Winter 2007

Sinterklaas, December

On December 5^th Mom made a dinner of waffles with fruit and whipped cream. After dinner was done, there was a knock at the door. Sofia knew immediately who it was and ran to the door crying, "It's Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet!" On the doorstep was a big, lumpy burlap bag. As we brought it in, Sofia was so excited that she couldn't let go of it. Out of the bag everyone received a gift (Sofia got a few more), some candy, and a chocolate letter. We all received poems, too, that we had written to each other (it's another Sinterklaas tradition), and we read them out loud. I had procrastinated until the last moment to write mine, but I still made Mom cry. That's poetry skill!

Trumpet Concerts, December

On December 5th, five classmates and I, making up a brass sextet, played Christmas tunes in a Kirkland Starbucks for an hour [left]. I had a lot of fans there—Mom, Dad, Jan, Sofia, and even Joseph and his family came. There were lots of regular Starbucks customers, too. It was fun to do a real gig.

On December 12th we had our quarterly band concert at school. I especially liked this concert because the Wind Ensemble, the large ninth-grade band, played selections from the Broadway musical "Wicked." I had liked the music since we began working on it in September, and then I was able to see the show when it came to Seattle in November, so it was really cool to perform it.

Downtown Seattle, December

On Sunday, December 24^th, the family drove to downtown Seattle to see the Christmas sights. Mom, Jolien and Sofia rode the Christmas carousel. I waited with the stroller and took pictures. I was relieved that this year Sofia was good and didn’t scream, like last year, when it was time to get off.

It started to rain, but we walked to City Centre [right] to see the fancy gingerbread houses. There were gingerbread tree stumps full of animals, gingerbread skyscrapers, a gingerbread Pike Place Market, and even a gingerbread city in a "snow globe". It made my mouth water to see so much candy in one place, but we figured it had probably been pretty well handled after sitting out on display for so long.

Then we walked to Westlake Center and Mom, Sofia, Jolien, and I rode the Monorail to the Seattle Center. (Jan stayed behind so we wouldn’t have to pay for a round trip; he brought the car later.) We went to the Center House and watched the model trains go around the winter village. Sofia really liked that. Then we got hot chocolate and went outside to watch the Center fountain. It was raining and cold, but the fountain was exploding with noisy canon bursts of water that even scared Sofia once or twice. It was a great way to spend Christmas Eve day.

Christmas Eve, December

For Christmas Eve we went to Grandpa’s house. As usual, the adults stood around and talked before dinner, and the kids watched movies upstairs. Dinner was a big feast of salmon, ham, potatoes, beans, salad, and more, with lots of Christmas cookies for dessert.

Next came the Christmas Eve entertainment. Jenny and Erika Feutz sang some Christmas songs and played the piano. (Fortunately, no one had warned me, so I hadn't brought my trumpet.) While the girls were performing, Sofia stood up and started dancing with them, which was really funny.

Finally it was time for gifts. Grandpa gave me three trumpet CDs (I especially like the Harry James), and I got an iTunes gift card from the Feutz family and Eragon from the Buckinghams. As always, gift opening on Christmas Eve was noisy and chaotic, as everyone traditionally rips through their packages at the same time, but I like it that way. The best part of Christmas Eve over there is the traditional "wrapping paper wad" war, in which paper, bows, and sometimes presents, are thrown across the room until Grandma Bonnie gets mad.

Sofia didn't sleep on the car ride home, even though it was late. I couldn't blame her; I had trouble getting to sleep, too.

Christmas Day, December

On Christmas Day, Mom woke me at 8:00—I couldn't believe I slept that long and didn't wake up at 5:00! Then we woke up Sofia [right], who ran around excitedly upstairs until I reminded her that Santa had left presents downstairs. From the top of the stairs, she spied her first gift in the foyer, a trampoline just her size. She scrambled down the stairs and began jumping immediately.

Then we all went to the family room and unpacked our stockings. I got some candy and other food stuffs, a couple of cool handheld games, a Covert Clicker (it can change the TV channel without anyone knowing, hehehe), and a GoStero portable MP3 speaker. I also opened my Santa gift, a game called "Fact or Crap," which is pretty fun.

Then Grandma Joanie arrived, and the next couple hours were filled with flying paper and ribbon, although we took turns to open our gifts. Mom really liked the four bottles of hand soap I gave her, Jolien liked her four containers of cake frosting, Jan liked his Mensa Puzzlers book, and Sofia liked the miniature Disney princess dolls (mom picked those out). So I felt successful. As for me, my favorite gifts were three-year subscriptions to Road & Track and Car & Driver from Jan [left] and a Skagen watch (I'd chosen the style) from Mom. At noon, we all sat down in the dining room for brunch. French toast, ham, eggs, fruit salad—it was really good. Then Mom, Grandma, and Sofia drove me to Dad's house.

I spent the afternoon at Dad's opening gifts again. (Yes, I'm spoiled.) Best of all was an iPod, which I spent the next few days filling with music and DVDs. Dad liked the remote control Ford truck I gave him, and Suzy liked her slippers. We had a big Christmas roast beef dinner.

It was a really good Christmas.

Snow!, January

The night of Wednesday, January 10th Western Washington was hit with a big snowstorm. We had so much snow [right] that school was closed Thursday and Friday, and since we had Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I had an unexpected five-day holiday. Then, just as everyone was ready to go back to school and work, it snowed again that Monday night, so we had Tuesday the 16th off from school, too, making an unprecedented six-day snow vacation!

The first few days were great for school kids. I got outside in the snow every day and had a blast. The last couple days the whole snow thing got a bit old, but it was still fun to miss school. However, with school closed because of snow in November and the windstorm in early December, we've now missed so many days of school that we'll probably be going to classes into July. That won't be so cool!

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