Clam Digging

So, we got back from the Nutcracker and the very next morning we took off for the beach. Rach was recovered, no one else was sick (confirming the food poisoning suspicion), and along with all the kids, Royal and my dad, we hit the road. Royal's family has a cabin at Long Beach which isn't the closest place for us to get to the beach, but we had a nice cozy place to sleep and yummy food to eat. The clam tide was at 6:00pm so that meant digging in the dark.
I'll be honest, I was REALLY dreading this trip. It was 2 days before Christmas Eve and the beach in winter with 6 kids sounds like a nightmare. Usually cold, rainy and miserable.
Well we lucked out!! It was warm, clear and windless. It could not have been better!

We all dug our limits which resulted in the guys cleaning and processing about 195 clams. Not the part of the experience that I stick around for. We all went to bed and headed back towards home the next morning. We had our clam fry celebration a couple days after Christmas. SO worth it!

 

yummy!

Nutcracker

Yay! Rachel and Royal and Jayden and Willow came to spend Christmas with us this year. We had the room in our house so everyone stayed with us. SOOO fun!
Months ago we decided to all go to the Nutcracker in Seattle put on by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. We have been going to this performance since I was about 12...so about 25 years! For the past 31 the PNB has done a specific version of the Nutcracker complete with Maurice Sendak sets. This was the last year so we made an effort to try and get everyone there for this last special season. Rach and fam flew in Saturday evening and got to our house around bed time. The Nutcracker was the next day at 1:00pm. Sadly, Rachel got food poisoning and spent the entire night throwing up and was unable to go with us. It was heart wrenching to leave her behind all by herself at my house to recover. :(

The Nutcracker was as awesome as it always is and we had fun taking all the kids to Seattle and out to dinner at the Cheesecake factory.

 

This was in the driveway...

 

This was 15 minutes later....

Christmas Tree Hunting

Thanksgiving was late this year and I had every intention of getting the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. :( The day after Thanksgiving (which is traditional for us) didn't work out either. So we went the next day. Which ended up being for the better....big time. It POURED Thanksgiving and the next day and was beautiful the day after. So much more fun in the chilly, sunny air! We measured our spot in the house before we left (we're smart like that) and found the perfect tree right away!

 

We picked up our Christmas wreath too!

 

We've enjoyed doing all our winter activities by Christmas tree light.

Reading our Jesse Tree nightly Christmas devotional

 

Game night

 

Cocoa drinking

 

Christmas puzzle. Last piece never appeared

 

We had fun helping Nana with her tree, too.

Thanksgiving

Let's get Thanksgiving posted before Christmas, shall we?


Thanksgiving was laid back this year. We had Grandpa Mike with us the week before and my mom went to Kansas to spend the holiday with Rachel and fam. Jordan didn't get any time off from work so Joanna went to Portland to spend Thanksgiving with him. That just left us and my dad at our house. The kids were bummed it was going to be a small gathering so we did our best to make it special. We dressed up and decorated the table and made a traditional Thanksgiving dinner complete with sparkling cider. As per our tradition for a couple years, the kids and Rand played football in the yard while I cooked. And it. Was. Pouring this year!

 

She asked me to straighten her hair so that is was longer. :)