Winthrop part 2

Journal entry from Friday, December 27, 2019:
Whew, we are home sweet home in Sunnyside again. We had planned on spending two nights in Winthrop, but our Airbnb had such uncomfortable beds that we had a very patchy not-good night of sleep last night. Our full sized bed had a twin sized comforter on it, so every time one of us rolled over, the covers were yanked off of the other person. That combined with the horrific-ly uncomfy "mattress" made for very minimal sleeping. Lying in bed aching with lack of sleep and irritated pressure points this morning around 6am, Jeff and I held a nose-to-nose whispered conference wherein we decided to sled, eat lunch, and ice skate in Winthrop today, then drive home in the afternoon/evening. Then we executed that plan. It was a relief not having the dark, impatient prospect of another wild evening cooped up with the kids, followed by another restless painful night of non-sleep ahead of us. We were able to enjoy our day and head home at the end of it satisfied.

Winthrop part 1

A few years ago I came across the surprisingly nice website for a tiny town in north central Washington. The website boasted gorgeous scenery, winter sports, summer trails, a western-themed main street, and the possibility of viewing the Northern Lights. I kept my eye on that website and finally scheduled a visit the day after Christmas. So I booked us two nights in a "bungalow" on Airbnb and we packed our snow gear. Two journal entries tell the tale:

Thursday, December 26, 2019: Today we drove 4 hours north of Sunnyside to the tiny town of Winthrop, WA. We packed up and left home at 10am. The drive felt somewhat lengthy and not especially thrilling. In the car, we listened to Ramona on audiobook as well as some Christmas music, and arrived in Winthrop at 2pm.

Christmas

A touched-up-so-it-makes-sense Christmas journal entry:

Wednesday, December 25, 2019: Merry Christmas! Today was fun, although if I'm being honest, it wasn't glowy and perfect. Kids still disagreed and whined. Why do I expect that behavior to be held back on Christmas? Over-eager optimism? Hah. This morning the kids didn't come out of Jay's room on their own at all; I ended up going to get them once we were all ready at 6:45am! I thought for sure our lack of pre-designated wake-up time would ignite a 5:00am parade! I made them all use the bathroom before we started Christmas-ing. 

Rose couldn't remember what we usually do to signal them to run out to their stockings, and tried walking out to the family room while someone else was in the bathroom. I had to remind her that she had to wait and listen till we turned on Jingle Bells. Then she came running but Amber and Jay were still in his room lying in bed. Rose pulled a few things out of her stocking, then called back to Jay and Amber to come. It was so disjointed and slightly anticlimactic! But eventually we got down to business and had a grand time opening stockings and gifts. 

Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve

Two journal entries leading up to Christmas, interspersed with pictures:

Monday, December 23, 2019 (or, as the kids call it, Christmas Eve-Eve)
I ran 9 miles this morning. I don't know why, probably just because I could. It was nice not to be confined to the boring driveway loops. This afternoon after Jay and I went on a library date, Jeff and I ran errands together. We got tamales and salad for our Christmas food. Tonight Jeff dressed up as Santa Claus. It was hilarious as always. He had me dress up as Rudolph, and we all ran next door and saying we wish You a Merry Christmas to the Andersons. It was silly. I wrote this with voice to text on my phone because I'm too tired to try typing it.

Christmas Sunday

Merry Christmas Sunday! Going to church at Christmastime is my absolute favorite. I stand all amazed and joy to the world! We sang both of those hymns at church on the same Sunday, and it all goes together so well. Sunday morning we had to leave home by 7:50am to get to church for one last choir/ensemble rehearsal. It was rather intense getting everyone presentable and out the door on time. I gave Jay a much-needed, too-long-delayed haircut and Jeff bathed Amber. I did both girls' hair and helped squeeze Amber's still-damp legs into her tights (no easy feat! --pun intended). Somehow we all tumbled out the door and into the car, arriving in the church parking lot right in front of the choir director, right before 8am as planned.

Who knows what the kids did for the 45 minutes we rehearsed. Amber was missing when we finished, but Jeff hunted her down and we never found any major messes or damage in the church building. I was pretty nervous about playing violin in front of people for the first time since college (aka first time in 12 years), and spent a good amount of time giving myself mental pep talks and doing some controlled box breathing. In between my minor freak-outs, I managed to listen to the three wonderful speakers and choir music and wrangle Amber.

December Daily

Here's an everyday photo-and-journal album from last week, December 16-21. It was the final week before Christmas break, and everyone was ready for time off from the school routine by the end! Or, in Jay's case, he was ready for Christmas break at the beginning of the week! He laboriously counted down the days until school let out for Christmas on Friday.

Journal excerpts from the week, because why reinvent the wheel?

Monday, December 16, 2019. It was another sunless COLD gray day. The trees never lost their coating of fuzzy white frost today. I spent most of the morning working on Christmas cards with Amber. After dropping her off at preschool, I planned to mail a few packages and buy stamps at the post office, then go on a run. When I entered the post office, I became the fifteenth person in line! Right in front of me was a very kind, very loquacious, very rotund man. He chatted off and on about lots of topics and in spite of his kindness, I was feeling overwhelmed and not prepared to make small talk with a stranger for half an hour. I did not ask any follow-up questions, which inattention caused his conversation lulled a few times, giving me much needed breaks.

Two mountains

Journal clips from Wednesday, December 18th: I visited two beautiful, peaceful mountains in one day: the temple and Badger Mountain. Today was a study in contrasts, and the more I think about it, the more profound it seems: light vs. dark, sunshine vs. shadow, clear vs. fog, warm vs. cold, temple peace vs. Costco bustle.

Today was such a pleasant pocket tucked into the middle of a busy dark week. I dropped Amber off at a friend's house at 9am for our temple babysitting trade, and the next six hours were MINE, because our friends took Amber to preschool at 12:30 and I didn't have to be back to pick her up until 3pm. What a weekday treasure!

Whites in the dark

The sun is gone. In the past ten days, we have seen the sun once. The endless thick freezing fogs and/or heavy low gray clouds of winter have descended, effectively snuffing out the influence of the happy yellow sunshine. I am starting to feel like a fraud whenever I tell anyone that my address is in Sunnyside, WA.

We have to make our own light right now.

Or be a light.

Seek light.

Find light.

Light is vital!

I am thankful for our Christmas tree. It makes a difference on these short dark wintry days. Somehow life keeps going in the dark winter. Even when we'd all rather be hibernating, there are still school music programs to see, church activities to attend, puzzles to do, costumes to wear, pictures to draw, music to practice, books to read, laps to run, and projects to do. So we keep on clawing our way through this dark cold winter and capture little pinpricks of light wherever we can:

Long weekend

Right after the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, we had three days of school and then rolled into another long weekend, four days this time. The kids were out of school on Thursday and Friday (Dec. 5-6) for elementary school parent teacher conferences. Usually the first parent teacher conferences of the year are at the beginning of November, but for some reason they were delayed to the beginning of December this school year. It was strange having back-to-back long weekends. Our house had barely recovered from the last prolonged family-at-home-time when it was hit with another 96 hour bout! 

Amb-antics

What is it about Mondays that inspire moody blog posts? Dec 2nd was an exceptionally gray colorless Monday, with Sunday's snow only a quarter melted and refrozen underneath thick iron gray clouds. It was getting dark by 3pm under that gloomy sky. For my journal entry Monday night, I wrote a list of Amb-antics, or mischief Amber made that day:

Things Amber did today-- Monday, December 2, 2019

First snowfall

The snow must have followed us home from the mountains after we cut our Christmas tree on Saturday, because we woke up on Sunday morning to a white world outside. It was barely an inch, but that was enough to transform the gray-brownness outside to white.

This was technically our second snowfall, but the light dusting we had on Thanksgiving doesn't really count. I usually love the cozy feeling of the first snowfall of the winter, but on Sunday it felt bleak and cold and threatening. Jeff had to be at church early so I had to drive in the snow. Sunnyside doesn't plow its roads and my Tennessee-raised self has major winter weather driving anxiety. Jeff offered to come home and pick us up before church, but I didn't want to be too pathetic for this mere inch of snow, so I declined his offer and inched my way to church at 15-20 mph the whole drive. We made it!

Christmas tree time

To the mountains we go! Saturday, November 30th was Christmas tree time. This year our friends the Kannely family came along so we could show them the best tree-cutting spots. They followed us on the 70 minute drive to the national forest. It was fun to have friends with us to share the magic! The mountains near White Pass were loaded in thick puffy snow. We never know if we will find snow or not when we go to cut our Christmas tree, and this year there was well over 6 inches of snow carpeting the ground. As the white scenery flashed past our car windows, I began to regret putting off buying Jay and Rose snow boots this year. At least everyone's snow suits still fit, and I did get all three kids new coats. Thank goodness for the coats and snow pants, because it was COLD, with the temp in the 20's. I wore my new [frumpy] fleece-lined jeans and even though they aren't waterproof, they did their job and kept my legs warm.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving felt so late this year! We decided to start the feasting early, so I made our turkey on Monday (Nov. 25th), four days before Thanksgiving. It was weird doing all of the turkey prepping on my own while Jeff was at work. I realized when I unwrapped the bird that Jeff usually does the turkey, and I was very inexperienced! Google to the rescue. I managed to successfully spatchcock our turkey, just like Jeff did last year. Spatchcocking involves cutting out the backbone and splaying the turkey out wide on a cookie sheet so it cooks more quickly and evenly. Hacking through the bones with my biggest knife was almost too much for my sensibilities and I was seriously reconsidering my status as an omnivore by the time I had hacked that spine out of the raw turkey carcass. Amber helpfully stood on a stool and said "eeew! gross! YUCK!" on repeat the entire time I sawed at the bones. But the turkey cooked to juicy crisp perfection in a mere 90 minutes so it worked! All I did was spread some oil on the outside and pop it into the oven. Boom.

Ice skating!

Wednesday (Nov. 27th) was the first day off of school for Thanksgiving break. Sunnyside rewarded us with the biggest, wildest windstorm I've ever experienced. Winds reached a constant 35 mph and held that speed, with 45 mph gusts all day and all night. It was misery trying to get exercise out in that weather! I nearly got blown into the canal on my brief jog that morning!

To have fun inside on Wednesday, we went ice skating with the cousins. We had to drive 50 minutes in the wind to the Toyota Center ice rink in the tri cities, but we survived. It had been at least 13 years since Jeff and I last wore ice skates, and it was our kids' first time ice skating. It was a very strange situation to find myself re-learning how to ice skate while teaching my kids how to do it as well. They were all very wobbly and slippy at first, but all three made huge improvements during the hour we were at the rink, although they did not advance to skating unassisted during this first time ice skating.