Holiday Season Phase 1

Thanksgiving is behind us and we’ve began the Christmas season with a bang!

Where to start? First, on tuesday night our dryer went POP POP POP ZZZZZZTTT POOF! Just like that. The heating element died. This caused much stress as we were already behind on laundry and badly needed socks and underwear washed for our trip to Gramma’s house. I called my neighbor and asked to dry the load I had just stuck in the dryer when it died it’s violent death and she said sure, and left the door to her house unlocked the next day so I could borrow her dryer the next day as well. So I spent Wednesday running back and forth with clothes in between answering tickets at work (we were swamped at work!) and got all the laundry done that we needed for our trip.

We got into Gramma’s house around 7:30 PM and had a wonderful homemade stew and rolls for dinner. I got some ribbing from Gramma (this is Jack’s gramma) because I forgot the bag that had our camera, and the kids’ school pictures. I felt bad.

Jack’s brother, sister-in-law, and nephew, dad, stepmom, and sister got in a bit later and we enjoyed a nice visit with them. We all stayed the night at Gramma’s house. Thursday morning we were treated to homemade cinnamon rolls, juice, and coffee for breakfast. More family arrived throughout the day including Jack’s uncle Mick who broke his leg a couple days prior. Poor guy! He had to have surgery the night before Thanksgiving where they put a plate and several screws in his leg.

The Thanksgiving meal was incredible with all Jack’s uncles, aunts, cousins sharing. One of Jack’s cousins announced her pregnancy so there was a lot of happy faces at that. It would be Jack’s uncle’s first grandchild.

Thursday night a bunch of us went for a walk. This is comical because when they mentioned a walk after a big meal, I figured a nice leisurely stroll. Casey and Melissa wanted to go, too. I had no idea they meant POWER WALK up every hill in The Dalles. If you aren’t familiar with The Dalles the neighborhoods are built on three levels of solid huge hills. I was thankful Casey went at this point so I could lag behind with him. I would’ve been ok had it not been for wearing Birkenstock clogs… they are great for daily walking and all, but not power walking! Going down hill on the way back was challenging as my shoes wanted to fly off my feet going down the steep hills. My shins still feel like they’ve been kicked!

We left about noon’ish on Friday and dropped the kids off at home for Kevin to babysit while Jack and I braved the crowds in search for a new dryer. One of Jack’s uncles just happened to have a Consumer Reports guide so we had the benefit of researching good dryer’s in that during Thanksgiving so we already knew what we wanted. We settled on a Kenmore Elite super capacity. We also decided to replace our washing machine as the one in our house is old and came with the house and has already given us some problems. Might as well replace both while we can. We got a Kenmore Elite front loader. It’ll be delivered on Wednesday. I can’t wait! It will save us a lot of money in water. (It uses 14 gallons for a full load while a normal top loader uses an average of 43 gallons per load!)

Friday night Cathy and Brian came by for a short visit. Then they headed off to another friend’s. They came back later that night and spent the night and we had another short visit Saturday Morning.

Saturday was spent running to the Sears warehouse to pick up the new dryer. (I didn’t want to wait for it to be delivered. I needed to do laundry NOW and can’t even wait for the new washer to arrive, lol). When we got home we found out why the old dryer blew up. It was wired all weird and one of the wires was held together with electrical tape. It was all wrong! I’m surprised it lasted the 2.5 years we lived in this house, so I guess I should be thankful.

We found we needed a whole new venting system, however, so off to Lowe’s to pick up the parts for that. Once we finally got it installed, we did several loads of laundry. What a relief! Laundry in this house piles up phenomenally fast! Saturday night was spent cleaning and rearranging the living room to make room for our Christmas tree we knew we’d be getting the next day.

Sunday Ralph and Denise arrived early to help with putting the lights on our house, as they do every year, bless their hearts. I also invited my brother over to help and I wanted both James and Ralph there because Jack and I were going to look at a pickup truck that was for sale near our house. Jack has been wanting one SO bad. We do need one with all the yard work and hauling we need to do. Nothing fancy, just a good old truck that can haul stuff around when needed.

Ralph and James test drove it and gave it a once-over. Jack and I marvled at these two. Both truck experts with their hands in, under, and around the truck. They were like two peas in a pod sniffing fluids, etc. Jack and I giggled a few times. It’s good to have friends/family who know these things, as neither of us have a clue. We’ll stick to computers.

After Ralph and James gave it their seal of approval, Jack got his Christmas present early from me. A new black 1984 Ford F-150 King Cab pickup truck with a tool box on the back, a CD player (a nice one) that came with it and a few other goodies. It’s not pretty to look at. In fact it’s held together by duct tape in places, but it’s a good beater Truck and Jack couldn’t be happier.

Ralph drove our van with half the kids (my brother’s 3) while Jack and I piled a few more in the back of the king cab in the truck. Car seats fit! We took the new truck to the Tree Farm where we picked out a beautiful big Noble Fir tree. Ralph and Denise picked out a gorgeous Grand Fir and we each got a wreath/swag for our doors. It was nice to haul both trees in our new truck!

The rest of Saturday was spent putting a gazillion lights on the house. In previous years, we’ve lined the roof with purple lights, but with the big dark roof, it wasn’t very bright and I always hated the big dark patch on the roof with nothing there. We did try putting up a train that we bought last year but the wind blew it down. So this year we went with white and Ralph had the idea that he could take left over lights and make a star pattern on the big dark spot on the roof. So he set out to do that while Denise and I did our annual Wal*Mart run for picking up last minute lights/extras.

When we got home, the “star” looked like a spaceship. Denise thought it looked like a paper airplane. Ralph said it was OK if I didn’t like it. I didn’t. Ralph looked disappointed and I felt bad because I’m sure it was NOT easy especially since it was getting dark, it was incredibly cold, and it was even getting icy on the roof. The roof is long and narrow so making a good star would be hard based on that alone! But he turned it off and said we’ll think of something next time. A while later, our neighbors across the street (the crazy ones) came outside and asked where the spaceship went. At least I wasn’t the only one who thought it looked like a spaceship! lol (Sorry Ralphie!) For what it’s worth, in the daylight when it’s turned off, it does look like a star!

In the end we decided with the new white lights, we don’t need anthing in the dark spot on the roof. The white lights are plenty.

We’re not done with the lights though. We still have several items to put up including lights around the kids’ bedroom windows. But that will have to wait till this weekend when we have daylight hours to burn.

Sunday night Jack and James got the tree put up. There’s nothing on it yet, as we were all too tired to do much more. Besides, out of the gazillion lights we have, apparently we don’t have any decent WORKING strands of multi-colored lights anymore. So I’ll have to … buy MORE lights … today for the tree.

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