New Year's Seattle trip

Things were starting to get crazy at Claire and James's with all the house-building, so for this visit to the MS Center, I took up the offer of hotel reimbursement. The hotel's TV wouldn't hook up to the Wii, but Cliff and the kids had a great time in the pool, watching DVDs, reading, and just hanging out.

We ended up in Seattle longer than planned because the pass was closed for a couple of days, but it worked out OK.

Christmas day sledding

This was a beautiful day for sledding--you can tell by all the hats and scarves that were getting peeled off and hung on the tree. And Cassie made a new friend.

Wheeeeeeeee! (Is this what spoiled looks like?)

We wondered a lot about this decision--and the thing isn't even paid for yet--but no regrets after we saw this look of pure exhilaration! (Not to mention a few overwhelmed almost-tears!)

Oh, the beauty of inadequate insulation...

I wish more of our heat was staying in the house instead of seeping through the roof to melt the snow. But you must admit it's pretty.

Secret Santa time

It's always fun having an excuse to give your co-workers ridiculous gifts anonymously. It's even MORE fun catching them on film wearing their gifts so you can immortalize them on your blog! (Fortunately for Josh, my blog doesn't have much of a following. But he doesn't have to know that.)

Journey to Bethlehem

It's just not Christmas without a trip to a living nativity. (This one even had a real baby! But they only let us pet the sheep.)

Fun at Fort Walla Walla

We can never decide which park we love more--Pioneer Park or this one. Pioneer is more elegant and beautiful, perhaps, but there's a lot to do here. When it snows, the BMX track, which is a blast in the summer (at least for 9-year-old boys), turns into the best sledding in town. (And of course there's the DOG park. Have I mentioned the dog park?) There's also a model air field, a remote control car track, a historical museum and lots of trails to explore. The icing on the cake is an outdoor theater where we go to see the summer musical and the best thing to come to Walla Walla yet, Shakespeare Uncorked.

Problem, solution

I felt a little like Paris Hilton shopping for pink boots for my dog. In my defense, they were less than six bucks, and if you could see poor little Cassie trying to get the ice chunks out from between her toes, you'd buy them too. We haven't tried them outdoors yet, but she isn't exactly thrilled by her new footwear. Maybe she'll appreciate my efforts once it dawns on her how useful her new boots are. (Or once she catches a glimpse of her stylin' doggy self in the mirror and notices how jealous the cats are.)

Thank goodness for digital

My parents never let ME take 682 photos just so I could make a stop motion video. (Though probably only because I never asked--I was pretty spoiled.) Of course, with rechargeable batteries and a digital camera, it's fairly painless. And oh, so much fun. Kept him busy for hours.

Terrier vs. Great Dane

Whenever one of the local Great Danes shows up, you can feel the excitement sweep over the people at the dog park. Well, something like that. The dogs enjoy this big guy too. Even the itty bitty ones.

Saturday morning surprise (wasted on a snow Scrooge)

I'm too much aware of my mortality to be completely thrilled about the snow (hate to drive in the stuff) but I've got to admit, it's gorgeous. Extreme backyard makeover! Goodbye weeds, overturned wheelbarrows.... Wow.

My little skeptic

I think the middle picture shows Father Christmas putting Ethan and Bryson on the Naughty List for all their Santa teasing.

My current mission is to convince Ethan that he's old enough that he doesn't have to show off his "knowledge" anymore—he's old enough to go along and enjoy it. Bring back the magic! Ho ho ho!

Will spend evening at banquet for food

Can't complain too much about a nice dinner with a jazz band and two handsome dates (only one pictured...) but it helped make for a tiring weekend, especially for Cliff. Seven hours of supervising the decorating, plus a late night tonight. Hard to face Monday feeling tireder than you were on Friday afternoon!

Evil, evil ceiling

Surely there's a special place in hell for the person who invented popcorn ceilings? Extra hot? Itchy maybe? No chocolate?

Underneath the dingy popcorn mess with ridiculous sparkles (right side of photo) was a PERFECTLY GOOD ceiling! It had a nice texture and was even painted. A few spots needed touch-up (three bucks for some DAP did the trick), and of course repainting will be nice, but the room is already looking great. Why, why, why did someone do this evil thing?


Anyway, we finished the first half of the room and then learned from our mistakes enough to do much better prep work for the second half (note the plastic sheeting duct-taped to the baseboards and around the windows). At the halfway point, Teri celebrated and I had to go. (By "had to" I mean, man, did I ever want OUT of there.)

Another reason to love Walla Walla

Since the parade falls on holiday barrel tasting weekend and Walla Walla has become a practically swanky destination, the Seattle TV stations show up for it (whatEVer). But at least for the moment, the Christmas parade still feels like ours. Ethan and I walked with the Dog Park group and got to feel for a few moments like rock stars. What fun having excited little kids shouting "doggies" whenever we appeared! Cassie might not have won a popularity contest against the adorable doxie in the Santa suit or the sheep dog with Christmas lights shining through all that beautiful fur, but she thoroughly enjoyed the attention. Everything's more fun with a dog. Really. Go to the humane society RIGHT THIS MINUTE and get one. Tell them I sent you. Or go to petfinder.com.

P.S. Sorry about the demon dog photo...must learn how to use Photoshop and fix those eyes!

One of my favorite things about Walla Walla

The Dog Park. Watching a two-pound terrier romping around with a 200-pound great dane...it doesn't get much better than that. I was hoping it would be a social outlet--maybe I'd meet some people?--and that hasn't really panned out (I only know the dogs' names so far). But when I'm there, I can't stop smiling. This must be good for me.

The H.M.S. WHUMP (glub, glub, glub)

I took a ton of photos like this for insurance* (crossing fingers for coverage) but I will limit the blog to one. Too bad Cliff never got to ride in it, because he sure ain't going anywhere now! (Except maybe to the bottom of the lake....)

We had to wait until December to see the damage; checking out the kayak was too dangerous the night of the crash and we no longer had a roof rack to tie it to anyway. The Prosser DOT (which held it for us) is only open a couple hours a day, Monday through Thursday, in November. So Friday afternoon we jumped in the van (fresh from repairs--only took 24 days to put lipstick on this pig) and headed to Prosser.

*If you really want to see the mangled rudder, scraped sections, other holes, broken handles, etc., check out Flickr.

Pretty, pretty

This is the latest Buggy Barn flower quilt from the quilting ladies. I loved the batiks, but sometimes the asymmetrical pieces stumped me a little--batiks are good on both sides. We had to be reeeeeeally organized to keep things straight!

They're making another tomorrow, but my back is very tired and I'm pretty sure the recipient doesn't even know me. I'm sure there will be plenty of stitchers to handle it. (Still, I'll be feeling a little guilty about this time tomorrow...)

Happy chocolate birthday...

For Nicole's birthday, a few of her co-workers threw a chocolate tasting party. Can't comment on the bacon chocolate (it was real; I'm a vegetarian) but the Dagoba eclipse (87%)...yum. I also liked the stone ground chocolate. A little gritty, but good. The IKEA chocolate (three varieties) wasn't bad at all for how cheap it was. The chili pepper was kind of tasty, but too weird to have much of--it's a good way to enjoy some chocolate without any chance of getting carried away. And the Snickers...well, always a classic. Thanks to Josh for keeping us from getting too snobby about all this.

Drive go boom

We're grateful we all walked away from this fairly unscathed (especially me in the passenger seat :-)), but we're just shallow enough to be pretty bummed about the hassle and the loss of Cliff's birthday kayak, a dark green Loon 160 tandem with rudder. (boo hoo) Once the police report is finished (maybe sometime next month if we're lucky) we can go after whoever is determined to be at fault to recoup some of our uncovered expenses. (That is, if he's insured, probably our only hope. And of course we're not talking thousands, just our deductible, our rental car expense and the kayak.) In the meantime, there's this guy at work who keeps telling me that we can fix the kayak. You just order a chunk of plastic from the manufacturer and get a blow torch. (Hmmm.) It's being held at a storage yard in Prosser until we get the chance (and a vehicle--can't exactly strap a 16-foot boat on top our Corolla) to pick it up. I haven't seen it yet, but the officer told me it has a "few holes" in it.


(OK, I'm not a transportation engineer, but would you pull this load behind a Ford Ranger? Gulp.)

Local emergency response was FAST! Three cars were involved right after us (we were the fourth) and I was afraid we'd be watching crashes for a while. But police and fire trucks were on the scene in minutes with flashing lights and flares to warn others away.

As my ever-patient friends and co-workers (and Facebook friends and, now, Lair readers) will attest, I've gone on and on about this--part of my coping, I guess--so I shouldn't blame Ethan for being extremely upset that not only the State Patrol but also State Farm declined to take his statement! So if you want more details, call 1-800-ETHAN!! I'm done.

Stacy's hobbit house

Can you believe she is building the walls of this thing out of mud, sand and straw? I have the cleverest friends! The bottom section of the building is cinder blocks faced with stones. The posts out front are a couple of pieces of driftwood from Brenda's. The windows will be various bits of foraged glass and windows. The beams holding up the roof are huge, as the roof will be covered with soil and planted with native growth. A couple of nice big stumps are up there awaiting some gardening.

Tomorrow: Election Day

We'll be celebrating a co-worker's Nov. 4 birthday tomorrow. With an election theme, of course!

My contribution will be Rice Krispy Electoral Treats. They're supposed to be red and blue, but blue coloring doesn't work real well with peanut butter. Ethan helped me distribute the states with the CNN Election Tracker. We made all the states blue that are leaning Obama, and all the states red that are leaning McCain, and then we gave McCain all the tossup states. The results? Well, Sen. McCain, you probably won't need to be measuring those White House drapes. But I do think you're a little funnier than Obama. Maybe you can get a recurring SNL gig doing the Sad Grandpa?

P.S. I'd like to say that these are much more attractive in person, but no, they're really not. They looked better before the chocolate drizzle, but I think it will be worth it for the taste.

Halloween in downtown Walla Walla

Ethan's Lt. Commander Data found a kindred spirit in an adult Captain Kirk. Other costumes we enjoyed were an amazing dragon head, an adorable pilot, an extremely Wicked witch, a 2-year-old zombie Tinkerbell (sadly, not pictured), and the requisite weiner dogs in weiner costumes.

Preparing for the big day

The pumpkin was a little creepy for my taste, but Ethan did most of the work, so I couldn't complain much!

Quilt time again

To anyone who hasn't tried this, I highly recommend getting together about a dozen people to assemble a quilt top in an evening. It's a great reminder that many hands really do make light work. This is so important (and hard) to remember when you're going through a personal crisis and don't want to ask for help. Because all these people who love you are just crazy to DO something, and there are some pretty big things a group of crazy women can accomplish when they share the work. (In the case of this quilt, it also helps when you have Queen Sherri to cut out all the pieces and a professional to do the quilting! But still, the principle stands.)