Christmas Tree and Game Night

I had planned out our Saturday to the minute because it was going to be very very busy.  I waited to get our Christmas tree this weekend because Ben could come with us.  We've been dating for three Christmases now and he hadn't gotten to come with us on any trips.  This year he was able to however, due to being on shift the night before and a fire at 4 a.m., he was very tired and couldn't managed to get motivated to get ready and head out to my house before noon.  There was part of the day which I had no idea what he was doing or if he was on his way yet or not...turns out he had fallen asleep twice throughout the day of waiting for him.

I finally got a hold of him and grandma and I just went and got the tree without him, he wasn't even close of being ready to go for the weekend.  Maybe next year it will work out.  I got my tree-getting outfit on and went and got grandma.  We weren't sure if we would find out Douglas Firs at the Gerrits house because last year there was slim pickins and it takes a few years for the trees to mature.  We were one of the four sets of cars that showed up to get trees.  Lynn and Greg recognized it was us and started chatting with us for a while about the usual stuff.

Then we went and searched for two Douglas Firs and they were hard to find but we did find them.  I cut down both trees while grandma made sure they didn't fall on top of me.  We grabbed them both and took them towards the Escape.  We chatted a little bit more with Lynn and Greg, grabbed some hot chocolate and candy canes and paid for the trees.  They then helped us tie them down on top of my car.  We thanked them and headed home as soon as we could.  I had a lot of stuff to do still.

I dropped of grandma and her tree and headed home expecting to see Ben's car in my driveway.  I did not and I was kinda upset he wasn't there yet.  Where was he?  I tried calling him again and finally got a hold of him the second time.  He said he fell asleep again.  Ugh, we were going to be late.  I got the tree off my car and then unloaded my car full of the stuff I've had in the back of it for months.  Then I grabbed everything we would need for our Christmas party at Nicole's, his mom's house and the Korum party on Sunday.  I had mom help me cut up the potatoes for the scalloped potatoes I was suppose to bring.  I didn't have time for a shower and smelled like campfire smoke.

Ben finally got to my house, we loaded his stuff up in the Escape and headed towards Nicole's house, we were about 20 minutes late.  We unloaded everything and brought it into the house.  We got all settled in and put our stuff in the oven while Nicole had us play a quick game.  Basically a minute to win it type game.  We had these boxes that were tied around our waist and we had to shake the candy coal out.  First one to shake them out or the most after a minute wins.  I will post the video soon.

We laughed our heads off as we battled against each other.  The final round contained me and Nicole and she edged me out by milliseconds.  The prize was candy.  I was okay with not winning, lol.  From there, we ate dinner.  Nicole made a roast and a ham, I brought scalloped potatoes, there was a dip, veggies, meatballs and cookies.  We brought our own drinks.  Food was delicious.

After dinner and a small clean up, we embarked on our gingerbread house journey.  I haven't made one of these since I lived with Jessie back in 2007.  Almost a week ago I was with mom shopping in town and decided to go to Winco to get graham crackers, frosting and bulk candy.  I intended on sharing with everyone.  We all couldn't sit at the table so we all sat at two tables.  My table used frosting while the other table used the gingerbread house glue that Megan made.  I went all out.  I slathered the fudge frosting on my graham crackers and built a two story house.  Then I added all of my candy.  I made my roof to heavy and it collapsed before I could take a picture of it.  Oh well, the point was to have fun and be creative.  I deemed it the earthquake house.

We cleaned up and played Christmas Jeopardy and I swear Celeste was cheating.  She knew all of the answers basically.  I guess I need to watch more Christmas movies.  We did our White Elephant gift exchange and got a bunch of wine stuff...it was probably the gift that Nicole should have opened.  Oh well.  I will find a way to re-gift it at some point.

Megan, Matt and Miles had to go home but we stayed a little later and played some Christmas Cards of Humanity and got to know this Brian guy a little more.  Just before 11 we gathered our stuff and headed towards Ben's mom's house.  We got there just before midnight and everyone was still up.  We sat around and chatted for a while and I had to go pass out.  I was exhausted.

Next Adventure:  Browns at Seahawks, Korum Christmas Party and Star Wars

Cookies with Fitzy

Fitzy and I have been making food together since we were in college, specifically baking goodies like cookies, brownies and other sweets.  Since she's moved back from Montana we've gotten together and decided on an evening or late afternoon to make some Christmas cookies.  This year it worked out to where I met her at her house with my ingredients.  This year she bought pizza for dinner.

I got there around 5:45 and she already had the pizza's in the oven.  Chaise was recovering from a cold so he was chillin on the couch with some of the dogs.  I haven't been over to their house in a while or have seen them in quite some time.  We updated each other with what was going on, news, changes, things that were going to happen, etc.  Megan told me about her dog Gunnar, who had to have one of his toes removed a few weeks back.  He was still recovering.

We watched A Christmas Story and Scrooged while we made peanut butter balls, requested by Ben, the chocolate peppermint cookies, requested by me, fudge and ginger chocolate chip cookies.  We made a lot of goodies in about 4 hours. 

I went home around 11 and I was exhausted.  Today was a long day. 

I ended up sharing them with many of my coworkers, family and friends.  They really liked the peanut butter balls.

Next Adventure:  Christmas Tree and Game Night

Epic Wind, Rain and Thunderstorms in December

So we are in the midst of three storms off the Pacific Ocean and I am not too happy about it.  For three days the wind has kept me up or had woken me up in the middle of the night.  Winds sustaining over 50 mph whipping through our really beat up Douglas Firs sure make you question whether or not they will keep up this abuse over and over again.  We are also in La Nina which brings a really warmish wet winter.  Not my favorite.  Not my favorite at all.

Over the years just a slight breeze would send us into the dark for a few hours to a couple of days.  For some reason we haven't lost power as often now as we did then and we also have a generator we've only used maybe a handful of times.  Dad purchased it almost 8 years ago.  I think we could have benefitted more while we lived in the other house and we were little. 

Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning was the first time the wind was that bad.  It woke me out of a pretty deep sleep.  I looked out the window and the wind had to be going at least 55 mph.  I was terrified. It sounded bad but the sight was worse.  I imagined all of them breaking, snapping in half and hitting the house causing a lot of damage.  It started to die down around 3 and I tried to ignore the awful outside and try to fall asleep again, 6:30 a.m. came too fast.

I got up after an "in and out" sleeping cycle when my alarm went off.  I got ready for work, grabbed all of the stuff I had set aside for our Christmas party at work, ate my cereal and was off.  As I headed towards Rainier I noticed this really big gray-green colored cloud.  That doesn't look good.  Last year when the weather looked like that we had an F1 tornado/waterspout out in the Nisqually Refuge area.  As I got into Rainier, I saw a huge bolt of lightning in the distance.  Oh crap!  I never have experienced a thunder storm during the winter let alone December.  We usually get this type of weather in the spring and early fall. 

I made my way towards Tumwater, via Rainier Road (this section of land is owned by the military therefore, cell reception is pretty poor) and I got into the area where there were a lot of trees.  At this point it wasn't raining.  When I went around the corner, after seeing multiple flashes in the sky and some rumbling, all of a sudden hail just started slamming down on me and the other cars on this stretch of road.  I saw break lights and several people who had pulled over because they couldn't see.  I continued on.  All of a sudden the sky broke loose and hail came down as hard as it could.  I am glad we don't live in an area that produces huge pieces of hail the size of quarters or bigger.  It would have ruined my car in less than a second.  It was a slow commute through this area.

As soon as I got to the guard rail area of Rainier Road, I heard a huge crack and everything around me got really bright.  I think a bolt of lightening just struck the ground not too far from where I was.  I really wasn't scared but my body shook from being startled by it.  It was so loud it trumped my radio and I had that up somewhat loud.  That was the craziest thing I've seen especially for December.

We had a few calmer nights but it rained a lot.  Many places were flooded, parts of Hwy 12 towards White Pass were closed due to a section of road being washed out, Ben didn't have to go to work on Thursday because the Chehalis River flooded and most of the roads out that way were closed.  There was a landslide down by Woodland that closed one lane of I-5 North indefinitely. On Thursday we had reports of a EF1 Tornado touching down in Battleground.  My aunt lives there and so does Brenda and Ray.  Everyone was fine but it still baffles me that we are having weather that comes around usually in the spring and fall.  (Below is a picture Ray took at the tail end of the tornado that touched down near their house.)

Some more damage caused by the tornado.  Pictures are from KGW-TV (Portland, Ore.)

A photo of the landslide near Woodland I-5 Northbound.  Picture is from WSDOT.

The third part of the storm is suppose to be done Saturday evening and we would revert back to our normal December weather.  We may even get some snow come Christmas time.

Next Adventure:  TBA