One of my greatest blessings has been to have amazing women
in my life. We lived in Auburn for
10 years and the friendships I made during my time in Auburn are some of my
greatest. Somehow, even though I
don’t see them as often, I feel like those friendships have developed even
deeper during the 8 years that I’ve lived in Snoqualmie. I love the traditions we still continue
to carry-on even after all these years – one of which is the annual Christmas
party.
Tara and Camille created a poster board full of pictures
from past Christmas parties.They
didn’t label the pictures with the year and instead made it a guessing
game.I take games seriously and
put a lot of thought into trying to figure out the years.It paid off cause I won – even with my
terrible memory. So many fun memories with these ladies!Here are a few photos from this year:
Katy and I were getting impatient with people taking way too
long to unwrap a gift during the gift exchange
And also worth pointing out I also won the “Burn down the tree” game with my
partner Nannette as well as the “Balloon Antler” game with my team.
Our county library organizes a summer reading program each
year to encourage kiddos to read during the summer. This year they also added a program for adults. Every year there is a mid-goal prize
and a final prize. Usually it
pretty small like a bag or notebook; however, this year the final prizes for
completing the goals were two tickets to Wild Waves (value of $30/ticket). You better believe we were at the
library first thing the day the prizes were available and it’s a good thing
cause they ran out fast. We secured
enough tickets for Abigail to go during the summer with friends, Carly to go
for their Halloween event and we had six tickets left. Ideally it would have been nice to use
them during the summer to take advantage of the water park and all the rides;
however, with our trip to Europe we didn’t have a chance. So we ended up saving them for the
Holiday Lights. We went on
December 1st, the first weekend of the lights, to avoid too many crowds. We were disappointed that not all the
rides were open, but it was still a really fun night and not too cold.
They handed out some fun Rudolph noses as we entered.
Nov 2:Drew seems to plow through his
Halloween candy the quickest.Actually,
Jason and Katie are likely just as fast, but they can’t eat a lot of the candy
they get because of their peanut allergy.Halloween is a great holiday for this Mama.
Nov 5:Our first middle school choir concert
featuring our oldest son, Jason.Justin attended and took this short video clip of one of their
songs.Jason is back row next to a
bouncy sixth grade girl.
Nov 8:Drew making use of his fun shark
“Blankie Tail”
Nov 14:As president of the laurel class at
church (the 16-18 year old girls) Abigail was in charge of planning their
annual Young Women in Excellence program.She put a lot of time and thought into making it a special evening.It was based on the movie Coco and the
theme of “Remember Me”.Instead of
displaying things the young women had been working on this year they put
together a movie of video clips of each of the girls.It was so well done and a much better way to highlight each
of the young women.The whole
evening was impressive and well done.Abigail even made Coco themed cookies for refreshments.
Nov 16:We celebrated Grandma Fletcher’s
birthday tonight by going out to dinner at Outback.Yum!
Nov 21:There were several weeks in
October/November that the van wouldn’t start.There were some weeks that Abigail could pretty much count
on having to jump the battery when her and her friends were done at the college
and ready to head home.They got
so good at it that they would start timing how quickly they could get it back
up and running.Thankfully, we
have a small battery pack in the van with jumper cables so they were able to do
it on their own.We had the
battery tested by two different people/companies and each time they said it was
fine.It was such a mystery.Finally we figured out that if we took
the lights off of auto the battery wouldn’t drain.
I got this next picture from one of the seminary teachers in
December with the following text:“Kalli and Abigail popped my hood and had’er humming in under two
minutes.It was pretty funny to
watch.Some of the boys were like,
“What?!They can do that?!”
Nov 22: Thanksgiving. I didn’t have a single picture from Thanksgiving. Thankfully, we had the Squires over and
she took the picture below that she was able to send me now three months
later. Our Thanksgiving was just
going to consist of having Justin’s parents over; however, the Squires were looking
for a place to hang and we were happy to add a few more bodies so it would feel
a little more special. Dinner was
great. The Squires ended up
staying until later that evening playing games and letting the kids play.
And our annual Thankful poster…
Nov 26:I must have been making dinner for
another family because I’d never make this many rolls for just us.Such a beautiful sight!Love me some carbs!
Nov 28:Drew had some fun Thanksgiving
activities at school this month.Here’s his turkey hat and a cute Thankful Thursday paper in which he
wrote “I am thankful for my Trke (turkey)”
It seems we’ve had this same homework assignment multiple
times.Each time I’ve avoided
getting involved in the craft project and had someone else help my kiddo.I think my Mom even helped once or
twice.This year it was Carly who
helped Drew decorate his turkey.
Nov 28: Jason had a few friends over today and
impressed them with his hiding spot in hide-n-seek.
Getting new family pictures is always such a process. Choosing a photographer, trying to find
a date without any scheduling conflicts, coordinating outfits for the family,
then crossing your fingers that it doesn’t rain and that the kids don’t spend
the entire session giving fake smiles.
This year was no exception.I contacted a photographer in Auburn that is friends with
all my Auburn friends way back in September, but we didn’t finalize a date
until November.By then most of
the fall colors had already come and gone and it was getting pretty chilly, but
we lucked out with a dry day at a nice location down in Puyallup.
It had been two years since we’d had pictures so it was great
to get some updated ones as they kids keep growing up on me.
