The wonderful season of Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas out here in Seattle! It was made a bit more interesting in that when we woke up last Friday morning, the ground was covered in snow! I knew it had snowed at 6am when the school district called to let us know that school would be "delayed 2 hours" due to bad weather. I understand that they need to let people know, but I really wish you could "unsubscribe" to these phone calls and just get emails, but it is what it is, sadly. Another call at 7 confirmed what I had already guessed, which was that school was cancelled for the whole day. Adam's school was cancelled as well. Those few centimeters of snow really cause people to panic! Brian drove into work and it was the smoothest drive he's had yet - no traffic. What a contrast to the first snowfall in Calgary lol. Lynsey had a lot of fun playing outside in the snow - I even convinced her to go outside by herself in the afternoon! She has never been good at playing by herself and always wants company in everything she does, so I had to be pretty convincing for this one! I tried to make it sound like going outside alone meant she could do what SHE wanted and use her imagination and make up stories, all things I used to do when I was a kid. I couldn't believe she bought it, you never know until you try!

Brian's parents came in to the airport that night, quite delayed because of the havoc wreaked by the snow here, unfortunately for them. We had a great time with them here! On Saturday, we got our babysitter to come watch the kids while the four of us went into Seattle. We went on the big ferris wheel (not as cool as I had hoped, but oh well) and then went to Etta's to gorge ourselves on delicious seafood. On Sunday, we went on a Santa Brunch Cruise! It was a lot of fun actually! The food was good, they had fun entertainment for the kids, and it was a nice time. Nathan was a bit high maintenance as expected, what can you do!

I have to tell the story of how we almost didn't make it to this fun brunch cruise. It's a bit of a long story, I will tell it because I think it's worth telling! We leave our house with ample time to get there and park where the email told us to park, which was several blocks away from the dock we THOUGHT we were departing from. Because we are new to the area, we don't know that there is ample street parking basically right by the dock, and as we are walking there in the rain, we see spot after spot just sitting there, waiting for a car to park there (for free because it's Sunday). Anyway, no matter, we figured lesson learned, not a big deal. We get to the dock, all 7 of us (we had come with two vehicles, the dock was in Kirkland only about 7 or 8 minutes away from our house) and it looks oddly deserted. There was a big Argosy cruise boat by the dock, but it looked like there was no one there. It was about 10:20 at this point, so we had about 40 minutes until our cruise left (on the email it said we had to be there a minimum of 20 minutes prior to departure). We were pretty confused, so Brian called Argosy to ask what was going on. This is when we find out that the boat is no longer leaving from this dock. Apparently, our booking agent didn't feel this was a necessary detail to pass on. THANK GOODNESS it wasn't leaving from Seattle, because there is no way we would have been able to make it if this was the case. As it was, it was just a dock a mile and a half down the road. Now is where the parking situation comes into play! By the time we had this information, it was about 10:30 so time was getting tight. Brian has to run back to get the van to come pick us up. I probably should have run with him to get the car as well and left the kids with Mark and Frances, but we thought this was the best plan at the time. He doesn't take too long to come get us, and all 7 of us squeeze into the van. There is a reason we took two vehicles in the first place! I was literally sitting on half a seat beside Lynsey's big car seat in the back! We drive in the direction of this other dock, no one really knowing what to look for and just hoping it would be obvious. Brian was about to pull over and call again because we were sure we had gone too far when we saw it - thank goodness! We park in the parking garage and I run ahead to pick up our tickets. It is still raining at this point. You will see from my hair in the pictures that this was definitely the case haha! I got there at about 10:45 and she said we had made it on time. The picture with Santa was taken right after we got there, so I am still a bit flushed from the fiasco. Seriously - how do you NOT let customers know something like that?? The girl I picked up the tickets from was very apologetic, but it's the responsibility of the booking agent (Seattle Tours) to let their customers know of changes. I got an email today, asking me to give Seattle Tours a review. I did.

That was one of our adventures this Christmas season:). At least it had a happy ending! On Monday, Frances and I drove to the Premium Outlets and did some shopping. We all went to Red Robin for dinner and then took the kids to Redmond Town Center to ride their little train and let Lynsey ride the Carousel as well. Nathan was very opposed to the train at first, but by the end, he was "choo-choo"ing up a storm! Adam really liked it, too, which was a bit of a surprise. We never know what he will like! Neither of the boys would try the Carousel, though. Tuesday, Brian and his dad did a tour of the Boeing factory and Frances made us a delicious rib roast dinner. The kids opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa that night. Success! Adam liked TWO of his gifts! And he even unwrapped one of them, mostly by himself! The kids opened our gifts Christmas morning, but Adam had pretty much lost all interest in opening presents by then. Most of the stuff we got them has been played with at least a little bit, so that's good! I went through and did a mini toy purge to make room for the new stuff. Could have done more, but we decided to do our major purge when it came time to move in the summer. Nathan, as expected, all over the cars and trains he got. Brian and I are SOO sick of playing trains with him! How much can an adult play the same game over and over again before he or she goes officially insane?? We love our little boy and I'm so glad he is typical and wants to interact with us, but wow am I sick of playing with Percy and Gordon!

Lynsey got a big Lego set from Grandma and Grandpa and she is now able to get her own pieces and follow the instructions in the book all by herself. Of course, she wants us there to keep her company, but she rarely asks for our help. We also got her a chemistry set, which was a bit of a risk, but she loves it! That will be a Daddy/daughter activity, I think:). We bought Adam some Sensory Stepping Stones (tiles you place on the floor with different textures that you step on) and he likes to step on them. If I put them away, he carefully takes them out and sets them up again:).

Brian's parents left yesterday and Brian went back to work today. What a weird day, so dark outside first of all (I guess this is the depressing, overcast weather people have been warning us about??) and I realized that if I don't plan some activities next week while the kids are off school, I might go crazy! At least there is New Year's Day on Wednesday, nice way to break up the week!