December Visits

I didn't like the last blog post much, so I thought I'd do another one quick. But, as you can tell, my camera is on its last leg, so the photos from the last two weeks are equally weak. Freakness.

Anyway... one of the fun, though expensive, things about being surround by all this beautiful ocean is that we get to ride the ferries all the time. Last week Jonah, Elsie and I had to run some errands on the "mainland" and left the older kids at friends' houses and had a little "Elise date". We did a lot of driving, but it was a beautiful clear day and we even saw porpoises from the ferry! We have had almost constant bright sunny days for two and a half weeks, and although that makes it mighty cold (like 35 degrees), it sure is heartwarming to see the magestic mountains capped in snow. From our house, we can see the Olympics and Mount Baker and the other Cascades, and on our drive into town we can even see Mount Rainer!


We were SO lucky to have visitors again, this time Jonah's parents! They came on the three coldest days of the year, but we still had a fun time. We drove halfway up to Hurricane Ridge in the Olympics before we ran out of gas and had to come back down. Luckily we got this photo from one of the viewpoints. That's the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the San Juan Islands and Canada in the background.

Ana and I LOVE LOVE LOVE our Michelin Man coats.

We made it just in time for Christmas tea at the old schoolhouse up the road from us. Man, do we wish the kids could go to school at this one, but it has been out of commission for some decades. Now it is just used for community events... beauty, though, isn't it?!

Jonah's parents happily tolerated our crazy living situation and even held the bunny Pinkerton every time Ana plopped him in their laps. But, when the weekend was over, I think they were excited to finally be on their way to Seattle to give their speeches and enjoy their plush room at the Marriott...

I know we were really jumping the gun, but we put up our living Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving just to brighten up the "scary" house for all of our visitors. I'm glad we did though because it really made the home more cozy. I'll be sad to have to go plant it outside in a couple weeks. Maybe we'll keep it up until New Year's...
The ONLY Christmas decorations that we brought with us from storage in Utah were our ornaments, so the tree got some ribbon garland and the kids have been cutting out snowflakes to dress it up around here... Eli would be appalled at our haphazard decorating, but it gets the job done, and all you really need is some good Christmas music anyway.

OH! And the only other thing we brought were all our Christmas cards that we save every year and it is so fun to look back at how all of our friends' families have grown over the years. Man, sometimes it makes me wish I did Christmas cards instead of Halloween cards... but if I planned on doing Christmas cards, they would probably end up being President's Day cards by the time I sent them out. So, good work all you diligent Christmas Card senders... I live in awe of you.

Merry Christmas!