A Seven Valleys Christmas

The Blums visited us for Christmas. It has become something of a tradition for our families... we visit them for Thanksgiving, and they visit us for Christmas. It is a good way to ensure that we get a chance to catch up with each others lives at least yearly. It's easy to lose contact with friends across state lines - even friends on the other side of town.

The boys love Lily so much - she is such a great playmate for them - she has no trouble at all keeping up with them.

We hosted Christmas/Hannukah dinner at our house. The Coburns, Sass, and Margaret came to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with us. This was my first dinner - and boy, was I naiive about the amount of work involved in pulling off such a meal. Thank you everyone who helped for all your hard work to make what ended up being a very delicious meal. Cherie makes the Thanksgiving meal look so effortless, that I thought that I could do that too; I quickly realized that I was in over my head. There were at least three people in the kitchen at all times working non-stop until the meal was complete. This was not what I had visualized before hand, but it did end up very delicious despite my lack of organization. Cherie was gracious enough to give me a couple smart tips, and I hope to do much better next year. I look forward to the challenge. Josh and Cherie made homemade Potato Latkes, then shared with everyone the tradition of lighting the Menorah and both said the Jewish prayer in Hebrew.

A Walk to the Christmas Tree Farm

One thing I've been waiting for since we first saw our new home is getting this year's Christmas tree from our new neighbors down the road. We were able to hop on the garden tractor and drive over the one-lane bridge to Irene and Wayne's with the boys riding in the cart. Sadie the cat followed right behind. John brought along our chainsaw so he could finally use it, but unfortunately, when we found the perfect Fraser fir, he couldn't get it to start up. Luckily, a friendly family offered their hand saw to us so we could take home a tree.

Once we got the tree home, John was able to get the chainsaw working, so he was able to use it to trim some of the lower branches. Mom and the boys decorated the tree while John worked away at sanding the dining room floor.

Tile Removal in Dining Room

Two days after we began our dining room tile removal work, we realized that the tiles were most likely made with asbestos so we needed to remove them in a very specific way to avoid possible future health issues. John was able to finish the job of removing the tiles, then he sanded the dining room and bathroom floors. He worked really hard and did a great job.

Let It Snow

Yippee! It snowed about 3 inches! John was so happy to get to finally use the tractor to plow snow. He plowed our driveway, parking area, and our neighbor's driveway. He was surprised at how quickly he was able to clear it all out.

Jake got to stay home from school on Friday - he and Asa played outside for a good part of the day. The best part of playing in the snow for the boys was getting a mug of hot chocolate when they came inside.

December Project

We are working at removing the very old, yet still incredibly sticky linoleum from the dining room floor. It's turning out to be much more difficult than we had expected. It's been on there for so long that I assumed that the glue wouldn't be so intact - but it is! Once the linoleum is up, we plan to sand and paint the hardwoods. Hopefully in time for Christmas dinner.

Sadie was very interested in our work. She sat quietly most of the time - just watching us.

End of the first day's work.