Thanksgiving 2015–Big Sky

After Bill finished work on Wednesday, we loaded up the car and made the trek to Big Sky (about 7 hours). We arrived super late on Wednesday (actually thursday morning).

Thanksgiving morning  – the kids were up and ready to ski!

Bill getting the helmets on JUST RIGHT.

Blue skies!!!

Love this clan! So thankful for them!

can’t get enough of this line up.

watching these kids ski again this year has been great. Charlie is really taking off and starting to carve and make parallel turns. Claire is fearless and skiing fast and keeping us moving quickly down the mountain. Ellie has been the biggest surprise as she has decided to show off her stubborn spirit and turn on the “fearful” attitude and fight us tooth and nail. I think one run got her a bit discouraged as she saw claire and charlie flying down the mountain and she gave up. She continued to fight us a lot when going down the steep runs – despite the fact that she could easily do it if she wanted to. At one point – Bill said to ellie – if you ski down this run without crying or stopping you can get poles at the bottom. She perked up and said “right away?” “ok dad – I’ll prove it to you”!  This is so Ellie – she just got up and easily skied down the run she was fighting seconds earlier. Got her poles and was happy. We still have a ways to go from her thinking too much and feeling discouraged or telling herself negative self talk, but we believe in her and know she can do it. Now we just need to convince/force her to continue. Let the stubborn games begin. I believe Ellie received the stubbornness from both Bill and me – quite a dangerous combo. Thankfully this trait will serve her well if we can channel it. We love you and your determined spirit Ellie (polka dot one).

My mom is SO on top of things – we skied all day and she had things prepped so the Brunswicks could arrive at the house a few hours early and start the ovens. We showed up post skiing, cleaned up and BAM dinner was almost on the table!

Me and Lucy (Brunswick) with my kids favorite sweet potatoes.

The Weas family joined us as well.

Barb Weas, Betsy Brunswick and Lucy, my mom and me.

My dad, Buzz Weas and Tommy.

Paul Brunswick manning the turkey.

Claire

lily – wishing for turkey!

ellie, lucy and claire. the kids loved having lucy around!

dinner table all ready.

kids table.

more wishing from lily and miki.

We had an amazing dinner and a sad Packer loss, but what a fun Thanksgiving it was!

Some more photos from our weekend in Big Sky.

g pops and ellie.

Claire having an eggnog drink.

So VERY thankful this Thanksgiving!

First snow of 2015

November 24th was our first snow of the season! the kids were thrilled!

charlie and claire were writing what they thought were funny things the other day – had to remember it. Bugrnoose (boogernose), underwear, nostrils – hilarious words. ha!

our big tree just hanging out until they can remove it.

Windstorm of 2015

Last week – a MASSIVE windstorm hit Spokane. There were winds report up to 90MPH. The first I heard about it was Tuesday around 1:30. I left from Training Ground and drove out to get Charlie from school. By the time I did drop off and got home the winds were insane! I called Bill a ton and he wasn’t concerned and said he needed to finish clinic and do his rounds – even though the city was warning people to leave work early.

There are videos all over of people picking up their kids from school and having massive pine trees fall and snap power lines. It was crazy. Our power went out at 4pm on Tuesday night while I was making dinner and at that moment I was very thankful for a gas stove so I could finish the dinner by iphone light. I didn’t have a ton of lights so put candles around and made sure the kids didn’t burn the house down.

Bill arrived home around 6:45pm and came home with reports of it being a warzone with trees down all over and blocking many of the streets he was trying to use to get home. (We are beyond thankful that he was safe while driving home because we heard/know of people who had their cars crushed while driving).

The night was crazy and when we woke up – brushed my teeth in the cold and glanced out my window to see a tree REALLY close to my house. I headed outside with Bill and found our neighbors outside checking the same thing out. It was their tree that had ALMOST fallen on our house. It is crazy this tree didn’t crash directly through our roof. 

our mornings and nights were lit by candles.

the tree really close to my bathroom window.

view from our neighbor’s driveway.

there wasn’t school for the rest of the week as most of the city was without power. So the kids and I spent a ton of time over the next 3 days at various friends’ houses (who had power). Here I am at Dickerhoofs getting the info to our home insurance company to basically force them to pay for the crane to remove the tree. 

Brittan took some photos of the kids playing.

on Friday we officially broke down and stayed at Dickerhoofs – it was too cold at home. I got a text from our neighbors in the middle of the night that our power came back on!! So saturday morning we returned to heat and power! So thankful for our friends who saved us. Saturday we worked on getting a crane to come and remove that tree.

that doesn’t look cheap does it!??! Thankfully – we found a pretty reasonable company and insurance covered everything over our $1k deductible (which we split with our neighbor since it was their tree).

thankful it is down and waiting to be chopped up. We also had the good fortune of hosting our friends – the Hubbells (without the kids since they went to her parents) while they didn’t have power until Wednesday! Feeling very thankful this Thanksgiving for God’s protection!

E&C Preschool Photos

Ms Mary’s Preschool doesn’t do traditional school photos. Instead she has a local photographer – Randi – come and take photos.

I loved how this years photos turned out!

Claire

this is so claire! love her!

thankful she snapped the girls together too! they are so precious!

Ellie was in a bit of a chipmunk mood with her lip.

she cracks me up!

love this look – I get it a lot!