Okay, I'm a fan of the NFL but...

tonights game is on seven channels on our cable system!!! SEVEN!!! I get the importance of the history of this game, I heard the commissioner talking about how the simulcast is all about the fans, but seven channels seems a bit of overkill, even for Comcast. Oh well, back to enjoying the game. Go Giants!!

Christmas!!

We were at the kids' house again for Christmas day and what a time we had. All the people, all the gifts, all the food. Makes for a pretty amazing time.

There is always the bit of frenzy as the kids unwrap their gifts:



Savannah, loving her new games for her Advance!



Nick and his new RC Jeep:



Nick, taking a bit of a rest while he plays with his new Diego set:



Savannah's new "Blendy Pens":



Having Grandpa help with the packaging for their new ponies:



Can you say concentration?



The "hit" of the day with all four cousins: The Giraffe!!!



Savannah checking out cousin Mike:



Pepa taking a break with a little spicy cheese dip:



Darane' with the sweet potatoes:



Lucy making lumpias:



Andy and Greg, turkey chefs:







And, while the turkey cooked, the boys played with their new toys: RC tanks!!!



And on the drive home, a white Christmas...a rare event in this area!







And for the finale: Our tree!!!



Merry Christmas everyone!! Love you!!

A little elfin fun

Our friends Grant and Ronna sent us one of these featuring their family.

Ronna, Ethan, Grant and Kira:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1635874918

We thought it was so cute we did one of our own!!

Chris and Ralph:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1676383175

And now Ted and Mary Louise have one too:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1701856013

And Savannah and Nick:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1742593245

And Ralph's Aunt Donna:

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1743355461

This is just too much fun!!

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas lights in the neighborhood

We have some pretty nice light displays in our neighborhood, here are a few that are down the block. I'll try to take some more later too.











These guys have a movie playing on their garage door and some of the lights in their display are synchronized to music...plus they are handing out candy canes to passersby!!!



More later...

Christmas Potluck with my new work team

Well, I certainly got hired at the right time of year...just in time for the Christmas Potluck. We had lots of yummy food, Christmas music playing in the background and we played a couple of Carol name games and had a cookie decorating contest. It was a lot of fun, as you can tell by the pictures!



Me, Matthew with his lovely reindeer antlers and Diana (supervisor of my work team)



Denise, Ashley (on my work team) Kim in the background and Denise



Vickey, MyLinh, Samina, Mallorie and Whitney. (Mallorie is on my work team)



Showing off our decorated cookies.



Christine, who is also on my work team, showing off her artful cookie

Stormy weather...

and I'm not talking about the song! After last Sunday's snow we had a big storm blow in and soak the whole area with torrential rain. In the Olympian today they said we got 10 inches of rain here on the west side from Sunday to Monday. Gotta be a record.

And we had major flooding all over the region, to the point where several counties have been named federal disaster areas. A 20 mile section of Interstate 5 to the south of us was closed for 5 days because there was 10 feet of water over the roadway in places. They finally got the water down and one lane each direction cleared of mud and debris so they could get the truck traffic moving again. Yesterday they opened the rest of the lanes to all traffic. They figure that alone cost $4 million a day.

Schools all over the region have been closed and we still have people without power after a week. Thousands of people have lost everything, their homes, their jobs, their businesses. And of course, flooding and landslides pretty much aren't covered under most people's insurance. It's all very sad. Lots to pray for. It will take months to recover and millions upon millions of dollars.

Here are a couple pictures from around our area so you can get an idea of how much rainfall we are talking about. They are spectacular examples of how deep it got around here.

This is looking south from Cooper Point and Black Lake toward the freeway. Our house is about a mile and a half south of here. If you've been to either our old house in Oly or our new one you've likely driven through this intersection.



With the road closed the city took out the island barriers for the turn lanes further up Black Lake Blvd. and routed traffic through the I-HOP-Walgreen's-Family Christian parking lot.

This is the same corner, but looking west. This gas station is on a hill and you can see there are cars submerged in the water. Note the road sign on the right near the trees. Pretty deep.



There was flooding all over, including farther down Cooper Point near Capital Mall Drive water was gushing out of the storm drain and the catch basins at Yauger Park overflowed.



The flooding is so bad that we've made the national news too...prompting a couple of calls to check on our welfare. Not to worry, we are fine. We had a little water seep in through the cinder block foundation of the garage wall, but Ralph just kept it swept out all day. Some of the neighbors downhill from us had water in their houses and rivers running through their yards, all the rainwater making it's way down to the lake. The road we live on was closed for a while on Monday and they were just opening it again as I got home from work. The hill behind us drained for two full days, so we had a little runoff going down our driveway from that. We were fortunate to say the least.

Please keep folks in this region in your prayers as the recovery continues.

Let it snow...

Wow, we have our first snow already. After snowing off and on most of the day yesterday we thought it wouldn't end up sticking at all as we had no accumulation. But when we got home from Nick's party last night we had a bit on the ground and it continued to snow all evening until we had a couple of inches. But it's already warmed up a bit and is starting to melt and we've had some rain and snow showers mixing together with some wind too. Could be an interesting day weather-wise. Pretty much the whole western part of the state is on flood watch because with the snow and rising temps and a big rainmaker storm on the way it's pretty likely our rivers will flood. We aren't near a river, thankfully.

Our side yard



Out in front of the house looking toward the road and the lake





And out back



Brrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

Nick's 4th birthday

First of all, I can't believe Nick is four already. But it is great to be here to celebrate his birthday with him! The bad news is he was feeling funky all day long and ended the day by throwing up. Poor guy. But he had a pretty good time up to then! Darane' had set up the downstairs rec room like a carnival. There was a duck pond, ring toss, ball toss and bowling. As the guests played they won tickets that they could later use to "purchase" items in the carnival shops upstairs. There was a tattoo booth, a candy booth, lizards and a variety of novelties. The kids all had a blast!

The various carnival booths, before the majority of the guests arrived.









And the kids playing for tickets to spend








A special clown cake made for Nick by his great grandma Iva (Mema!)



Blowing out the candles



Opening the presents!