What a great week we have had! The ski resort opened, we went and played in the snow, the long string of Christmas parties is underway, and the future looks bright in so many ways. Here are some photos. Enjoy the season, and Have A Good Week!

These are pictures of the Christmas party at the church. Big chili cookoff and tons of food. We also had our annual viewing of Better off Dead afterwards.

Playing in the snow is so fun!

Of course it's also about the together time. Things just vibe on these days.

And of course the little contest. Evelyn and her friends did the Titanic, and it won by a landslide according to our official polls. 

The other three were almost evenly tied for second place, which was a little bit of a surprise to me that there wasn't more stratification than that. Here's the candy land, with Addy, Maren, and their friends.

Lindsey and crew did the Minecraft creation

And Team Jack did the house. Nice work to everyone- I think we had a really good batch this year.

It's that time again- Gingerbread house contest! I'm going to put all the photos at the bottom, so if you are here for that, just scroll all the way down.

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It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving break for us! And it's going to be a photos with captions kind of post. Here we go!

We celebrated the day with Marissa and Wesley's family at our house. Food, conversation, and games. Pretty chill day.

Well...mostly chill. This is that time that Evelyn unexpectedly threw a pie in Addy's face. That happened.

And this is when we went to Higgin's Point to watch the Eagles. Every year there are thousands of dead kokanee salmon that wash up on shore after spawning, attracting hundreds of bald eagles to the area for the feast. It can get pretty cool to watch.

Ev has always wanted to watch a sunrise over the lake. She gathered a group of her friends who she convinced to wake up early and go on a hike with her. 

This was the reward. We live in such a beautiful area.

First day of skiing!    ...ish
Silver was playing with our emotions all week. They were going to open! Nope. Yes! JK- No. Ye..No? The night before- a definite No. The morning of...It's a go! On the bunny hill. Just the bunny hill. But hey, it's sliding on snow. 

It's nice to be out again

The joys of helmet hair

And the joys of Silver Mountain Pizza

We actually made a whole day out of the skiing. Kellogg was doing a big tree lighting ceremony thing with fireworks, and then we went out to a nice dinner, and then up to watch a Warren Miller film with a big group of skiers, and Maren won some ski tickets in a raffle, and then we went to the Wallace House to spend the night. We all agreed that it was a really, really good day.

This was kind of a cool thing. Syringa (the office I work at) is building a new location and we had the ribbon cutting ceremony with the Chamber of Commerce and stuff. It's happening!

These were really big scissors.

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And now for the gingerbread houses! Please vote for your favorite. Put it in the comments of the blog or somewhere on social media where we'll see it. Or call us or text us. Anything really. We do this every year and it establishes bragging rights for the next 12 months. I think we have some really good options this year to choose from.

First, we have The Titanic. 

That's Jack and Rose. And a shark.

Next up: Travel-The-World Candy-Land, featuring Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower, the Pyramids of Giza, and Stonehenge

Next: The traditionalist and the only actual Gingerbread House, but pretty elaborate. Especially the roof with icicles.

And finally, we have Minecraft. This one is kind of conceptual, as there is a world that was built under the world on top, which I guess is a Minecraft thing?

So there you have it. Teams will be revealed next week after the votes are in. 

Have a good week!

Here's some things we've been up to lately. Also, we've had an extended fall season which is both good and bad- the weather is great and we've had several nice walks on the trail, visits at Arbor Crest, or short stays in Wallace. At the same time, a little snow would be nice so we could finally break out the ski stuff. Anyway- enjoy the photos!

Evelyn and Addy were in a band concert. Ev is always very visible in these since she is running all over stage doing different percussion things.

Addy is not quite as visible

We've seen some performances recently. This was a funny one called "Thanksgiving Play" at Stage Left. They always do a great job and this was no exception.

Rach hosted a Bunko night at our house

The five of us went to the tour of Moulin Rouge for a fun evening out

Maren always draws elephants. Here is her recent drawing called "opening day." Silver Mountain has their first day scheduled on the 28th, so we'll see how accurate this ends up being.

As a family, we've had a few projects in the works for a while now, and this week two of them finally came to fruition. First of all, there are these two:

"Macy's Employee" and "New Yorker" (Maren) standing next to another "New Yorker" and "Charlotte Dennon," the news anchor (Lindsey)

Elf Jr. is a one-hour musical that Maren and Lindsey both played parts in. They have worked SO HARD on this- giving up virtually every weekend for practices, and going mid-week for skill development. It's been kind of a fun journey. This weekend they did three full productions- every one of which was completely sold out. And they both did great. It was fun watching them.

The other project that we finished was the "reflection garden" that Rachel has been working on at the church. At least she was kind-of the quarterback on this one for a committee that also includes me and Ev and a bunch of other people. We were really hoping to get things started before the snow came, and on Saturday morning a bunch of people showed up and we got it done. Phase two will be in the spring, and I think it's going to be very nice.

This used to all be grass. We have some benches and planters that will be installed in the spring, along with more landscaping.

Celebrations all around. It's been a big month for us. The garden, the play, college acceptances, jazz concerts, and lots of beautiful fall weather. Have a good week!

Halloween gets differenter and differenter as we grow up. This year we all spent about an hour hanging out together downtown. Then Evelyn went off to two different parties and was home at 2:00 in the morning. Adalie, Jack, and Lindsey went to different neighborhoods with friends. Maren hosted her own party at our house (well...in our gym) where she was in and out all night. Rach and I sort of had the night to ourselves, where we sat in the living room and talked while handing out candy when the doorbell rang.

Evelyn and her friends were clowns

Addy, the sheet ghost

Jackson was an airplane. He conceived of this costume all on his own, and then made it out of cardboard boxes on Halloween night. It even has flashing red and blue lights on the wings.

Maren and her friends were "old people." A little offensive? But in a funny way, so it's all good? My favorite was when we were walking downtown and there was a person passing out candy next to a skeleton, and she pointed to the skeleton and said "How did my Ex end up down here with you?!" That got a lot of laughs. She has a quick wit.

Lindsey- forever and always the princess

Also, readers of the blog will likely notice that we have been staying pretty close to home lately. That's a little off-brand for us, but I have actually really enjoyed it. Maren and Lindsey are in a play and they have practice every weekend, but it's kind of nice to have that excuse to remove the pressure on myself (imposed by myself) to do other things. Life has been quiet, and that has been good.

The play is coming up this weekend and we are looking forward to seeing them both perform. They had a little "showcase" thing last night where Lindsey was in a Wizard of Oz skit (Munchkin), and Maren was in a vocal ensemble and had a solo part. It's fun to see them doing these things.

Quick little update:

For the last time ever, Ev played on the drumline at her high school. Drums have been a defining part of her life since elementary school when she joined a group of kids banging on plastic buckets. To be clear- it wasn't her last high school performance- just the last football game. Still. We'll miss hearing her cadences when we go to these.

The colors are amazing right now!

I posted this same picture last week, but it is worth noting that Maren is raking in over $100/week with her little earring stand. The manager over at Top This in CDA is so nice to be helping her with this.

This is terrifying. We have another driver in the family. Our car insurance premiums are approaching the cost of our home mortgage.

Maren had a little visit at the ER. All is well, but she's a little banged up after falling on a skateboard at nearly 30mph. Dr: "Do you have any questions?" Maren: "Yes. Has anyone ever died in the bed that I'm laying in?"  Dr: "...  ..."

That might be all for this week. The weather really is beautiful in the fall, and we've loved going on little walks in the mountains around here. Tonight is Halloween and some of our kids are dressing in costume so I'll post those photos next week. 

Have a good week!