Merry Christmas

It's been a magical Christmas and, of course, we are thinking of you, so we're publishing a special Christmas edition of our blog. This year we put the kids in charge of the Nativity story on Christmas Eve and they looked so cute dressed up in their costumes. Gibson was not interested in participating, so Becky picked him up after Brandan took this photo. We all sleep together in front of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, a tradition we all look forward to. The kids love making a cozy bed and talking and reading together late into the night and so far, we've never woken up before 7am on Christmas morning.


This is Helen on Christmas morning, but you can't see her because her eyes are covered up.


We've eaten lots of wonderful food the past two days. Here is Gibson with chocolate chip pancake on his face. Our refrigerator and freezer are full of delicious leftovers.


Brandan built the kids a climbing wall for Christmas. It's built on an 8-foot by 3-foot piece of birch plywood with holes drilled in a 6-inch grid across the board. The holes have t-nuts in them which the climbing holds bolt to, so the holds can be moved around. Brandan put the wall all together earlier so it only took about 15 minutes to bolt to the wall after opening presents. The kids love it! It takes Sophie less than 10 seconds to climb to the top and down again.

The kids played on the climbing wall all day. Our home is probably the only home with a climbing wall that matches the cabinetry. Leave it to Brandan to make an attractive climbing wall. Abe is only a few seconds slower than Sophie when climbing.

Helen needs a boost up to the bottom hold, but by the end of the day, she could climb to the top, too. Brandan and Becky have climbed the wall, too, but it's pretty tame for adults. Brandan will just have to add more panels.

Our friends, Pam and Greg, invited us for Christmas dinner along with other friends. In the photo are Pam, Helen, Brandan, June and John. June and John live in the gorgeous white Victorian house at the edge of our neighborhood. Not in the photo and at dinner were Greg, a vice president at a local hospital; Tracy; Tracy's teenage daughters, Susannah and Alden; and her exchange student from Kyrgyzstan, Asel. Tracy's husband Virgil is a pilot and was working on Christmas. It was a wonderful afternoon/evening. We ate and talked for about 5 hours while the kids played hide and seek in Pam's closets with Abe's walkie-talkies. Pam is a talented quilter and showed us some of the projects she is working on. Greg likes to turn wood on a lathe into bowls and we saw some of his work in mahogany, myrtle and paduk.

We walked home from dinner while it snowed lightly. Snow is pretty rare on the valley floor where we live and especially rare on Christmas. The kids talked Brandan into lighting a fire in the fire bowl Becky made (with help) for Brandan for Christmas. Roasting marshmallows in the backyard while it snowed was a wonderful end to a wonderful day.