A Holiday in Pictures

Let's start with the best quotes of the season.

Nathan, after opening his first gift from Santa: "SWEEEET!!  What's in here?"

Evan, after shaking a wrapped gift that was tagged for Nathan:  "Grandma, these are Legos, but it says it's for Nathan.  Are you sure you didn't get the tags mixed up?"

 

Everyone was excited about Nathan's new scooter, but no one was as pleased as Evan, who will no longer have to fight to ride his own scooter.

Reading the book that I made for Dad.

 

First game of catch with the new mitt.

Trying out the new scooter.



 

Annual walk downtown to enjoy the lights at the park and on the pier. 

The Great Scooter Show.  These kids did all kinds of jumps and tricks.

Not pictured:

Legos, Legos, and more Legos.

Nathan stripping down to change into his new pajamas immediately after opening them, and staying in them all day.

Cut-throat games of Old Maid.

Nathan's enthusiastic exclamations of "Sweet!", "This is just what I wanted!", and "Awesome!" when opening every gift.

Grandpa's second annual Christmas morning outfit.

Dad building us an airport for our fighter jets in between Christmas celebrations.
Building a huge fort on the beach.

Did I say Legos?

I lost  my first tooth yesterday!  It's a pretty good story.  Nathan and I were wrestling and Nathan kicked me in the mouth and out popped my tooth!  Actually, in popped my tooth, and I accidently swallowed it!  We learned that the tooth fairy does not need evidence.  She left me a silver dollar despite not getting my tooth in return. 

All of the tooth wiggling during the past couple weeks sure made Mom think a lot about Great Grandpa Bob, who was fairly diabolical in his encouragement and ideas to "help" his grandchildren lose their loose teeth.  Although, she told stories of pliers and slamming doors and dancing with dolls on my head, she didn't have the gleam in her eye that he did, so I didn't fear that she would actually go through with any of it. 

 

"All the animals came to see Jesus, and now they are snuggling!"

Charlotte's Web

We got to watch our first movie today.  Evan has been looking forward to this since reading the book this summer.  Actually, Mom only let us watch the first 20 minutes, but it was a good start!

What a terrific day!  First, we spent the morning celebrating Holden and Karen returning to their Washington roots.  We are so, so, so happy that they are now living just down the road!  Mom said this is the best thing that's happened since Miss Dani moved back to Washington.  What a great reason to get together with these wonderful friends.  We expect to be doing this more often!

 

Thank you for hosting us, Dani!  What a fun crew!

 

Lots of soccer players here.

Later, we went to our friend Miss Jamie's house to celebrate Elsa's birthday.  Aunt Katy and Miss Jamie were college roommates for three years (one of them as housemates with Mom, too).  We had lots of fun playing with Elsa and Lauren and Micah.

Reindeer Dash

We ran a 2K (about 1 1/4 miles) race this morning.  The temperature was 25 degrees.  Brrrr!  But that didn't slow us down!

A reindeer led the race and Santa pulled up the rear.  Evan got 5th overall.  He ran with his friend Sophie (next to him in the picture below), and Mom saw him stop a couple times to let her catch up.  What a good sport!  Nathan wowed everyone with his jackrabbit speed in between short bouts of rest.  We're still working on pacing.  Both boys had fun, and there were no complaints about the cold.  Evan thinks he's ready for a few more Ks.

Mom took us on a date to a Christmas program followed by dinner.  I'm sure you wouldn't guess that Nathan was so tired that he fell asleep on the way home and didn't even wake when Mom changed him into his pjs and put him in bed.

So Thankful

We have too many blessings to count.  One day just isn't enough to celebrate all we are thankful for.

 

We started our Thanksgiving with a visit with Great Grandma.  She was thrilled to see the boys and our visit definitely brightened her Thanksgiving day.

We ended our Thanksgiving day with a stop at one of our favorite spots.  We played until it was too dark to see the rocks we were throwing in the water.

This view is something to be thankful for.

Practicing my rock climbing skills.  I wanted to take this picture for Grandma.

Beautiful sunset.

We spent the next morning hiking on trails where we could see both sides of the island from one spot.  Hard to know what direction to look!  

We had fun running as fast as we could past the camera to see if Mom could catch us in action.

 Uncle Joe got the pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner, which was pretty fantastic.  Elsa and I made a driftwood fort.

 And we pogosticked, biked, and scootered into the night!  Fun weekend!

Boots...check. Gloves...check. Hats...check. Snowpants...darn!

Mom is a little late posting pictures from our three-day weekend.  We intended to snowshoe at Mt. Rainier, but realized that we forgot the boys' snowpants when we were halfway up the mountain.  Luckily, we were about 1/4 mile from the trailhead of a trail that we love and haven't hiked in a few years. 

 

Since there was a lot of climbing involved, we made it up to snow!  Lots of it!  We had snowball fights and were sure glad Mom and Dad didn't forget our boots!

We spent our day off at the zoo.  It was perfect weather for all of the animals to be out, including these two monkeys!

Happy Veteran's Day to our favorite veteran.  This picture is of Daddy about a year after returning home from his first deployment; one where he and his friends went without showers or hot meals or beds (slept in their vehicles) for several weeks at a time.  We are proud of you!

 

And we are proud of our family members who served and who continue to serve in the Armed Services: Bob Waldburger, James Perry, Alfred DiPetrillo, Al DiPetrillo, Bill Roberts, Ted Roberts, Dick Roberts, Don Roberts, Joseph Beaudreau, Rich Bennett, and Jon Bennett.

Happy Halloween from our knight and his dragon!

The Adventures of Pete

Half-day kindergarteners had the week off of school while everyone else had half days this week, and thanks to recent inaction in congress, Dad didn't have to travel to San Antonio for work this week, so we made the most of it and took a vacation!  This was probably our last shoulder-season vacation until 2028.  We enjoyed the beautiful fall colors and lack of crowds.  We had a fifth addition to our family this week.  Pete the Cat joined us from Evan's kindergarten class.  He seemed to be in the middle of our wildest adventures!

 

We logged over 700 miles on our 4-day trip.  That does include an unexpected 100-mile 2:00 AM trip to the ER where two of our four family members were treated.  (Pete came along for the ride, but Mom didn't let him come into the hospital for fear of germs.)

 

First stop--hiking in the North Cascades National Park.

Pete and me at Gorge Falls.

 Second stop--another hike.  This time at beautiful Thunder Knob.  He's hard to see, but Pete is riding in my backpack.

At the top of Thunder Knob we had a beautiful view of Diablo Lake.

Next stop--Diablo Lake lookout.

We stayed just outside of Winthrop, where there are miles and miles of hiking and biking trails.  Here we are taking a break from our trail ride to take in the views of Patterson Lake.

Lovely Patterson Lake.

The fall colors were quite spectacular everywhere we went.

Dad brought his road bike in and went on what he described as the third prettiest ride he's ever been on.  Look at the colors at the end!

The boys loved the game room at our lodge.  And so did Pete!

Another beautiful trail ride.

And a trail run.



 We enjoyed the leaves on the trees and the leaves on the ground at Pearrygin Lake. 

Brother love.

 

Pete helped us bury Dad in leaves.

 Leaf fight!

 

The sun was in the wrong place for our family picture on our last morning.  The view of the mountains behind us stretched well into the Cascades, but you'll have to take our word for it.

 

Had to stop to enjoy the view we love the most on our way home.  This is about where our living room windows will be.  Bad lighting for the mountains again.  But there is no end to the view of the Enchantments when you are here in person.  For now, we'll just vacation and dream.