December 2008

After recovering from our Thanksgiving stomach flu, it was time to get full swing into the holidays.

The month started out normal enough. We went to North Bend with the Neels again to pick out our trees. Becky took the kids to Alderwood to get their pictures with Santa. She's convinced that Alderwood's Santa is the best one in the area though you can see from the picture that Blake didn't agree (those fancy outfits they wore were made by Grandma Jan). Kyla finally got to tell the big man that should wanted to get a Barbie Diamond Castle, which she'd been pining for for quite some time.

Then a week before Christmas, the snow fell. School was canceled and for the most part we had to stay home. On the plus side we had a blast playing in the snow and sledding down the hill, at least until one of our cranky neighbors complained to the city to keep the road sanded.

Fortunately we were still able to keep most of our Christmas schedule. On Christmas Eve we were at the Chambers'. The next morning the kids got to open their gifts from Santa (who delivered on the castle) and later Linda, Casey, Jody, and Jen came to our place for breakfast. That night we went to Dot's to
celebrate with the Pritchards. Next we spent a couple of days in Ellensburg where the kids were excited to see deer come visit and Becky was able to sneak away to do some skiing with Cassie and Brian. Finally we had dinner at the Hovenkotters' with the Bouchees.

On Becky's birthday she went to see the Nutcracker ballet with Linda and Kyla. On New Years Eve I took the kids back to the Chambers' to play and do some fireworks while Doug took Becky to the mall to do a little birthday shopping (and Christmas returns).

Overall I would say that the holidays went pretty well, however there were a lot of forces working against us. I had a big deployment that ended up happening on December 22nd, so I had to put in a lot of hours leading up to my vacation. The kids really enjoyed all of the gifts and spending time with friends and family, but doing so much within such a short period was pretty overwhelming and resulted in some crankiness and late bedtimes. Then of course there was the snow that overstayed it's welcome thanks to cold temperatures and kept us at home more than we would have liked.

It's fair to say that 2008 was a pretty good year for our family, though it had some ups and downs. The dismal economy hasn't had much of a direct impact on us (yet) as I have remained employed, we don't intend to sell our house any time soon, and I refuse to look at my 401k statements. Hopefully 2009 will be better still.