Christmas in Salt Lake City

We somehow didn’t fit many Christmas outings into our schedules while we were still in Seattle, but here are some photographs from our trip to Utah for Christmas.

Here is Susanna as the donkey in the Hale family nativity:

On the right is Susanna on Scott’s shoulders seeing the lights at temple square with some of the Hales:

Sledding at Bonneville golf course:

Anderson family annual karaoke (and new pajamas) night:  

Getting ready to open a gift on Christmas morning (look! Susanna and her gift match):

At the temple with the Andersons when Sarah received her endowment (in preparation for her mission):

Frosty the Snowman

Yesterday all the meteorologists predicted two large snowstorms in Seattle—one of which would dump a minimum of two inches.  The Seattle and Seattle area schools therefore all closed for the day.  It was a good idea, I suppose, because any snow in Seattle is a big deal, but the problem is that it never actually snowed yesterday.  But the storm finally came early this morning (maybe even starting late last night) and has been snowing basically the whole day.

Susanna has talked about Frosty the Snowman a lot this year and she was therefore very excited to go make one of her own.  Here are a few photos.

Annual Cookies and Scrooge Night

Last year I made Christmas cookies for the first time (here's a link to that post, in case you’re interested).  It was so much fun, I’ve decided that we should do it every year!  I’m sorry to say that, for this year at least, I’m not continuing the “guess the cookie shape” part of the tradition.  I couldn’t think of what else to do besides another nativity (I did think about doing Washington Crossing the Delaware, but after hand cutting a lot of gingerbread men I started to wane in creativity and focused on getting the cookies done).  I did do a few non-traditional gingerbread men, including the yoga cookie, pictured above, and a reclining Venus.

Susanna was much more involved this year than last, which was fun.  This involvement included licking about 1/4 to 1/3 of the cookies I intended to give to our neighbors.  Some of our plates look pretty skimpy because of the resulting shortage of cookies, but we both had fun and she had a lot of chocolate chips, so in the end things went really well.  And we probably have more plates of cookies than we’ll get to delivering anyway (sorry neighbor, if you don’t get one, it’s probably getting stale on my kitchen counter).

Is it bad that, when my daughter was sucking on a knife, instead of taking the knife away, I ran for the camera?

O, Tannebaum

Here’s a photograph of our annual cut-down-the-Christmas-tree-event.  We found a beautiful Norway Spruce for a pretty good price, but I think it’s because our tree is part cactus (are all Norway Spruce trees like that?).  Susanna wasn’t sure about the drive to the farm, and she was too cold to have fun at first, but she certainly warmed up to the idea after a couple of minutes.  On the way home she suddenly shouted “Yeah Dad!  Yeah for cutting down the Christmas tree!”

Susanna braved the “spikey branches” as you can see below, to help decorate the tree.  She also mentions it in every prayer, and if either of us say the word “Christmas” in a prayer, she’ll discreetly point to it and whisper “Christmas tree, right there.”

Milton L. Weilenmann

My grandfather, Milt Weilenmann, passed away November 21, 2008.  He slipped peacefully away after living a long full life so his death was not a terrible tragedy.  But his absence from our lives is still sad, and his death represents the end of an era for my mom (he is her father).  My parents made is possible for us to fly to Salt Lake City for the services.  I am so glad we were able to do that, it was a nice time to remember what a wonderful man he is, and it was a spiritual experience for me as well.  As they made the final preparations before closing the casket I was suddenly stuck by the realization that what they were preparing him for was that great reunion with his Savior and Heavenly Father.

Here is something George Bernard Shaw wrote that he loved to quote:

“This is the joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.  Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.  I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I love.  I rejoice in life for its own sake.  Life is no brief candle to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

And here is his obituary as well as an article from Salt Lake Tribune and an article from Deseret News about his life and passing.

Because of the timing of his passing (his funeral was the day before Thanksgiving), Scott, Susanna, and I were able to spend the holiday with family, a rare treat we had not indulged since we moved to Seattle four and a half years ago.

Boundin’

Poor Susanna has been sick for what seems like forever, and I haven’t felt very well either (hopefully we won’t be sick all winter, like we were last year).  I’ve  posted a screen shot from Boundin’, a five minute film Pixar stuck at the beginning of The Incredibles, because we have been watching it a lot this week.  When I saw that our neighbors had it, I had to borrow it because I thought this sweet little film was just the thing to get us through the lazy days of illness.  Susanna loves it, as do I—I’ve loved it from the time I first saw it at the beginning of Incredibles four years ago.

The other reason this little film gets its own blog post is because a friend asked me about Susanna’s haircut.  Susanna actually first saw this film maybe a month ago when I wanted to give her a little trim because her hair was getting very uneven.  Well, it turns out that Susanna’s hair is more difficult to cut than my husband’s so she had to watch Boundin’ many, many times and I just kept cutting and cutting.  In the end I think it looks okay, but there was a period in the middle there when I was pretty worried.

We voted

Did you?

Happy Halloween!

Here are our costumes.  In case you can’t tell, we are characters from Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat.  Susanna, obviously, is the cat and Scott and I are Thing 1 and Thing 2.  We taught Susanna how to hold up a cup and some milk and a cake, to hold up three books and a fish on a rake.  But we had a hard time getting her tail to hold a red fan—let alone to fan with the fan. (All the while, of course, she was hopping on the ball).  Honestly, though all that might have helped people guess Susanna’s costume: she never kept her hat on very long and the hat without the hat is, well, just a cat.

 

Look closely at the photograph on the above left and you’ll see that Susanna is holding her tail.  She wanted to be just like the Cat in the Hat (even though she would not put her bow-tie on).

Below Susanna is helping me make a pumpkin pie (she actually did very little except “snitch” some of the pie crust, but the apron is cute so you get some pictures anyway).  I thought it would be a fun thing to do on Halloween, but it turns out that the last thing people want to eat after a full day of candy is a slice of pumpkin pie.  I had one anyway.

And this last photograph is Susanna with her three cute cousins who live less than thirty minutes away, and with whom we spend basically all day on Halloween.  Thanks, guys, for letting us tag-along all day.

Distant Apple Orchards

Susanna and I visited an apple orchard just outside Sedro Woolley—a small town on the North Cascades Highway that is about an hour and a half away.  Well, we actually visited two.  After driving the long hour and a half, I helped a frustrated and fidgety Susanna out of her car seat, got her boots and jacket on, made sure I had everything I needed (wipes, our water bottles, a snack, etc), and then headed out to pick apples.  It turns out that the only part of orchard #1 that was open to the public was the store, so after all that hullaballoo (including the long drive) we simply bought a large box of jonagolds and found ourselves done with our outing.  What I am trying to say is that It was a bit anticlimactic.

Luckily, this is not where the story ends.  The nice lady who sold us the apples told me about a farm down the road that had a u-pick orchard so we drove the extra five miles for the farm experience.  It was a beautiful day and, except for the eerie music and witch cackles that occasionally wafted over from the haunted greenhouse, we felt like we had the farm to ourselves.  The lady at this farm was also very nice and she encouraged us to wander as much and as long as we liked and to eat as many apples as we could.  So we munched and wandered and picked a few apples.  It worked out just fine to go to both orchards: the apples at the first were less than half the price of those at the second, and having already gotten our tons of apples, we could roam around the second orchard without the pressure of having to do anything.

Here are some photographs.

        

       

Celebrating Six at Interrorem Cabin

To celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary, Scott and I spent a couple of nights in the Hood Canal.  It was a very fun place.  The locals were very nice (one offered to teach us shuffleboard sometime and another invited us to her husbands 80s themed birthday party at the Eagle Creek Saloon), the scenery was beautiful, and the fishing villages had a down-home, unpretentious feel that was refreshing and relaxing.

We rented a hundred-year-old forest service cabin, Interrorem Cabin.  Here are some photographs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s a photogenic little water pump outside our cabin.

 

 

 

 

If you look closely in this one, you can see Scott in the window cooking up some breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This  pretty spot is just up the road from the cabin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cabin is right by the Duckabush River, and a short hike brought us to Ranger Hole.  Here are some photographs of the beautiful hike.

              

At the end of the hike was Ranger Hole—a place the ranger fished and bathed.  It was a bit cold for bathing when we went, but Scott did try his hand at fishing.  To the right, he’s looking for some fish.  We found a school of huge chums in the beautiful blue-green hole below him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also drove down highway 101 to see the rest of Hood Canal.  Here are a couple of photographs we took at Hamma Hamma Seafood Company where we bought some very yummy ice cream (but no seafood).

It was a fabulous trip.  It was wonderful for Scott and I to get a chance to spend some quality time together (many many thanks to the Christensens for taking care of Susanna while we were away) and celebrate our lives together.