Where the White Things Are: 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!

We considered "doing something" on the long weekend, but didn't made up our minds or figured it out in time so we stayed home. Jeff and I did make it to the temple one day, which was extra nice since it was only the second time we've gone together this entire year. The weather was rather gloomy and wet all weekend, with a brief hour of sunlight on Thursday afternoon (Dec 5th). I remember it specifically because the sun has not climbed through the low thick clouds since (seven days and counting). I'm beginning to feel like an impostor every time I write Sunnyside, WA as our address. It's really only Sunnyside from March to early November. It's more like Gloomyside from mid November through February!

Journal entry from Saturday, December 7th:

Today was quiet and homey. Nothing too interesting beyond the FOG that hung low for the first half of the day, slowly rising to reveal the dead brown-gray landscape. The kids had fun building cardboard brick towers around each other and then bursting out of the towers, knocking the bricks down and sending them flying around the room. One of our most unlikely but also beloved family Christmas traditions is to bring the cardboard bricks into the family room and build with them often. I took some slow-mo videos of them breaking free of their brick towers today.

This evening we had leftovers for dinner at 5pm and left at 5:30 for the 31st Annual Lighted Farm Implements Parade. It was a rainy wet night. We did not go to the actual parade; we went to the parade lineup street as usual and did our traditional out and back walk down the line of lit vehicles. This year it was exceptionally well done and there were some rather spectacularly decorated and lit vehicles. My favorites were the darling Darigold cows with Santa hats, the Peanuts Christmas flatbed, and the giant combine (?) farm vehicle coated in glittery lights. There were quite a few new and improved entries this year--the past few years have been somewhat similar, but this year it was fresh and fun again.

This was our seventh consecutive year going to this parade. Before Amber was born, we used to go to the actual parade. But then we had to get creative. It would be too much to ask Amber to sit on a cold curbside and WAIT endlessly for slow-moving vehicles to roll past. Tonight Amber kept running far ahead, skipping and scampering like the wild sprite she is. It was dark and cars were driving up and down the parade line. There were lots of people around and too many places Amber could hide or get squashed. It was a tad stressful and we power walked on our way back up the parade line towards our car to catch up with her, not enjoying every display as much as I wanted to on the return journey thanks to Amber's escape tactics. Every time she saw us speed up, she ran faster. We split up and caught her in the end.

[end journal entry]

Here is an album of everyday dark winter pictures from our long weekend:

Temple selfie!

We had lunch after the temple and I was too full to go on a run that afternoon, so I went on a lovely 3.5 mile walk wherein the sun peeked out and gave me a welcome dose of vitamin D.

Sunlight makes such a difference! The canal was still frozen, but Jay and Ian made good use of the lingering ice.

The buddies, Jay and Ian. I love them.

Amber found our old baby basket and we all admired how HUGE she has grown since the last time she used it.

April 2016.

Our snowman lost his head to the guillotine of rising temperatures.

I made gingerbread and the color and smooth runny texture of the batter before I added the flour was strongly reminiscent of various newborn baby diaper blowouts I have handled. Even Jeff cracked up when I showed him the sloppy orange-ish brown goop. We joked that I was making baby poo pie.

Then I added the flour to the gingerbread and suddenly it morphed into "port-a-potty pie" and if the brown sticky stuff hadn't smelled strongly of ginger orange zest heaven, I would have trashed the whole batch. It was simply too accurate.

Rose was deterred by neither off-putting colors nor textures, and happily licked the gingerbread spoon.

My friend Ashleigh starred in a community theater production of Holiday Inn, so I took my mother in law and sister in law to see the show on Friday night (Dec 6th). It was so fun to see my good friend-in-a-wig singing and tap dancing on stage! Theater fascinates me because it is so far outside anything I would ever choose to do. It was a fun, toe-tapping show!

MEH, WEATHER!

Brick building extravaganza! These two sisters alternately cooperated cutely and screeched/fought over who got the most bricks.

Building Jay into a brick tower.

Making snowball cookies in my festive vest.

Amber and Rose love helping in the kitchen. I breathed deeply and let them help, even though I detest rolling endless cookies and the little helping hands made the ordeal last much longer than it would have if I had done it on my own.

PARADE WALK!

I wish I had gotten a picture of the blow-up porta-potty with Santa peeking out of it on the Cliff's Septic Company truck display. It was hilarious! Santa peeked in and out of the brown outhouse as air moved in and out of his blow-up body.

Feeling the magic, not the in-focus pictures.

Amber switched my camera setting to take 16x9 pictures instead of the usual dimensions, so all of these parade pictures are extra long and skinny. I didn't catch on to her skulduggery until a few days later.