. Zach said he was bored and Elissa said she liked it, but they were never really excited. Well Zach was pretty excited when the firetruck came by.

 

Santa's in town now!!

Time to go pick up Dad's, Chad's and my race packet!

But not before we lay out all the loot we got at the parade. The Frango's were the best!

RIDING THE MONORAIL!

Zach would see the monorail going above us as we were walking around in the morning and he thought it was the coolest thing. Cooler then anything he saw at the parade. So he was very excited to get on and ride it.

 

LYLE AND THE CROCODILE

Seattle Children's Theatre

The kids really enjoyed this play. Zach enjoyed it so much that he wanted to go meet the crocodile after the play. Last year he was terrified of anyone dressed up as a character and he seems to be over this now. If you look in the middle of the photo on the right you will see Zach patiently waiting to get the crocodile's autograph. He didn't know that was what he was doing, he just wanted to meet him. He told me after that the crocodile didn't know his name so he told him. He was pretty proud of himself. :-)

 

When we got back into downtown Seattle it was almost time for the tree lighting, so we decided to stay. We thought it was going to be 30 minutes, but after all the entertainment it was at least an hour. Darin and I really enjoyed it, but the kids were less then thrilled. They were asking to leave, but we couldn't bring ourselves to do it because it was going to happen any minute. :-) Zach ended up falling asleep in my arms and Elissa just gave me faces one minute to the next and kept on commenting how boring it was. The only part she liked was the fireworks. I would go again, but without the kids!

They did amazingly well when you consider all that we did today and that none of us got a full night of sleep.
I'm glad we did it, but it won't happen again for a long time. :-)

All New Thanksgiving

Thursday, 11-25-10

The food may have been the same, but everything else was different.

1. There is snow everywhere! Can't remember the last time we had snow on Thanksgiving.
2. Zach made a snowman by himself.
3. I made oatmeal pies for some of our neighbors and the kids and I delivered them. That was fun surprising everyone!
4. I made a new appetizer and pie and they were both ok.
5. For the last 7 years Chad & Holly have hosted Thanksgiving and this year my Mom did.
6. Patty didn't come to Thanksgiving. She chose to stay home, enjoy the holiday shows & stay off the snow and ice.
7. No child in a high chair. They all sat at their own table. All kids 3+ years.
8. Dad, Chad and I nervous for Sunday because we are running the Seattle Half Marathon together.
9. We left Mom & Dad's and took the kids into Seattle to stay at the Warwick for the night so that we could watch the parade in the morning.

Grandma got them yummy Coldstone Cupcakes!                                         They are suppose to be closing their eyes for a present.

Grandma made them each a pillowcase and gave them their Christmas PJs early.

I love Elissa's face here! She is so excited because she told Grandma that she wanted a hot pink and black pillowcase because they are "rockin" colors. Grandma even found fabric that have guitars on them. :-)

Now Chase, not so excited. He wanted a toy. LOL!                                                                            Zach really likes his PJs.

 

What did they end up liking the best?? The fabric ties Mom used for their presents. They all tied them around their heads and became ninjas. Funny kids! Cole and Lissy are hiding under the table. Love them!

Our hotel room had a great view of the Space Needle.

The kids loved going to a hotel and being able to go swimming. It has been awhile. They were surprised when John, Renee, Tommy & Tyler showed up! It was a fun evening hanging out. But no one had fun the rest of the night. For some reason Elissa was up on and off all night and she made sure that everyone else was up with her too. Not to mention that we both had a double bed with a child next to us. They were relieved when we finally let them watch TV at 6:30am. Maybe it was a little early to do this???

Day 3 of Snow

Usually when we get snow, it comes for a day and then is immediately gone.

Not this time!

We are starting day 3 of snow everywhere and school is closed.

We were lucky when we went into Seattle on Sunday that we didn't get caught in the snow. There was none there at the time, though it was freeeezing. Just snow at our area at the time. We considered staying overnight and I'm thankful that we didn't. Monday was a totally different day.

Monday, there was still snow everywhere and it was still coming down. School was 2hrs late. Zach went over to Vicky's for their play day and Elissa was playing in the snow with friends. When she got on the bus I was thinking that it was crazy that they were going to school. It did not look like the weather was going to change at all soon. Well they got to school at 10:30am and then by Noon the district was making plans for school to close at 1pm. The bus was suppose to pick up Elissa at 1:15pm - not sure when she actually got there - and it usually takes 35-40 minutes for her to get home, but it was over an hour today.

The commute home for people was insane. All the posts on Facebook were wives saying that their husbands were stuck somewhere for hours because of all the accidents. We were no different. Darin tried to leave work early, but the shuttle bus that takes him to the train was slow-in-coming. Then when he got on the bus it was sliding around, so he got off and walked the rest of the way. He got on the train and then got to his truck and he decided to go up Game Farm park hill instead of up Lakeland Hill. Well Game Farm was at a standstill. He waited an hour or so and then decided to try and turn around. There was no way that he was going to get up the hill to our house, so he went to his Mom's in Pacific and stayed there for the night.

Today we woke up to another blanket of snow and school closed. The kids again headed outside first thing. Then the sun came out and today is ending up being a beautiful winter wonderland. Here is a little fun that we had today. 



  

 We pray that Daddy can make it home this afternoon!

P.S. Darin made it home safely tonight and the kids are out of school again tomorrow for the rest of the week for Thanksgiving holiday!

The view in Seattle today from Darin's office.

First Snow of 2010!

The kids are in heaven!!

Darin looked out the window and then told Zach to come look out the window and I hear, "It's nowing (he doesn't say the "s")! It's Christmas!" So cute! Wouldn't it be nice if it was Christmas every day that it snowed, but I guess some years we wouldn't have Christmas then. :-)

Zach wanted to immediately get on his snowsuit and get outside.

Then Elissa got up a little later and came down the stairs screaming that it was snowing. She immediately went outside and started building a snowman.

Elissa yells as she is building her snowman, "Today is the best day ever!"

She built this all by herself.

Unfortunately it looks like "they" may be correct that we are going to have our worst winter in 20+ years.

Happy Thank-Mas!

Wednesday, 11-17-10

We start the holidays a little early around here.

Grandpa Frink and Grandma Myrna started snow birding last year so we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas in one night with them before they leave.

The kids love getting Christmas presents early. :-)

They got rolling backpacks for our trip next month and a Zhu Zhu pet. They LOVE both! They are having backpack races as we speak and Zach took his Kung Zhu to preschool today for show-n-tell.

And they got us these really cute frames!

THANK YOU!!

Have a safe and fun trip!

We look forward to skyping with you soon!

December Daily Project

Another photo-a-day challenge!

This one is from Ali Edwards. She actually puts together a mini scrapbook for the 25 days leading up to Christmas, but I'm going to make this a digital project on my blog. See what Ali is doing here.

I'm going to start taking a picture (or two) and document each day leading up to Christmas starting on Thanksgiving Day. There is SO much that happens between Thanksgiving and Christmas that it will be nice to get a glimpse of each day. AND I will try to limit myself to less then 5 pictures a post. I will really, really try to make it just two or three (a huge challenge).

Anybody else in??! :-)

Learning to Ride...

Wednesday, 11-3-10

Without Training Wheels

We know that Zach is ready to learn to ride a bike without training wheels. He has been a speed demon since his little sit on scooter. He just really took to riding.

Wellll, he is not really keen on taking off his training wheels. He tells us that he will do it when he is Four. LOL!

But today we were able to talk him into taking them off for a little while. He had it a few times, but is still a little too scared to take off.

We'll try again when he's Four. :-)

Run, Darin, Run!

Pedal harder!

 Oops!