Desert Bus and Other Holiday Activities

Once a year, our favorite Canadian comedy troupe holds a fundraiser for Child's Play charity. (If you are unfamiliar with Child's Play, their page can be found here.) The troupe: Loading Ready Run. The fundraiser: Desert Bus for Hope. It boils down to a week-long telethon where the crew and friends auction off fun stuff (including fan-submitted art and craft projects), sing songs and dance, take phone calls from "internet people" and other geek celebrities, and just have a good time. This year, they raised nearly $400,000 over six days, which is really impressive considering five years ago when they started they were hoping to come out with a few thousand dollars.

We caught a fair amount of it this year. It's one of those things one can turn on and leave running in the background. Our attention did perk up whenever they had a live auction or did a song-and-dance number. We were amazed to see some of the craft items sold for three or four thousand dollars. It was great to see the good will of so many people. Which brings me to my thesis: The best part of Desert Bus is the community they build. Naomi and I felt like we could crawl through the screen, find some space on the couch, and hang out with these people. It's hard to say that about a lot of folks.

Anyways, I think Naomi pretty well covered Thanksgiving weekend. All I have to say is I didn't think there would be many folks at Jo-Ann Fabric on Friday morning. The siren call of inexpensive fabric and cheap picture frames drew in quite the crowd though.

We went to the Decagon Family Christmas party on Thursday. There were nearly three hundred people in attendance, with one hundred employees and their families. Understand that most parties at Decagon are just a pretense for dessert contests. Yes, the prime rib, tenderloin, and ham were great, but the real party is in the selection of over a hundred kinds of pie, cake, cookie, torte, trifle, and brownie. A perennial favorite are Uncle Russ's jalapeño brownies.

Baby Peri certainly had a good time. She got to see all the great people at work who ask me about her two or three times a day. She got to wear her sparkly Christmas dress (which I guess is a thing little girls get to do) and she got to sit with Santa (who used to deliver my mail when I lived on Gaines Rd.) Santa's photography elves haven't gotten their shots back to us, but Peri sure did look cute.

We bought her a Bumbo chair and a jungle play set so as to better facilitate her "hanging out" with us. Now Peri can sit at the table with us when we do crafts, like making ornaments as a family.

Thanksgiving Madness!!!

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Spokane with my family. It was rather larger than normal, with 13 people all crammed into my Aunt Barbara's living room. It was a tight squeeze but we managed, and we had a nice time!

Gary was introduced to our family's favorite Thanksgiving pastime: looking at Black Friday ads. This is a big deal in my family, as most of our Christmas gifts are bought on Black Friday. We also get Christmas money from our Uncle David to spend during the sales if we want. Now that I'm married, I get more money, but I have to share it with my family. *Sigh* :D

 Anyways, we all spend time looking at the ads, and then we write down what we want, where it is, how much, and when the sale starts, and Barbara goes through them all and hands out assignments and money to whoever is going shopping in  the morning.  My sister Sarah and I woke up at 2:30am to go shopping at JC Penny's, which was pretty laid back as far as Black Friday goes,because most people think it opens at 4am instead of 3am. So lucky us. Poor Aunt Barb started shopping at midnight and didn't get done until 9am! She didn't have as much help as she usually does because people are either getting old and boring (or they just like their sleep or something) or they had to work.

Later in the day after we went back to collect Gary and Peri, we went to Jo Ann's at 6am. we waited in line for 2 hours to get fabric cut. It was pretty horrible, but we found ways to  make  the time go. I'm sure the other people in line wished we would be quiet  though! Anyway, it was a lot of fun, we got most everything we wanted to get, and we had a lot of quality shopping/bonding time.

Peri also got to spend a lot of time with her Oma, many aunts and uncles, and also her cousins, who are very jazzed now that Peri is awake and happy to be played with. Jeilyn, who is 6 years older than Peri, is especially doting; she loves to coo at Peri and entertain her with toys.  Jeilyn's brother, who is 3 years older than Peri, loves to stroke her hair and steal her toys. Most of the time Peri doesn't mind.

I would have pictures of the whole fandango, but we forgot our camera. We did take family pictures though, since Thanksgiving is the only time everyone in my family is present. This year Peri and Gary got to be in it! So I'll post that as soon as I get it from my aunt.

We had a lovely time, and we're looking forward to going to see Grandma for Christmas this year!

It's Cold!

Just wanted to run a quick update and say how cold it's getting. We've been taking advantage of the fireplace in our living room and the stack of wood out in our carport. We've been spending a lot more time just being cozy in the living room. Yesterday I came home with the window shrink wrap kit and now we are in a nice, warm and cozy little place.

It started to sort-of snow the other day, and it was forecast to continue through the weekend. I'm so glad for the sunshine though. Hopefully that persists for a while.

Peri is starting to get cranky more often nowadays, and the only solution we can come up with is to pick her up and walk around the house with her. She likes it when I take her over to the mirror in the hall so she can look at herself.

Pumpkin Carving!

Here are a few more pictures of our Halloween fun!

Gary working on Peri's pumpkin

Peri was very interested in Gary's pumpkin. She kept reaching out to touch it.

My pumpkin! He's a little goofy looking.

Gary's pumpkin.

Peri's pumpkin.