Family + Together = Super + Happy

The holidays really started for us when the Maguires flew into town on the 17th of December.

Prepare for a journey through time, including in order by most recent: 12/28 - Hopkins family get-together; 12/25 - Christmas as our house; 12/24 - Christmas Eve at Great Grandma Marianne's (the Maguires left to go visit the Pasco Maguires); 12/23 - Devon & Warren's 31st Anniversary Celebration; 12/20 - an early Christmas celebration and Family Pictures at GrAunt Britt & GrUncle Mark's; 12/19 - Brady's 1st Birthday Party; & 12/18 - Brady's birthday fun with Grandma, Mom, Dad, & Bro.

First, the boys are as busy in real life as they are in their blog. We were invited to a Hopkins family get-together at Art & Pat's yesterday. Luckily Brian, Katharine, and the boys were able to come, too, as they were on their way back from Pasco. Brady loved running around and trying to de-decorate the tree. McColley loved playing Hide & Seek and eating very large cookies. They were joined by a new baby 3rd cousin, Lydia Rose, born on Thanksgiving. Her parents, Bruce & Courtney, are enthralled with their wee one. So is the rest of the family! We thank Art & Pat for giving us the chance to mingle & jingle. Can you find Brady zooming past Great-Grandma? McColley is between Graunt Berta & Great-Grandma. He often sneaks up on them to give them a good tickle!
 

Now we'll travel back to Christmas Day, which was at our house. We were joined by Great Grandma Jean, GrAunt Susan and GrAunt Berta, & Uncle Tim and Arianna. We opened presents, feasted on Prime Rib & Yorkshire Pudding, and then either worked on a puzzle (NOT me) or watched Iron Man. I was delighted to get a new red toaster to go with a new red coffee maker! Seems to be my recent color of choice. Dinner was delicious and the Yorkshire Pudding turned out to be just right! Prime Rib, glazed carrots, and roasted asparagus rounded out the menu. Dessert was the tens of thousand candies and cookies all over the house.

On Christmas Eve, we traveled out to Home to spend time with the Wards, the Wells, and Mom. It was a great time eating salmon, singing with her church choir, and opening more presents. Mark did a dance of joy! David was Santa's Elf and endured our teasing. Such a wonderful boy! Laura told us about her upcoming move into her first apartment - she's getting really independen!. We were happy Tim got some time away from 'the boat' to spend it with us.

Our anniversary was wonderful. We started out by meeting Arianna in Seattle, took the family to lunch at the Steelhead Diner (YUM!), and toured around the Aquarium. We decided that #31 is the Electronics and went forth to prove it. We upgraded our cable box, telephone system, remote control, added a Blu-Ray, and generally got things hooked up correctly. I got us a place to stay overnight using Hotwire, so we enjoyed being at the Sheraton. We only had to walk a half a block to get to our dinner reservation at Morton's. It was a fun Seattle adventure. 

On the 22nd, Katharine and Brian took the boys over to Bremerton to visit Ari & Tim. Later, they met up with Jess, Christel, and Eli to help celebrate Eli's birthday. We had a chance to assess the house after the Whirlwind Brothers had done their work...McColley found every book we had and enjoyed his toys. Brady enjoyed deorganizing the cabinets, chewing on a variety of cooking utensils along the way. I LOVE THESE BOYS!!! It is so much fun to be with them. They are a laugh a minute.

We had our early Christmas celebration on the 20th at the Ward's house. Mark made a delicious ham and the rest of us brought different parts of the meal. We had family pictures taken in their garage and we have some really fun pictures. We'll have to photo shop Tim in, though, because he had to work that day. We missed him! Mom played piano and McColley sang. He's a talented singer and knows the words to a lot of songs!

On the 19th, we celebrated Brady's birthday at Sean & Joe's condo. Refer to Arianna's blog to see the amazing cakes she made for the occasion! It was a blast to be with multiple Maguires, Wards, Wells, Hopkins, and both Great-Grandmas. Brady wasn't feeling too well, having a cold. Brother helped out by opening most of his presents! There was a lot of fun had by all. The whole bunch of happy relatives love spending time with the Delaware Maguires.

The last thing to tell about  was the first day with the grandboys on the 18th. It was Brady's real birthday and Grandma went to work early, so she could spend time with the family that afternoon. We met up for lunch at The Flying Pig, which is where KC & B had their rehearsal dinner before their wedding 5 years ago. Then, we headed off for Imagine, the Childrens Museum in Everett. Great fun! What a joy to have the family together for the holidays!

Now, the Wells are in Maui. Brian & Katharine and the boys will be leaving for Disneyland tomorrow. Warren & I head to San Diego for our fun vacation in the sun. We will meet up with the kids again on 1/1 in Disneyland to celebrate Katharine's birthday. Tim leaves for Japan on 1/3 and Arianna follows him on 1/3. It'll be a busy January, too!


Phew! I should never wait this long to update my blog. Lesson learned! Happy Holidays!

Our Concert Season Is Complete

Phew! We are done with all our concerts. After choir practice on Saturday morning, Warren & I went to Seattle where we met Tim & Arianna for White Christmas at the 5th Avenue Theater. It was stupendous. What a great way to get in the mood of the holidays!

As soon as the play ended, we zoomed back to Arlington in time to perform a concert with our choir at Our Saviours Lutheran Church. It went well. I sang alto + played flute for 3 songs. Warren sang bass and set up the sound system. He drafted Tim to be the sound man and Ari as the recorder. Afterward, the kids came back to our house for a short visit. So fun to spend time with them. We need to cram in as many visits as possible before January 3rd, when they leave for Japan! They'll be home again in May. They are fitting in a trip to Maui right after Christmas with Tim's family.

On Sunday, we woke to snow! We were afraid that no one would come to the church service, but quite a few showed up. The service was a repeat of the concert. It was very nice to be able to perform all that music more than once.

Later that afternoon, Warren & I braved the snowy roads to go to a wonderful Christmas party. We enjoyed the food and conversation. The group also sponsored a family. We got coats for all 7 members, in addition to toys  and books for the 6 children. We had fun sharing our choices and wrapping presents as a group. We are glad to know this family will enjoy a merry Christmas and stay warm all winter.

Katharine, Brian, McColley, and Brady will be here on the 17th. Brady turns 1 on the 18th. His First Birthday party is on the 19th at Uncle Sean & Uncle Joe's. We are having family pictures taken on the 20th - with the Maguires, Wells, McColley, Ward, McHop, and Hopkins - at the Ward's house. The Maguire family Christmas with the crowd will follow. Mark has created a delicious menu for us to enjoy. Our fingers are crossed that everyone will be there!

The rest of the holiday plans include family visits; various trips to Pasco, Disneyland, Maui, or San Diego; and our 31st anniversary. It still amazes me that we pulled off a wedding two days before Christmas! Or that anyone came! But, I still love how beautifully decorated the world is on our anniversary. Wouldn't change a thing.

Decorations, music & more...

Happy Holidays!

Let the music begin...

We are in the midst of our North Cascades Concert Band series "Broadway, Hollywood, & Beyond". The first concert was in Arlington last Friday and we were pleased that Arianna, Marianne, Britt, Mark, David, Jean, and Roberta all braved the crazy traffic to attend!

We decided to host the post-concert get together at our house. It turned out to be quite successful. It was a 'black tie' affair, since all the men were still in their tuxes and the ladies in their black concert dress. About half of the band members came over to eat and be merry. It was fun and people were hungry. The most popular item, bacon wrapped scallops, were snarfed up in seconds. The best part about having a party is that one must have a clean house & all the decorating done. Here is a brief tour of our holiday splendor. I would like to point out that although both trees are fake (for the first time ever), which our daughters dislike, Katharine succumbed to the lure of fakeness - blaming it on their upcoming trip home. Sure ; - )  The angel wreath hanging on the front door was a present from our friend Diane S. The NOEL embroidered picture on the wall was made by Roberta. We love them.

 

We will be going to "White Christmas" at the 5th Avenue soon. We are also performing with our church choir next Saturday and Sunday. It should be a lovely program. Then, we'll be done concerting for awhile.

We have yet to get a photo of ourselves in front of any holiday decoration. So many things to do and places to be this holiday season. Our little man Brady turns 1 on December 18 and will be here to celebrate. The best part of the holidays is that our families will be together! We can't wait!

Halloween Fun

Warren & I decided not to do Halloween at home. It was the first time in our marriage that our house lights were dark to candy hunters. We went Christmas shopping instead!

Where better to celebrate Halloween? How about a visit with Mr. Halloween himself: Mark!

He was still putting up last minute bats as we drove up about 5 p.m. The house and yard were a vision to behold - with many spooky & scary objects waiting to delight Trick-or-Treaters.

So scary!!!

Didn't he do an amazing job with the moon?

Britt was dressed appropriately in orange and black. She made the traditional Halloween feast - tacos! We were able to see David for a bit before he headed out with some friends. Laura was home from college, so, we were able to find out the latest happenings at WSU. She has a lot going on and is moving into an apartment next semester. It was a fun visit to the Yard of BOO!

The Early Family Holiday 2008 Celebration

December 20, 2008: Because of our planned departure to Dover on 12/22/08, we had an early family holiday gathering at our house.  Marianne could not make it, boo, but we did talk to her via phone (as she has not YET learned how to video conference).

We gathered together for a lovely "Olde England" style dinner, with Standing Rib Roast and Yorkshire Pudding.  I remembered to take pictures of most of the food, rather than the leftovers!  Sadly, I did not take a picture of Mark's fabulous Berry Trifle, nor his rendition of Grandma Nordquist's famous Christmas Pudding.

 

Later, we opened presents, with the Maguires in Dover, via video conference on the big screen TV.  We also got to see Brayton (Brady) at home for the first time, as he & Katharine had just been released from the hospital that day.

Finally, we popped our Christmas Crackers (which have been in storage for 5 or more years), just to make everyone look amazingly foolish!  It was a lot of fun.

Luckily, everyone left just as it began to snow, because the next morning, we had accumulated 9.5 inches of snow!!  

Warren and I drove to our hotel across from the airport on 12/21/08 and received a text message, during dinner, informing us that our flight had been cancelled.  Needless to say, we got on the phone and, by perservering through over 100 redials and 2 hours on-hold, we got rescheduled to leave for Reagan (WA DC) from SeaTac on 12/26 via LAX.  We tried to create a mini-vacation in Southern CA, but were not able to make it go - boo.

We had quite an adventure coming home, borrowing the Ward's Toyota Tundra and the Hopkins' key for our house, because Ari & Tim had our car and ALL our keys!  When we got home, we discovered that it had snowed another FOOT, starting when we left on Sunday! (That's the same table that Ari & Tim used to measure snow in the previous picture!!)

It is our 30th Anniversary today and we are grateful for so many blessings in our lives!  A new grandchild in addition to McColley, family, friends, health, safety, and - yes - even snow!  Sure wish I skied!!!

Whadda Weekend - T'Day & Christmas Prep!

We spent much of Thanksgiving eating, talking, and sitting about the house.  It was a wonderful day with the Hopkins, McColley, and newlywed Wells families.  After dinner, the Ward family snuck around the house peeking in windows to see if we were done eating dinner.  No?  They drove around for awhile.  Yes?  They snuck around the back and surprised us!  (Yes, they are crazy.)  Then, we all ate pie - pumpkin (of course) and chocolate...yum yum.  I forgot to take a picture of the beautiful table, but it was gorgeous!  We had a traditional meal with a delicious turkey and all the accoutrements.

After lots of fun together, everyone except Ari & Tim left.  They spent the night.  We played Nertz, Cribbage, and a game called Pits or In the Pit - something where you have to pretend to be a trader of commodities.  Both Nertz and Pits require dexterity and speed - WB & I typically lose them both!

After a day with Tim's folks in Everson, Ari & Tim returned to help us find a Christmas tree.  Then, they helped us decorate it!  We have a big tree in the living room and our little fake one in the family room.  I also put out my Santa collection and decorated the hearth.

Seems hard to believe that the last time we took this photograph, Tim was just a twinkle in our in-law eye!  What a wonderful addition to our family!  We have hit the sons-in-law jackpot!  Thank you for joining our family, Brian & Tim!

(I'm still working on how to get the pictures on the blog to go where I want them to be...)

All-in-all, it was a wonderful weekend full of family & fun!  We missed having the Maguires here, but were able to plug the computer into the big TV and hold a family size video conference!  

Happy Holidays!