The New Year

Our House in the Recent Snow

I can't believe it is 2009. I am really going to make this blog public today. It is my priority for 2009. I guess I will stop being shy about it. I can't promise it will be exciting, but that is not the point. The point is just to keep people up to date, especially since our move to Portland.

Halloween 2008

We had Thanksgiving Dinner at our house for my parents, grandparents, and aunt and uncle. Daniel made a delicious Turkey and scrumptious gravy and I made mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Everybody brought something and we had a nice dinner. And the bathroom was basically done! The contractor was at the house very late on the night before Thanksgiving finally finishing things up. The sad news is that on Christmas Eve, we noticed a water stain on the ceiling of our newly finished and painted bathroom ceiling. We had so much ice and snow for the week and a half before Christmas, that we think the ice caused some trapped water and therefore the leakage. Daniel was up early Christmas morning scraping ice off the roof. He does a lot of work around here.

Grandma at Thanksgiving (Back in the Kitchen of her Youth)

For Christmas, Daniel and I spent the morning by ourselves and my parents and brother, sister-in-law and niece drove down from Seattle for a Christmas dinner at our house. Again, Daniel made a nice variety of fish dishes and soup and my mom's gingerbread for dessert, which seems to have become a tradition around Christmas. My brother and his family, visiting from Ohio, stayed with us (in our newly completed guest room) for 4 days before returning to Seattle with my parents. Chloe, who will be 3 in Feb, kept our house lively. She is adorable and I don't think she stopped talking unless she was asleep. We had fun with family over the holidays, going to several family celebrations.

Here are some pictures of things around here.

Snowy View from Our Bedroom