December was a fun and festive whirlwind! We had a wonderful Christmas and a great month! The month started out bizarrely warm and then got snowy and BITTER cold. The first day of December was 62 degrees. Tyler and I went walking and literally got so hot. It was weird. Light the World started on December 1st. I love giving back in some way each day of December. I am hoping to extend that on into 2022. We also got the best IKEA Advent calendars this year! Such good chocolate! I highly recommend. My friend Naomi generously gifted us with a virtual Advent Calendar by Jacquie Lawson. They are AMAZING! We absolutely love them. The artwork and graphics are fantastic!! I also highly recommend them! It was fun to begin the month counting down to Christmas in various ways.
Since our house had been decorated and our trees up since early November it was nice not to have to hustle and bustle around doing all of that in December and we just got to enjoy the Christmas ambience. Around December 4th the snow and cold kicked in and it never stopped. We had a white Christmas and beyond. It's too snowy for me. We had more snow than Kameron had in Minnesota!
We enjoyed a month's worth of Christmas movies including watching Hallmark Christmas movies...one of our new Christmas activities from last year. Despite COVID's continued obnoxious presence, life with all of its activities and obligations are back so we didn't get to watch *quite* as many movies as last year. LOL. Our favorites this year were the Hanukkah Hallmark Holiday movie (last year's was one of our favorites too!) and this Christmas movie that was on Netflix.
I mean come on! Cary Elwes and Brooke Shields. Filmed in Scotland with the crew that films Outlander! Perfection. But I repeat...if you aren't watching the Hallmark Hanukkah movies you are missing out! They give me such nostalgia for Kansas City and many of my high school friends' family celebrations. I really love them.
One of my favorite Spokane Christmas traditions returned after COVID. It is a fundraiser for the Spokane Symphony and is called Christmas Tree Elegance. It's held at the Davenport Hotel which is Spokane's fanciest historic hotel. Christmas trees are decorated in various themes and with expensive prizes. Some have trips and some have large cash prizes. You can buy raffle tickets for $1 and vote for your favorites. Then after the week long event is over a ticket picked for each tree and someone wins it and all of the prizes that go with it. We have never won yet but we love trying! We buy a lot of tickets. LOL. Our kids love this!
The gorgeous Davenport Hotel Tree!
This year Ailey had to work so Tyler, Bryn, and I went. We had a fancy festive fun night downtown. It felt good to be back! We looked at all of the beautiful trees, voted for our favorites, and had dinner by the fireside at the Davenport. This was one of my mom's favorite things to do too.
Tyler and I set aside time this month for the two of us to do our Christmas shopping. We decided to make it fun this year and not just drudgery. If there is anything that gets me OUT of the Christmas spirit it is Christmas shopping so I am glad that we succeeded in making it fun this year! We went out for brunch, dinners, and lunches. We looked at snowy lakes and Christmas lights. We tried all kinds of hot chocolate to find the best one in our area. It's Wake Up Call's double hot chocolate if you must know! Steamed chocolate milk with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Amazing.
We also put on our spikes and did ALOT of snowy winter walks to find some peace in the craziness and hectic-ness of the season.
On one of our walks we had to dodge a very large MOOSE!
Ailey had a very exciting month! She was accepted to the college of her choice. Ailey got her acceptance email on my Mom's birthday to a college that my mom was once a professor at. This is the first of her grandchildren to be accepted to college. (Kam's mission president is taking his sweet time doing Kam's ecclesiastical endorsement so we are sweating bullets about him getting into the college of his choice!) The timing was very special and my mom would have been (and I believe still is) her biggest cheerleader.
Ailey was also super busy with dance team. She planned and hosted a "Dance Camp" for elementary age kids that turned out great! Dance Competitions started up again. Our high school was the host school for the first one so Tyler and I were busy parent volunteers. This year we were the door monitors. It is a very serious job and only for the most seasoned parents. (I'm not joking!) No one can enter/leave the gym once a performance starts. They can only enter/leave after the performance is over and we open the doors! Reilly took this pic of us dutifully doing our job! LOL
Ailey did FANTASTIC! Not only did she perform AND do a one-handed cartwheel but she also sang the dang national anthem with two other girls! Don't underestimate Ailey Johnson!! That girl can do anything!
We are living it up since our many years of being dance parents will come to an end in a few months. Bryn informed us that she has absolutely NO desire to follow in Reilly and Ailey's foot steps and be on the dance team. Ha ha! Oh well.
Ailey had a cool field trip to WSU for her ProStart class. She loved it!
Ailey with her good friends Sienna and Abbi.
Ailey also had her high school's much anticipated Winter Concert. Band, choir, and orchestra all performed. This was the event that Ailey had to wait in line for hours to get tickets for us! It was also streamed online. My dad and my mother-in-law were able to watch the concert which was fun for them.
We saw Kam's high school girlfriend, Abbey, at the concert and that was pure joy! We love her and we haven't seen her since we all dropped Kam off at the airport. She was home from college and at the concert with friends. It was so nice to see her and to give her a BIG hug!!
The concert was fantastic! Ailey did an excellent job! All of her events are getting so darn bittersweet. Senior year is rough on parents but not for the actual seniors.
Ailey ditched us after the concert to go out with her friends. So we went to ice cream without her. Ha ha! We barely saw her this month unless we went to her activities because she was so busy with work, friends, and Christmas parties. That's the way it goes I guess.
Bryn was almost just as busy. She had her first orchestra concert. That was really exciting! We've never had a kid in orchestra before so it is a fun new thing for us. She looked so grown up in her long black dress and Ailey did her make-up for the special occasion.
We celebrated her musical triumph at Baskin Robbins!
Bryn also had multiple Christmas parties: YW Light the World Pajama Party, a white elephant gift exchange party, and a piano party. This year instead of a Christmas recital her piano teacher opted for a piano party. Less people I guess. They played their Christmas pieces for each other, played games, and ate treats. I kind of missed the recital but appreciated an extra free night in December.
She also had the worst two weeks leading up to Christmas break at school. There were all kinds of threats made toward her school. There were threats made to area high schools too but most were made toward local middle schools and hers in particular. This was in addition to that national TIK TOK threat. Every morning as we dropped her off we saw police at her school. One day the threats were so bad that we opted to keep her home from school. It's sickening.
On a lighter note...Last month ended with Kameron joining a trio in Albert Lea, MN for two weeks while he waited to find out where he was going at the next transfer. He got transferred back to Fairmont and his little branch. He was happy with that. This time he got a companion that he really enjoys. They work hard and have fun! The very best combination.
We did have quite a scare with him though. On the night of Ailey's concert, Reilly called me and asked me if I was seeing what was happening with the weather in Fairmont. Uh...no. I was trying to get all of us fed and out the door. They were under an "unprecedented" Winter Tornado Warning. (This was a week after that massive tornado ripped through Kentucky killing 76 people.)
I went to high school in Kansas City and I know about tornados. I don't love that Kameron is on the border of Iowa and now in tornado alley. I have talked to him until I am blue in the face about taking tornado watches and warnings seriously. I have *demanded* that if he EVER hears tornado sirens that he doesn't dink around wondering if it is real and that he just gets his butt immediately to safety. I have made him walk me around his house via video chat and show me where he would go if there was a tornado. They have a legit root cellar out in the yard that goes underground ala Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz.
Winter tornadoes are rare and dangerous. So needless to say I was freaking out. I texted friends and relatives to pray for him. I was messaging him throughout the concert. The winds were projected to be around 85 plus mph. Our TERRIBLE wind storm that did so much damage here had winds at 70. Kam was here for that so I knew that he would at least understand that! I messaged him and he told me that they were home and okay. They would go to the root cellar if things got dicey. They were watching the wind and listening for the tornado sirens. In true Kam form...he found this all incredibly exciting. *eyeroll*
**Let me insert my irritation about missions/missionaries:
#1... They have phones but aren't allowed to have real weather apps so the only way they know what is happening with the weather is if they happen to check their built in phone weather app (which he never does) or if someone tells them what is going on which THANK HEAVENS someone did! They were at a church in a nearby city where they saw a member who told them what was happening and advised them to head back to Fairmont. Shouldn't missionaries at least be able to have WEATHER ALERTS on their phones??!! By the time they got home they had a call from the APs telling them to stay home but by then they were already under a tornado warning. The warning wasn't just for his county or general area...it was literally his microscopic little town!!
#2...They think they are indestructible and protected. Maybe...but still get your dumb butts down to a basement or root cellar.
#3...Kam has watched and enjoyed far too much Storm Chasers for my liking.
#4...The mission president isn't always monitoring the weather in all of the areas where his missionaries are located. Shouldn't this be *someone's* job?
#5...When I messaged him asking about large trees and greenish light and all other tornado safety related things he messaged me this... "Deep breath mama!" 21 is precious!
Needless to say the storm changed direction and the violent winds headed elsewhere and then petered out. They did lose power which wasn't great when the temps were in the negatives. Kam said that it got bitter cold in the house but the power came back on sometime in the night. Hmm...Power goes out and then comes back on in less than 24 hours? Kam's not in Spokane anymore!
**Okay...rant over.
We had to have Kameron's giant Christmas package sent off to the mission office by the first week of December so that it could arrive there in time and be held until their zone conference/Christmas gathering where all of the Christmas packages would be handed out. We had to write the word "Shepherds" on it so that the mission office knew that it was a Christmas package. LOL. The homemade Christmas treats that Kameron requested this year were: cherry chip cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, and fruity pebble rice krispy treats.
For Christmas all of the missionaries serving in the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission got to go to the temple. That was a really special experience because none of the missionaries had been beyond their first time. They were all really excited to go! Kameron had a really neat experience and absolutely LOVED it! Even better...Kam and his companion got to travel to Oakesdale (Kam's 1st area that he loved), got to stay overnight in a HOTEL, attended the temple in the morning, had their zone conference and Christmas gathering, and then drove back to Fairmont. It was like he went on a mini-vacay!
Kameron was one of the speakers in his branch for their Christmas Sunday service. He sent us the Zoom link and we were able to watch. He did such a great job! He was funny and told good stories about his favorite Christmas traditions. He bore a powerful testimony of the Savior and the meaning of Christmas. I can't believe what a confident and charismatic speaker he has become! I also can't believe that we sent out a boy and now he's looking and sounding like a grown man.
Tyler was really busy with work and his calling this month. Like I said, he took a couple of days off for our Christmas shopping and to have some fun! Things got a little dicey with his calling though. We had a very large outbreak of COVID in our ward. One family came to church with all of their kids when they had COVID and exposed the whole primary and most of the ward. After that multiple families got COVID. To say that emotions were running high with the ward members was quite an UNDERSTATEMENT! They had to have an emergency bishopric meeting to discuss how to deal with all of the above stated emotions and fallout. This also happened a week before our ward Christmas party and they had to decide whether or not to cancel it. It was chaotic. Tyler voted to cancel it due to the outbreak but the bishop made the final decision to keep it but altered it quite a bit to be more COVID safe. Over half of our ward didn't attend. We didn't go. Even the party committee person who planned it didn't go. Over half our ward didn't attend church that Sunday too. Big feelings and emotions were raging. The whole COVID outbreak was a nightmare! Thankfully things have calmed down and emotions and big feelings are now under control. But...YIKES!
Tyler worked on several special projects that needed to be done this month. We got new rain gutters installed. Thrilling, I know. He also got me a special early Christmas gift. He had remote start installed on the suburban for me! I got that about a week and a half before Christmas and it is the best gift ever! Especially as our temps have been in the frigid single digits!!
We also surprised Reilly with an early Christmas gift. Studded snow tires! That was our favorite gift to give this Christmas! She literally had no idea and it was really fun to surprise her with them. She was so appreciative. It also gave us a little more peace of mind too!
Tyler had his endocrinology appointment and got the referral to do the larger sleep study. THANK GOODNESS! I think posted that during the first one that he did... he didn't even snore!! Our whole family was incredulous! Apparently he had enough episodes of sleep apnea though that his doctor referred him for the next level sleep study. Good.
Tyler also treated us to our family's very favorite Christmas tradition....Lefse Night! He made us all lefse on the second Sunday of Advent. It was divine!!
Ailey was his sous chef. They had two skillets going and quite the production line! It was awesome.
Reilly and Hunter came over and we had a fantastic night of lefse, games, and I made risalamande which is Scandinavian rice pudding with cherry sauce. It was delicious! Tyler found the almond and got the good luck for the upcoming year! He can have it! LOL.
I had a fun-filled month too. One of the best days was my friend Mary's birthday extravaganza! She wanted a girls day with me and my good friend Shannon. She had a whole list of things that she wanted to do and we honored as many as possible! We had the best time! We headed out to start the celebration at 10 am and got home at 2 am! That's quite the day of partying for these mothers!!
Our first stop was Hurd's Mercantile (my friend Teresa's store). She was there and I got in another good visit with her! She spoiled us all with treats, drinks, and discounts. Then we drove to Coeur d' Alene to Midtown Market where Mary wanted to shop. Then it was onto the Silver Lake Mall where Mary met up with a food vendor who makes specialty vinegars and oils that she wanted to buy. Mary is a foodie!! We stopped at Woops Bake Shop for food and macarons.
The birthday girl at Woops!
Then it was back to Spokane for more shopping at Boulevard Mercantile where a true Christmas miracle occurred. That will be a separate post. After that we hit the downtown mall and did bunch of shopping at River Park Square. Mary can shop like NO other person I know! After shopping we had a fancy seafood dinner at Anthony's over looking the falls. We love Anthony's at Christmas time. It was really fun and Christmasy! Then when Shannon and I were about to collapse Mary talked us into going to a late night movie. This was the first time that I had been in a movie theater in two years!! We saw West Side Story which we all LOVED! It was the very best day of friends, fun, laughs, good food, and shopping! Getting home at 2 am and shocking my kids was the cherry on top! I am still over the moon at being able to hang out with friends again. I have some serious COVID quarantine PTSD. I am a person that needs my people and all the things...girls nights, shopping days, lunches with friends, spa days, girls trips, dinners out, hang outs, double dates, triple dates, dinner parties, games nights...all of it. I NEVER want to go back to quarantine again. I feel panicky and claustrophobic just thinking about it.
This month I was supposed to host book club and I was super excited about it. We read Miracle on 34th Street as our quick holiday December book. I had cute plans for food and drinks. We were also doing a gift/book exchange. But it all had to be scrapped because of the giant ward COVID outbreak that was also that week! I was so sad that it had to be cancelled. Damn COVID!
Speaking of COVID, I got my booster. My first two shots were Moderna. I didn't have much of a reaction to them besides a little fatigue, headache, and a sore arm. My booster was Pfizer and this time I had less of a sore arm but boy was I tired. I could barely keep my eyes open for a good 24 hours. Ailey's booster is next week and Tyler needs to get his. They aren't doing boosters yet for kids under 16. Kam has his booster coming up too. They have to schedule as many missionaries as possible at the same time. It's quite a process.
The weather here has been awful and the roads have been straight HORRENDOUS! No plows to speak of. Icy treacherous roads. One day we had horrific "Flash Freeze". It was terrifying. There were accidents everywhere. We actually all got something called a "CODE RED ALERT" from the police department on our phones telling us to IMMEDIATLY get off and stay off of the roads.
I haven't seen roads that awful in a really long time. I was supposed to drive to Coeur d' Alene for vendor night but there was no way that I could drive that far in those conditions. (Thank goodness my hair appointment was before all of this hit!! #priorities) We had literally given Reilly the studded snow tires only two days before this crazy flash freeze. We were SO GLAD that we did! Of course on this awful night Ailey had to work so Tyler drove her to and from work. He never stresses about bad roads. Ever. But he came home that night and promptly ordered us our own studded snow tires. They are monstrous things called snow claws! Ha ha! They are awesome! The roads were still absolutely awful the next morning so he drove both girls to and from school. There were cars off the road everywhere. Give me warm weather please. It was garbage. The State of WA is abominable at snow removal. They drizzle eco-friendly deicer that does NOTHING and that's about it. We are down about 45% of the already low number of snow plow drivers due to the mask mandate and state vax requirements. I am pro-vax but snow plow drivers are alone in their trucks. We need snow removal!! We also need gravel which is rarely used and we REALLY need salt which is NEVER used. Kameron is absolutely blown away by the wonders of snow removal in Minnesota. He has never seen such magic! They also use salt!
**Second rant over.
We've gotten to see a lot of Reilly this month. (Hunter too.) Reilly stopped by after work quite a lot this month and they've come over for dinner at least once a week. We've gotten to see Emmy too.
Check out Emerson's latest pictures! That outfit! He kills me.
We had a fun night of dinner and Christmas shopping with Bryn and Reilly after we were done at Ailey's dance competition. That was a fun kid combo! We need to do more of this oldest/youngest grouping. They were hilarious!
Reilly and Hunter were able to participate in several Monday night family video chats with Kameron. We've had game nights and all kinds of concerts and ice cream nights. It's been wonderful! While Ailey has been so busy... we've gotten to take Bryn out on her own for lunch and shopping. We've done a Chik-fil-a run for Peppermint Shakes. We've ordered Chinese and had it delivered while watching Christmas movies.
We've also made a lot of late night treats with Ailey after she gets home from her stuff! You name a late night craving and she will make it or convince you to make it. We've made Baked Fudge and my Grandma's Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Treats and homemade chex mix. Tyler even made us Krumkakes one night! (Weight Watchers I'm coming for you in January! Not.even.joking.)
We did our Christmas Lights expedition! Ailey and Bryn each picked a fast food restaurant that they wanted dinner from which they ate in the car while we headed out to look at all of the Christmas lights. Brynnie picked Taco Bell and Ailey wanted McDonalds. A kids meal to be exact. Ha ha! Tyler and I opted for Panera.
We blared the Christmas music and drove around for hours. Tyler was a CHAMP! We were out looking at lights until 11:30 pm. I do believe that was a record. Bryn had a whole route mapped out.
My mom's birthday came and went. She would have been 73 and I'm mad and sad that she isn't.
Christmastime is when I feel her the most. She was the Queen of Christmas and it's fitting that her birthday is in December. I was much more emotional this year than I expected. I think Ailey getting her college acceptance on Mom's birthday was part of that. I also got an email with this on her birthday.
So we have a new date for the dedication/ribbon cutting which I equal parts look forward to and dread.
The saving grace is always, of course, Kirk. We feel, we talk, we process, we move forward. Small inching step by small inching step. My mom was famous for always telling me to "Snap out of it!" She loved saying that to me whenever I was in a bad mood, depressed, or overwrought. She loved it so much that she found a Mary Engelbreit framed print of it and gave it to me. So when I really start to spiral I force myself to hear her say this in my mind. It was SUPER ANNOYING when she did it and it's still annoying to think of her saying it now. Then I start to laugh and know that it is the exact thing that she would say to me now if she were here. She didn't like to *dwell* on things and she was also the queen of reality checks. Harsh though they were. One of her many nicknames was "The Dream Dasher" and she was proud of it! Ha ha. Also my mom's best friend never fails to send me an encouraging email just when one is needed. This month I also received my final payout from my mom's estate. Hall-e-freakin-lu-jah! We just have 2021 taxes and we are completely DONE!
We did a lot of Christmas baking. This year we were all about the cherry chip cookies, chocolate crinkles, fudge, and sugar cookies. Ailey has taken over making my mom's famous sour cream sugar cookies as her special thing and she knocked it out of the park yet again this year!
She even made the infamous RED MITTENS! I love that these traditions carry on.
Homemade treats once again made appearances on our doorstep. It was missed during 2020. We went another year just giving out premade treats to friends and neighbors. But I look forward to making homemade treats in 2022. One of my favorite parts of Christmas is the giving and receiving of Christmas goodies. We were pretty spoiled this year!
Check out the professionalism of the treats that we got from our friends. Homemade chocolates (They make the very best!) I've watched Joann and tried to learn her ways. Too hard! They came packaged in a beautiful box and with a LAMINATED picture guide as to what they were. Hat tip to the Shirleys! Another one of our favorite treats dropped off were pomegranates! I thought that was a genius idea! Another unique gift came from our next door neighbors who dropped off a very unexpected and sweet gift. They brought over a very pretty Christmas bouquet of flowers and an apology for their "asshole dogs." That was hilarious and appreciated because their dogs are "assholes". LOL.
Tyler's sister Lori was in SLC for two weeks staying with Brett and Marissa for Christmas. One day we surprised them by having cookies delivered. Our niece Liv was so excited!
I also absolutely love and appreciate Christmas cards. This was our second year of not sending out cards. I hate that and it bugs me that another year has gone by. I jotted out a few handwritten cards but that was it. Next year! I have great plans for new family pictures...Kam will be home... and we will order cards for 2022 EARLY!
The Winter Solstice arrived! Yay! Bring on the light! We celebrated by having "Organization Day" our kids favorite! NOT. Organization day arrives about 3-4 times a year. That is when they have to completely deep clean, de-junk, and thoroughly organize their rooms, closets, drawers...everything. We donated a giant car load of crap and their rooms were perfectly clean and organized prior to the holiday.
There was plenty of room for all of the new loot that they would soon receive.
Tyler and I really tried to slow down and take moments to appreciate the holiday season and to feel the Christmas Spirit rather than get caught up in the Christmas frenzy. It's hard but we were able to do it a couple of times. Then before we knew it Christmas Eve was here.
