Where the White Things Are: Visitors and an invasion

We had visitors after Christmas! Mel, Braxton, 2 year old Dahlia, and Pancha the dog came from their home in Seattle and stayed from Saturday-Monday. My parents came at the same time and stayed till Wednesday. It was so special and fun having my family here! I love them.

Petting Pancha

Journal excerpts:

Saturday, December 27th: We cleaned the church this morning. Not my favorite way to start the day. I spent the whole 80 minutes working on the bathrooms. Ick. I had to fix two toilets before I even cleaned them because they wouldn't flush!

After cleaning the church, we went straight over to the track for a brief cold time trial at 10am. We ran a 1k (1 kilometer) time trial. We wore our new silly patterned running shorts and tank tops from Christmas, even though it was only 34 degrees. 1 kilometer is only 2.5 laps, so I survived the cold... barely! I passed Rose and beat her by 6 seconds. (How many more times will I be able to do that? Not many, I'm guessing) Jay dominated and beat Jeff by at least 15 seconds. A handful of swim and track kids ran too, with Coach Winger timing on the sidelines. Everyone was too cold afterwards to stand around taking a picture in our fun shorts, so I do not have a picture, sadly.

This afternoon, Mom and Dad came to visit! And Mel, Braxton, 2-year-old Dahlia, and Pancha the fuzzy dog! Mom and Dad are staying in a hotel, and Mel and Braxton are staying in Jay's room. It's so fun having my dear family members visit in my house. We got tacos for dinner from our favorite taco truck, El Pelón II, and talked and talked. Now it's 10:30pm. Jeff is giving a talk in church tomorrow!

Sunday, December 28th: Mel and I had a pleasant slow Sunday morning before 10am church this morning. It felt lovely to just be together and talk and do little getting-ready-for-church things. We did our daughters' hair together. Amber and Dahlia sat on a bench together while Mel and I did their hair. Then Rose sat down and I did her hair. French braid central! Mel did French braids in her own hair too, although Dahlia's hair isn't quite ready for braids yet so she got ponytails. Later this afternoon, Rose did a French braid in my hair.

Church was good. Jeff gave a talk in sacrament meeting. He did not sleep much or very well last night so he was an exhausted zombie this morning, but he managed to pull it together for sacrament meeting and gave his talk. He went home after sacrament meeting and took a very long nap, poor guy.

I am sorry that Jeff didn't feel well today, but I have to admit, it was lovely having my parents and sister to fill the void and distract me from Jeff's gloom. We watched Dahlia be cute. Amber played so well with Dahlia, and Dahlia totally loved "Am-er." She started out calling Amber "anger", but quickly progressed to Am-er. I did a lot of talking with my parents. Mom, Mel, and I made a very good batch of chicken chowder for dinner, with toasted baguette and individual pear pomegranate pecan salads. Yum! It was fancier and better than I expected it to be, even though we ate out of paper bowls.

Mom and I played piano duets for a while this afternoon, and I loved it. We had fun playing the Handel's Passacaglia that we learned this summer, a new Joy to the World duet, and part of a tricky Ukrainian Bell Carol.

THE INVASION:

After dinner, us girls were talking in the kitchen when a tiny spider glided down and hung from Mom's glasses on a thread. When we looked up, we saw that the ceiling-meets-wall border of our entire main floor had little black spider specks all lined up. The spiders were EVERYWHERE. We went on a spider purging rampage. We swept down dozens of spiders from all around the border of the main floor. Mom moved our tall kitchen stools around while I stood on them, stepping from stool to stool as she moved them and sweeping down spider after spider. YUCK.

From there, we decided to go to the source and completely un-decorate the Christmas tree and remove it from the house. It has always had a few spider webs on it, but suddenly they were EVERYWHERE and horrifying. There must have been a hatching or something. Eeeek! The great Christmas tree spider infestation of 2025 was gross. Spider-mageddon! Somehow, in a mere half hour, we had completely removed all ornaments and lights from the massive tree. Dad, Jeff, and Braxton helped us shove the tree outside. Whew! Good riddance! Mom and I swept up the pine needles and Rose shop vac'd the rest of them. Then Mel and I shop vacuumed the remaining spiders up by the ceiling. So many tiny spiders! Gag! We put the shop vac outside to freeze any lingering life out of the vacuumed spiders.

It was so nice of our guests to help do all of that awful creepy crawly work! Our house has a gaping hole where the Christmas tree was. The couch is still moved aside. The ornaments are all on the kitchen table.

We still get 2 more days with our visitors!

I brought a thermometer into my bedroom to see how cold it is in here after keeping the door closed against a cute inquisitive 2 year old all day. It is 53 degrees in my bedroom! Do I need to go get a mummy sleeping bag? I put our heating pad under the covers to warm them up. Hopefully it helps.

Monday, December 29th: It was cold today! Not cold enough to freeze the canal hard enough to ice skate, but way colder than it has been all month! This morning Mel and I worked out in the barn while Dahlia wandered around. Then we talked and hung out with Mom. Mom brought one of her "$50 eBay violins" that she got years ago, and gave it to Amber! It is not high quality, but it's an instrument for Amber to learn on! I put on a new E string and then laboriously tuned it, with the help of Mom's and Mel's ears. (This violin only has one fine tuner, so it was especially challenging to tune with just the creaky pegs, haha.) Amber tested it out a few times today. She wants to dance like Lindsey Sterling while playing the violin.

We got El Pelon tacos for lunch. Yum. It's always fun to see how much visitors enjoy Sunnyside tacos, especially Braxton.

Once Mel and Braxton went home this afternoon, Mom and I made a list went to Safeway for a few groceries. Then we rolled right into dinner prep: peanut noodles with sesame sauteed cabbage and carrots. It was a very good dinner. I love grocery shopping and cooking with my Mom. It's way more fun that doing it on my own.

After dinner, Rose and I played a cello piano duet with great difficulty. Mom called Grama and Grampa Gwynn and Mom and I played our piano duet for them. It was sweet to see Grama and Grampa on video call! They are so cute. They've been married for 68 years and still wear matching shirts (they were in matching sweatshirts during our phone call. They showed us their Christmas tree and clapped for our duet performance of Handel's Passacaglia.

Mom and I watched part of a Korean show till after 10pm, and then I drove her back to the hotel. (Dad left at 9pm. because he has sense and goes to bed at a decent hour, haha.) I love my parents.

Jeff has been having a hard time with his autonomic system for the past few days. He is so tired.

Tuesday, December 30th: Today was the last day of Mom and Dad's visit. I miss them already! I have the best parents and I love them so much. They are leaving from their hotel for the airport tomorrow morning.

Mom and I did kitchen stuff and watched some more of our cute Korean show. Mom and I played Gesu Bambino as a piano violin duet. It was fun, even though my violin skills are a bit creaky and rusty. We also played two piano duets together. It's so fun playing music with my Mom!

We ate dinner all together at the table: sausage white beans with cornbread muffins. Everyone liked the food, which always feels good as the person who cooked it. Sitting at the dinner table tonight was one of those powerfully simple sweet crystallized family moments. All we did was eat dinner and talk about random stuff, but we all laughed and joked together and it filled my soul. After dinner we had family prayer together. Dad said a loving heartfelt prayer that filled my soul even more. Group hug time afterwards! I love my family.

Mom, Rose, and I sat on the couch together watching random YouTube clips (Secretariat's triple crown horse races, a famous race from the movie Chariots of Fire, etc.). Then Mom and I finished our Korean show by 11pm, and I drove her back to the hotel. (Dad left after prayer to go to bed.) Sigh. I miss them already!

Mom, Mel and I picked up several bags of tacos at El Pelon in the freezing darkness on Saturday night.

Amber and Dahlia were so cute together.

Sunday morning hair-doing train.

Amber's last Sunday in Primary!

Dahlia didn't want to be held after 2 hours at church, so we did our best to take a girl cousin picture.

Piano duet with my Mom! We propped the first two pages of Handel's Passacaglia up on top of the piano against the wall, and spread the remaining 5 pages down lower. Worth the effort for zero page turns!

I only took two pictures of The Great Arachnid Invasion. We got this ornament at our ward Christmas party this year, and by December 28th it was shrouded in spider webs.