Christmas 2009

Wow! What a holiday season! I really meant to post this sooner but I kept thinking about little things that made this such a great year that I would possibly have missed if I had rushed into this.



Every year I can't wait to start decorating to really start the holiday season and of course, the first thing to go up is the Cougar Christmas Tree in our "Cougar" room. Isn't is lovely? At last count, I had 162 Cougar ornaments and this year I used no filler ornaments to make the tree look more complete. I really love this tree but the photos really don't do it justice. These photos do show two of my homemade gifts this year though. The two ornaments with baby photos of my boys in them were made with much love for me by my husband and if you look closely, there is a knitted garland on the bottom of the tree. It is not properly placed because that needs to be done before the ornaments are put on which will be the case next year. My wonderful son Kale made that for me along with a Cougar house key and a hand painted wooden Cougar ornament for the tree.



Once I had the Cougar Tree in place, the holiday season was underway. I hung the garland above the living room, got out the Dickens Village and candle collection. This year they were placed a little differently, not my best effort, but still beautiful and festive to be sure. The last thing to be done was the main Christmas tree. With all of us involved in making gifts this year it became a very difficult thing to get us all together to go get that tree. So, I ended up going with just Kale to the tree farm and lo and behold, we ended up with one of the most beautiful trees for our living room that we have ever had. I feel bad that it had a tag on it meaning, I think, that someone else had picked it out to come back and cut but it was so late in the season I choose to believe the did not come back and it was meant for our living room. I had a lot of fun with my son and the tree went up without a hitch! I was sad that it was just the two of us who decorated it though. Hal had to work and Dad was working on his gifts. And, of course, when all was said and done, Kale won the award for the best placed ornament, again!



But for one day at Bellevue Square all of us were able to avoid any shopping at a mall. My husband and I did have to do some shopping for other relatives but only one day and it became quite comical after awhile, we just had to laugh. Suffice it to say, I don't like Bellevue much.



I was able to take the entire week leading up to Christmas off from work and so was my husband. This did help tremendously in reducing the stress of preparations for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both at our house. It also allowed me to complete my homemade gifts relatively stress free.



Christmas Eve was without a doubt the best it has been in a long time but I can't really figure out why? Was it the little one, great-nephew Haywood and all his wonder that made it special? Was it being able to provide a little help to our brother and his wife? No, I think it was just the comfort of us all being together. Christmas Eve has become so familiar for us and even though the house is small for a crowd of 18, it seemed it could hardly contain the contentment within us all. And, no one had to be pushed out of the driveway through snow when they left!



Christmas Day started slowly. Grandma and Grandpa don't get going so fast in the morning anymore so they weren't scheduled to be there until 10:30 am which meant we could all sleep in a little, a welcome relief. Of course, I had to get up at 7:30. It was Christmas! I shared the morning with the cat who immediately found his catnip cigar under the tree and proceeded to get high and crash! He seemed to love Christmas as much as I did and I believe eventually found the lap of everyone who visited.



Once Grandma and Grandpa arrived at 11:30 we poured the coffee and Bailey's and started the gifts exchanges. With what we thought were fewer gifts, it shouldn't have taken long but each homemade gift was so fun and unique that it took us all a long time to look at each one. I have already referenced the garland and ornament given to me by my oldest son. Then my youngest gave me a stained glass box with silver trim and WSU on the top. My husband gave me the aforementioned ornaments and a CD that he had made from an old reel to reel audio tape of my performance as Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel in highschool, complete with CD cover carrying my name and photos he dug up from who knows where.

The boys gave each other compilations of their travel together this past summer. Kale to Hal, a canvas collage of photos, tickets, and a map of their journey from England to Romania, Italy and Spain. It was so artfully done and took us all a long time to take it in. Hal to Kale, a DVD complete with photos, music, videos taken en route and text. We only go to watch it twice that day. I want to see much more of it!

My gifts were not so much physically made by me but I put together the materials to have them made. I did make Cougar fleece blankets for everyone and they were a big hit. They are very snuggly and warm. I made them during my lunch hours at work, thanks to the help of a coworker who showed me how. I think the big hit was the individual calendars I made for both boys, my husband and even my in laws. They were alot of fun. I also had professional looking books of my mom's Easter story "The Painted Bunny" made for the boys.

A wine rack was Hal's gift to his dad. It was incredibly well done and will fit in well in our house, we just need to figure out exactly where. I know he worked a very long time on it and had the help of a very good friend to do it. Kale made a very professional looking guitar stand for his dad which will hold up to 5 instruments and this will help him keep track of all of them and they will no longer need to be scattered all over the house.

Unfortunately, I don't have good photos of the rest of the gifts that Dad made. He made a hollowed out book to hide things in, a "Cups" game, and two skim boards for the boys that are just like they had when they were little. And, we made homemade Blackberry Liqueor from blackberries from our yard which turned out yummy!

Christmas Day was made even more special because Auntie Neva came to dinner. This is Grandpa's sister and she has not spent Christmas with the Iversons ever since I can remember. She sadly recently lost her husband and I was thrilled when she called and asked if she could be part of the Iverson Christmas again. I had a great photo of her and her brother and had it framed for each of them. She teared up when she got it so I am assuming it was well liked.

We never know how many more Christmases we have with Grandma and Grandpa and I was really thrilled that this was so special. While Christmas is over, the warmth of the love of two great families lives on all year long.

Thanks to all who are special in my life, you all know who you are.

San Antonio

I'm a week late in posting about this amazing trip but here goes. We took off from SeaTac early, 7:20 am and amazingly American Airlines was on time. What that meant was that we were treated to one of the most spectacular sunrise views of Mount Ranier. The pictures don't capture the awe of it all but it's the best I can do.

We stayed in a five star hotel, The Crowne Plaza with a great view and within walking distance of everywhere. We didn't get to go to the pool too much because we were so busy but the day we did, it was so windy that the lounge chairs were blowing into the pool right and left, a total of 4 ended up in the pool by the time we left. The hot tub was perfect though.

Although we had been to the Alamo before, we went again and it was still fun. We did not take the tour but they were giving discounted tours to all WSU fans wearing their colors, which of course we were. We walked around and found a Pat O"Brien's just across the street from the Alamo. This is a place we went to in New Orleans and had the best drink, a Hurricane, so we had to have one here. Needless to say, it entailed more than one. They had banners on their wall welcoming the Cougar Fans (yes, they also had ones welcoming the Notre Dame fans as well). We were going to go back and try to take one home but forgot.

The next day we found that there was a large German community about 25 miles north of San Antonio that was having a "Wurstfest" so we had to rent a car and head up there. We didn't want to spend a lot of money so decided to just rent a compact car, the cheapest we could get. But as it turned out, they were out of compacts so for just $10 more we got the only car they had available, a brand new, Volvo convertible sports car. It normally rents for three times what we paid. We were in heaven driving down the highway, top down, 75 degrees. Before we went to the Wurstfest we drove into the countryside to find a German town called Gruene and did some browsing there. Unfortunately, this caused us to miss the "biting of the Wurst" to kick of the festival but I guess you can't do everything. The festival was so much fun. We went into a hall that had the largest collection of beer bottles you can imagine. There was even a bottle of "Barry" beer. We ate, and drank (responsibly of course) and the overall favorite food was the Ham Hocks and Sauerkraut and of course, my favorite beer Spaten.

All this took us up to Game Day. There were a lot of Coug fans in San Antonio which was really great to see. It seemed like there were more than the Irish but obviously that was not the case. We did decide to attend the Texas Alumni Association pre-game rally and that turned out to be an excellent decision. For $30 each (it would have been $20 if we had pre-registered) we had unlimited access to all kinds of drinks among thousands of Cougar fans and believe me, we took advantage of it all! The WSU president, Elson Floyd was there and of course, so was Butch. We even met people my husband knew and were able to sit with them the whole time. Everything went well until I heard someone call our leader a Nazi Socialist and having had just enough to embolden me, it was on. Luckily, we were off to the game at that point.

While the game was a disappointment, although not unexpected, the trip was everything we wanted. What a great road trip.

Happy Halloween

It's not hard for anyone who knows me to figure out which one of these is mine. Check out the new profile photo. I don't care how bad the Cougar football team is this year, I still bleed Crimson!

We spent the day yesterday listening to the Cougars get manhandled by the speed and talent of the Cal Bears but at the same time we watched the Huskies get equally manhandled by Oregon so it was okay. While listening and watching we decided to carve our Halloween Pumpkins. I'm not creative in that regard but this time I had the idea factory better known as my son Kale and he suggested my design and drew it on the pumpkin, I am not artistic whatsoever so I really don't know where he got it. Anyway, the above is the result.

What I learned in the whole process is that traditions like carving pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds wasn't as much fun for my son as I expected it had been. Neither were many of the other traditions I thought I was passing along to my sons associated with other holidays. In my zealous pursuit of many holiday traditions it seems I instilled the opposite in him. I guess the lesson to be learned is that every individual wants to celebrate, or not celebrate, each holiday in their own way and who is to say what is right or wrong?

I will continue my love of the holidays which I think kicks off with Halloween. Maybe some of the joy of this time will rub off eventually.

Happy Halloween!

Love to all my friends

The annual girl's weekend on Anderson Island is in the books for 2009. Once again, we found our September weekend to be very good to us as far as weather goes. The nice thing is, it was sunny, warm in the sunshine but certainly not swimming weather. No need to expose our older bodies in bathing suits!

I was struck this time by how well a group of women who are for the most part very fundamentally different could put it all aside and just enjoy being together for a precious moment in time. Whether we are married, mothers, nature lovers, conservative or progressive, we are first and foremost, longtime friends. We can talk, laugh and reminisce without the troubles of today ruining the moment. Of course, the wine and food flowed unendingly as we sat in the sun, gazed into the fire or played card games. It's good to remember from whence we came and for a brief moment in time, be there again.

Love to all my friends.