More pics of my lovely machine.

Steve got me a Dyson last night. Over the holidays my vacuum rebelled and I was very blue as am a compulsive vacuumer. I am thrilled- it is so great. It is the DC17 model and I cannot believe how well it does.

My ticket to see the best movie of the year- Children of Men. It was awesome. You can join the e-community at thehumanprojectlives.org

My shiny new present. I love it.

Happy Holidays.

This Christmas Ham was our gift from Mason Meat Market. A fifteen pound beauty that was cooked with a spicy mustard and cracked pepper crust. Yummmmmm...

Auntie's Fruit Salad, a usual side dish made at our family affairs.

My Christmas gift.

Happy Anniversary Stephen and Luci. 2 years ago today Stephen proposed to Luci at Westlake Center in Seattle, Washington. I said yes and we are living happily ever after...

The kids are crafty. They made this gingerbread house while at day camp.

Lines of cars in line at the gas station, 10 cars wide and 8-10 cars long. People were filling all their cars plus any spare gas cans.

This sign is from the oil embargo but it rings true tonight. There is no gasoline in town. We went to a neighboring city with a COST CO and that was the only place we could find, due to the power outages. It was like a ghost town in the rest of the city with everything pitch black.

Down trees in Western Washington make travel difficult. Howling windstorms and heavy rains left at least four people dead and more than 1 million homes and businesses without power across Western Washington early Friday. School was closed for the kids today along with 54 others were closed to.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree
harvested from a nearby farm we have
an 8 foot Douglas Fir- it smells so good!
We are decorating the tree and "S_" is hanging
the new Santa Claus on the tree. Jeremy came over
and hung out and helped decorate. We had fun
picking out some new ornaments to go with
Candice Sloan's Tree Skirt, which we were the
happy recipients of last year. It is under our
tree with presents on it, alas, our camera is in
getting repaired. Our cell phone does not seem to
be able to capture it since it is dark. We will try though.

A jolly season it is. Our middle child plays the flute this evening in her first recital. She was fabulous and is so grown up. We are beaming with pride.

Last night I worked on recipes for organic spa products. Mm mm... they are yummy. There are orange zest bath salts, homemade soaps and honey body sugar.

Look at how much has accumulated in an hour on our deck railing.

As you can see we have more snow. It is for casted to keep on coming.

We all went to see Happy Feet yesterday. It was a great holiday family film. We had a blast at the toe tapper.

The corolla is snow covered.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It is 24 degrees with the wind chill factor. We have about 4 inches of snow. Brrrrr. It's chilly.

A tribute to Candy Sloan. In honor of Steve's mother, I planned a craft for the kids today. I believe if she were alive today she would be wanting to do crafts with her grandchildren. In honor of this, we did crafts with the kids on this 'day of thanks.' We made these cute "Candy" cane mice. The kids loved it. The product is very cute and I imagine some of you will be getting them in your packaging. Blessings to all.

A Thanksgiving toast to everyone from the Chef here- love ya, Luci.

Joy at our table. Champagne in our glasses and love in our hearts.

Our Thanksgiving cake...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! Our 20lb turkey turned out great.

I am busting my booty to get tons of Christmas gifts made. Lots of people from last year made requests for this year and so I am working hard on knits. I have some new techniques I am using so it is nice to see the different styles.

We have been Christmas Shopping for the last week. We went last night and got a whole car load for the kids. I love getting stuff for them. It is so exciting. Cazden is getting very excited abotu how close it is getting. We are happy to have all the kids this year plus Kenneth is coming. We are going to cut a tree down over Thanksgiving weekend. We are accumulating new ornaments this year to match Candice's Tree Skirt that was passed onto us last Christmas. We are very excited.

I am sure we are all well aware of the horrible injustices that occur in America each day. I encourage you to read this poignant book by Mara Leveritt. I further encourage you to visit the website to free the West Memphis Three: http://www.wm3.org/live/thewm3/index.php
There are also a series of Documentaries available from HBO films called Paradise Lost 1 & 2. They are available on Net Flix. I am sure that you are busy but try to make the time. These three boys have been sitting in prison for 13 years for a crime they did not commit. One is likely to die via lethal injection. This is a perfect example of the government violating rights. What kind of country do we live in where a developmentally disabled boy of 16 can be detained and questioned for 12 without council or a parent present. None of this was taped except the last 30 minutes of the conversation when the boy breaks down and says anything they want. It is RIDICULOUS! Please pass on the message.

More Flooding in the Snohomish Valley near our home.

At first look it may look like some die hard rail-fanners but in reality it is a group of people trying to figure out how they will get to the other side where their homes are.

This is after some of the flood waters have receded. Some of you had visited Steve at Cyrk will remember this area. It is across the street, past the park from Cyrk. For those of you who never visited there was one a river that winded through the area. In the summer it looked more like a creek. It is incredible.

This area has been evacuated and people have been told to move to higher ground.

Schools are closed here until further notice because so many roads are closed.

This is the valley about 3 miles from us. If you read the blog you may recognize this area as the place we went for picking pumpkins. It is not under water.

To give you an idea of how bad and wide spread the flooding is- this is a picture from Sea tac airport. Governor Christine Gregoire has declared a state of emergency for all of Western Washington and asked the President to call out the National guard.

Our house in not in the flood paths but some of my friends have been evacuated.

Our river is raging.

This is the park at the foot of the bridge on 203. Where the tree is in this picture is the park we take the kids to. It is completely under 8 feet of water.

This is a picture from Sultan, which is the next town east from Monroe, on Hwy. 2.

When you enter Monroe heading North from Snoqualmie Falls you take Highway 203. This is a view of Highway 203 this morning- which is closed. The bridge you can see in the distance is the bridge into Monroe. All the farms and homes have been evacuated.

Sand bag efforts. DOC has gotten involved and used minimum security prisoners to hamper flooding.

Snoqualmie Falls raging waters. North Bend and Carnation are flooded. The dam was topped early yesterday and all of the exess started flooding into towns. Sand bag crews are working feverishly but to no avail, because it is still pouring rain.

Our Pumpkins from the patch.

Harvest decorations.

Wonder Girl is overwhelmed with Middle School life. Homework, Flute practice, mandatory dress down for PE, Volleyball, No text messaging in class, Boys and Boys. Did I mention an abundance of boys.

Conspiring for the Big Win the Pink Panthers gather at time out.

Steve enjoying his birthday with friends and family. The Big 30!

Trying on Halloween hair today.