I love this picture Erin took of Ian. I think it totally captures his personality. You can just tell he’s up to something can’t you?

It makes me happy when I see my tax dollars at work. Unfortunately, tonight wasn’t one of those nights. I left work at 5:45PM and walked in the door at 10:00PM tonight !

Growing up in Ohio, you kind of learn how to drive in the snow. Out here, you get an inch or two of snow and everybody freaks out. Tonight, we got 3-4 inches in 1 hour which didn’t help. Add to it the fact that the city crews were obviously caught off guard (I didn’t see a single salt truck or snow plow through the entire ordeal).

After a handful of near accidents throughout Redmond, I managed to make it to Sammamish (in 1 1/2 hours). The problem is that there are two large hills and three miles between downtown Sammamish and home. I sat in traffic at the bottom of the hill for a half hour, watched a car burn (I kid you not), grabbed a coffee at Starbucks and then decided to catch part of the SeaHawks game at a local pub. Then I sat in traffic for another 45 minutes making it a grand total of 100 yards before turning around, parking at the Starbucks and hoofing it home. I saw dozens of cars off of the road, stuck in the middle of the road, lots of fender benders and standed motorists like myself and not a single city worker, police officer or fireman trying to take control of the situation. They were probably at home watching the SeaHawks game
I guess I’m lucky though. I got home safely and didn’t total the car in the process. After I got home, I took these shots of our house with all of the snow. Despite being a little annoyed, I have to admit that the snow put me in the holiday spirit!

(click on the picture below to see a slide show!)

Erin had been so excited to take the kids on the “Santa Train” in North Bend this weekend. Apparently it is very popular because the tickets have been sold out now for a couple of weeks, so we kind of expected a cool adventure for the kids. Wow, were we wrong.

I’m not going to whine, but I couldn’t believe how poorly the thing was put together. First you wait in line outside (and it didn’t help that it was in the 30s with high wind). Then you get onto the antique train (putting it politely). Then 20 minutes later you reach your destination in Snoqualmie. I kind of thought that they would organize something on the train to entertain the kids, but they didn’t. So you get to the train station and wait in another line (mostly outdoors) to wait for Santa. The geniuses that put the event together decided it would be neat to give all the kids train whistles after they saw Santa, so now add sleet, high wind and 50 kids blowing these whistles while you are huddled inside an old train car sipping crappy coffee, hot chocolate and cookies. Now imagine having to wait almost another hour with nothing to do, so you can catch the ghetto train back to North Bend. But I’m not bitter or anything I knew it was a bad omen at the beginning when everyone getting off the earlier train looked miserable. But I have to remind myself if was for the kids….and I guess I could get over it if they had actually had a good time.

So if you are reading this and have tickets for the upcoming dates, you might want to think about putting them up on Craigs list and take the tots to Nordstroms to see Santa.

Aren’t the holidays fun?

(click on the picture below to see a slide show!)

Saturday evening, we took a gamble that the kids would behave and all eight of us had dinner at Maggiano’s in Bellevue. Although the adult conversation was light, the kids did pretty well, so as a reward, we took them to see the holiday lights at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. Of course, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bring my camera along

(click on the picture below to see a slide show!)

I’m hoping that the entire holiday season goes as smoothly as our Thanksgiving did. Kate flew in from San Diego and made it here safely, although Alaska temporarily lost one of her bags. So she joined us along with Amanda, my mom and our friends Noella, Roy and their two kids Justin and Julia. This was the first time we’ve entertained this many people at once since we sold our large dining room table when we moved from Ohio, but in the end Costco came through (A table cloth over a couple of folding tables doesn’t look as bad as I thought it would).

Erin bought a 22 lb turkey from Whole Foods and it was delicious! Kate’s flight didn’t get in until 3PM, so we opted for a late dinner and it is probably a good thing too, because we were all ready to crash by 9PM.

This morning, we woke up early and drove into Seattle to watch the Macy’s holiday parade. The kids didn’t make it through the entire parade, but I’m glad we attempted it. Nathan even gave us a rare unprompted thank you on the way home which made it so worth it.

Back is late September, Erin travelled to Ohio to surprise her sister Bekah and photograph her new Nephew Phil’s baptism. Click on the photo above to visit the slideshow and once you do I’m sure you’ll agree with me that Erin has become an amazing photographer. She captured some sweet shots of Phil and the rest of our family and friends that were there.

Congratulations Bekah and Phil (Sr.)!