Ready or not

 "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. 

A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.”

Bill Vaughn 

Wrapping up the holidays

Every year, Nova loves playing with the old miniature toy set I keep with the Christmas stuff.  All sorts of little wooden animals, people and buildings we collected when we lived in Germany and England.

It was Amanda's when she was a kid...she always called it "her farm." Lots of memories.

Our little big girls.

We had such a good time this weekend.  Great Uncle Dave drove up to Seattle for breakfast and we had a nice visit.  They left mid-morning on the Stevens Pass route, and hopefully getting close to home by now.  The house is eerie quiet.

A second Christmas

And the greatest gift of all...family.

High tech, low tech

John bought us an Apple TV for Christmas, a nice gift.  It's just a black box about the size of a paperback, that basically works as a glorified streaming machine.  A computer, really.

We've been using a blu-ray player to stream movies on Netflix, but Apple TV makes it easier. You can also download thousands of content apps from the Apple Store like news, sports, games, entertainment etc. Some are even free.

Being Apple, it plays nicely with our other Apple devices.  Now we can torture a captive audience with iPhone photos and videos on the television.  Guess it's better than poking a screen in someone's face, something we all dislike. You can also stream anything on YouTube. Anything. It boggles the mind.

Note the extreme simplicity of that tiny Apple remote: menu button, volume control and voice button for bossing Siri.  If you tell her to play a movie or program, she hops to and finds it. The top part of the remote is actually a touch pad which takes some getting used to, but like all Apple gadgets, easy peasey once you get the hang of it. 

And now, the low tech. We don't have cable, and our handful of TV channels arrive via an antenna John put up in the attic. TV signals were still analog back then, and he actually took a small TV up and physically pointed the antenna in the right direction to pull in our favorite channels.  It worked fine for many years. Remember how we used to move the rabbit ears around when we changed stations?  Now TV stations broadcast digital signals, which means you either get the signal perfectly or you get nothing.

Lately, our all-important PBS channel has been acting up.  One of the problems might be all the new high rise apartments buildings around us, blocking the signal.  Or maybe a new antenna would help? John bought spent the morning yesterday getting the dang thing up the hole in the ceiling.

I'm simplifying this because technically it's over my head, but the end result was the Fox signal (ugh) coming in better than ever, but PBS was weaker.  As he said, you just don't know until you try it. So the new antenna went back to Home Depot and he reinstalled the old one, cleaning it up and giving it a directional tweak or so.  It seems to have worked, at least for now, as PBS came in dandy last night.

This week between Christmas and New Years always seems suspended in time.  John is off work, and as you can see, we haven't had much fun around here.  However, Amanda and family are planning to drive over for a weekend visit. Unfortunately, the weather in the mountains is not great today, but we're hoping they can make it without any problems and we can celebrate a late Christmas.

Wishful thinking

Saint Stephen's Day

Today is the second day of Christmas, also the Feast of Saint Stephen and Boxing Day in Great Britain. The roots of the holiday go back to the Middle Ages. On this day, members of the merchant class would take boxes, fill them with food and fruits, and give them to servants, tradespeople and the less fortunate. Servants traditionally got the day off, because they had to work yesterday.

One of my favorite Christmas carols, Good King Wencelas, tells the story of a Bohemian king who braves the winter weather to bring food and and firewood to a poor peasant om Saint Stephens Day.

Although Christmas feels over now in most homes (except for the mess) today is just the beginning of Twelvetide, the festive Christian season celebrating the Nativity of Jesus Christ.  It ends on Twelfth Night, a big time of celebration.  After all the build up, it's a shame Christmas is just a one day event in America. In the old days, the holiday party was just getting started.

Merry Christmas!

Some pictures from Amanda, taken on their Christmas Eve sleigh ride at Sun Mountain Lodge. 

 And early morning Christmas smiles. It looks like Santa found Twisp. 

Dear family and friends, we hope you're having a wonderful day. 

We're having fun playing with our new toys  :-)

The night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, and it's quiet as a mouse around here.  I'm usually in a frenzy of last minute preparations about now, so this is a novel and (have to admit) relaxing experience.

We hope to see the kids later in the week. Amanda had to work today and they couldn't make the long drive tonight. Of course we will miss the little girl chaos tomorrow morning. And I can't remember a single year when John and I actually spent Christmas day alone together.

However!  There are compensations in having an adult holiday now and then.

Gnocchi tonight, steak and baked potatoes and Greek salad for Christmas dinner tomorrow. Plenty of good wine and treats galore in the house.

Speaking of treats, after the parade of vicious storms, a beautiful clear calm Christmas Eve day.  What a gift. I took a long walk and John is outside doing a bit of yard cleanup.

We hope you have a wonderful evening, full of peace and contentment.

Far from the bright lights

After our day of Las Vegas excess, namely a Cheesecake Factory lunch and a double pepperoni pizza dinner, Dad and I atoned last night. We went to Trader Joe's shopping and I made salmon with sauteed vegetables.  Tonight, an old-fashioned meatloaf dinner he's been hungry for.

Floyd Lamb Park was peaceful and deserted this morning.



 Just us and the birds on a brilliant winter day.  I guess everyone is busy doing last minute Christmas stuff.

On the drive home, just for the heck of it, we followed a sign for "The Gilcrease Nature Sanctuary" and found a hidden treasure.

My sister has lived in Las Vegas since the 1970's, so I'm feeling pretty smug to discover a place she's never been.

The Gilcrease Orchard Farm Market is big and famous, but the little animal sanctuary is apparently owned by the "other" Gilcrease brother.  Once in the desert, the Sanctuary is surrounded by new housing developments.

A delightful place to walk the level paved paths, and see hundreds of animals. Exotic talking birds to goats, turkeys, turtles, ponies and pot-bellied pigs.

We've never been so close to a giant ostrich. What a winsome creature.  He had big, soft, lovely eyes like a horse. Who knew? Anyway, a new favorite place to go in North Las Vegas.

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, and I fly back to the rain tomorrow afternoon.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Viva Las Vegas

Dad and Marji at the fabulous Bellagio Hotel yesterday.

The Bellagio Conservatory.

A "Cinderella" Christmas display, including big realistic horses and coach.

And polar bears wallowing in tropical floral excess. Well, it is Las Vegas, after all. 

Smiles under the giant Bellagio Christmas tree.

Then the world's largest chocolate fountain at the Bellagio Patisserie.

Take that, Paris.

Then on to Caesar's Palace for more gawking. Why go to France? Why go to Italy?

The designer shopping arcade windows crammed with glittering $1,000 handbags. Apparently the latest "must-have" status symbol.

And then, after a couple hours of total sensory overload, a nice quiet lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.

I come to Las Vegas often, but hardly ever see this Las Vegas. Marji's home is way out in a quiet suburb that feels a million miles away from the glitz. In fact, it's been several years since I was even down on The Strip, ditto for Dad, so what an fun eye-opener for both of us, not to mention a treat being escorted around by our local expert guide.

When we finally got back to the car, Dad said the whole thing felt more like dreaming, it was so unreal. I guess that's the whole point of Las Vegas.

Now life goes back to a more quiet routine for the next couple days.  Marji packed up "Maurice" early this morning and is headed to Utah for Christmas with her family. Dad and I will hit Trader Joe's and maybe get out to the park to feed the birds.  The nice weather continues...

Desert holiday

Merry and bright

The 2:30 am alarm was painful, but after that, an easy trip down to Las Vegas yesterday.  The sky was black as ink in Seattle when we took off at 5:50, but soon we were above the clouds and I watched a spectacular sunrise slowly unfold in the east.

The flight attendant eventually brought coffee and all seemed right with the world again.  The clear winter light was so beautiful on the desert mountains when we landed.  It was still only 8 am.

The temperature is in the mid-60's, about 10 degrees higher than the norm for December. What a treat.  I sat on the patio (without a jacket!) for a while watching the birds, contemplating why anyone (who didn't have to) would live in Seattle this time of year.

When you've been up that long, 10 am feels like supper time. I was starving.  Marji kindly obliged and drove us to In-N-Out Burger where Dad treated us to cheeseburgers and fries.  Later she made a great Mexican dinner at home. 

Pork tamales from Costco (quite delicious) and all the Mexican trimmings. Then I unpacked the treats from the suitcase.

"The Guardian of the Cookies"
ha ha

 An early night for all...

Parade of storms

An exciting ride on the Edmonds-Kingston ferry run this week. And this is within the relative calm of Puget Sound waters; on the Washington coast, these winter storms often have hurricane force strength.

Our coastal hurricanes never make the national news because it is still so wild and isolated out there. Anyway, I think most of the country has a hazy idea of Pacific Northwest geography, namely the difference between Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean.  The nightly news showed a little clip of this ferry ride last night when they were talking about travel delays across the country. That was kind of cute.

Speaking of travel, I have a 5:50 am! flight to Las Vegas tomorrow morning. A cruel and unusual hour to make it to the airport and then through security in time. I offered to take Uber, but John says he will drive me. I had originally booked a more reasonable 8:30 flight, but it was cancelled (thank you, Alaska Airlines.)  People like to believe an airline ticket guarantees them a specific seat on a specific flight. Sorry, you have only purchased a transportation contract, requiring them to take you from point A to point B (on their terms.)

Anyway, I'm taking my computer but will be offline tomorrow. Will check in with some sunny pictures later this week. I'm really looking forward to spending time with my sister and dad. 

All cookied out

Cookies for work, cookies for friends, neighbors and family. Cookies for The Ukes holiday potluck today. Sunday was my cookie assembly day, and I am so cookied out for another year.

OK, more cute kid pictures coming up, sent from Amanda this weekend.

The Methow Valley is under a winter storm warning; nothing but rain for us. It's that breezy Seattle rain that comes at you from from all directions and gets on your glasses, even with an umbrella.  It's been a warm winter so far, that can still change, but other than a bit of frost on the windshields, nothing close to a hard freeze. We only have a few hours of murky daylight now, good thing, otherwise the garden would really wake up.

We were out on the town in West Seattle yesterday afternoon. After the play, the restaurants and bars were a bit more subdued than I expected. Of course it was still early, it was raining, and the Seahawks just had a miserable loss which probably kept spirits damped down. 

"Jane Eyre" turned out to be a full-fledged Broadway-type musical, and the heavily miked voices were really something in that small theater. It went on for over two hours!  (John is a good husband-- and I'll leave it at that.)

We went to the Kizuki Ramen Noodle place, which is a chain restaurant all over the world.  We're not very sophisticated diners I guess, and were kind of confused what to order.  Then what came didn't look much like the pictures on the menu.  Mine had a whole, peeled, soft-boiled egg floating in it.  It was a perfectly cooked egg, but how do you manage that slippery thing with chopsticks?  Interesting, but I think I prefer pho.

Back to normal home cooking for a couple more days. Then I leave for Las Vegas very early on Wednesday morning, and John goes on his teriyaki routine.