HAPPY NEW YEAR!! and a summary of this last month of holiday business and many visitors

It's been a busy month with family family family! 

Mom, Dad, Daniel, Amanda, Dan, Joel, Min Min, Alice, Brother Tim, and Krista all spent some time at the house in the last month, plus we got to go to Aunt Beth's pre-Christmas party and see even more family, and a few trips up to see Uncle Loren. Christmas day, Tim and I flew down to Tuson, Arazona to meet up with the Childers family for a couple days before heading back up to the Honeymoon Bay family gathering in time for New Years.

I left off on the 19th when Daniel and Amanda took Tim and I for a day at the Seattle Zoo where we saw lions and giraffes and hippos - oh my!

Lion

Giraffe

Hippo

Tim and I befriended the birds

Amanda took lots of good pictures

There was an enormous spider on display NOT behind glass

This most impressive man called all the penguins by name

A giraffe crossed the street while another ate things from the ceiling on the other side

There were some big cats and dogs

Daniel sized up a dragon

Someone kept careful watch over us and his sleeping pals

It was hard to tell if the signs were sarcastic...

Daniel and I decided we would stay and join the exhibit.

Jumping ahead to the 21st, I was driving home from work when my road was blocked off and detoured. Nichols Bros finally finished the top half of the ferry they'd been working on and were ready to send it away on the barge to meet up with the bottom half and be put to work. They wait for high tide, then block off the road and roll the whole structure across with the aid of large cranes, trucks, and the like. 

I found someones driveway to sneak down to try for a better picture of the launch to show Tim in case he missed the spectacle.

While I was snooping through their yard, I noticed they have an awesome living fence started - something I hope to eventually try out.

While I was taking my time to get home from work, the rest of the family was already out on the porch with a great view to watch the boat parts cruse by.

The view from the porch

Christmas Eve dinner on Whidbey

Christmas eve, we had an excellent dinner with the Whidbey family and had a little White Elephant present exchange where Amanda got to open almost all the presents since hers were so good that everyone kept steeling them. Tim and I spent most of Christmas Eve day driving to Seattle and back for another physical therapy appointment. Tim worked extra hard as we had less that a week between appointments and he wanted to be ready for the next step before our trip and break in PT. 

After Christmas Eve dinner, Tim and I packed a few things for our trip in the morning to Tuson, Arazona to see his side of the family and the largest Childers family reunion in history. Tilly got all ready to go hoping we might ship her along, but as we were only going to be gone for about 3 days, it seemed like a lot of extra hassle and expense to bring her. My family graciously accepted responsibility of her for the weekend and she carried on playing in her boxes all the same. 

Christmas dinner on Whidbey (Tim and Ariel replaced by Joel and Min Min)

We had an excellent Christmas breakfast and opened presents with my family before driving to the airport, leaving the car for Joel and Min Min, and flying to Tuscon for Christmas dinner with the Childers' with another round of White Elephant gifts and some unconventional toasts.

I am happy to be one of four new women to the Childers family in the last year including Joe's wife, Roni, Matt's girlfriend, Paula and their daughter, Denali. 

Matt and Denali

In addition to getting to know the excellent Childers family, we also got to know a little about Tuson by heading out to their Desert Museum where we found incredible animals, plants, and minerals. Raptors flew low over the crowd, cacti promised not to poison us, and we bumped in to the Bosworth family (minus Adrienne) from Juneau.

Joe decided to take his trailer home and giant truck on a road trip to the family reunion, so Tim and I finally got to see his place and had a bed to sleep on with hot chocolate in the morning. Hot chocolate in bed has got to be the best perk of sleeping in the living room and makes it a very appealing place to be. 

Before taking off back to the far contiguous North West, we went out to one final dinner with the family, then drove Grandma and Grandpa back to their place in Las Vegas. All in all, a very fun trip and good family to have. Joe has made an excellent ambassador for them for the last 5 years.

Back on Whidbey, Brother Tim and Krista came for the night before New Years Eve, then headed back to Seattle as our family celebrated with fireworks, sparking cider, and movies on the big screen Mom and Dad gave us for late Christmas. The family was a great help ever continuing to improve our house and spent their last night on the island helping us put of light fixtures and shelving. Tim's shop is now looking particularly spectacular with an antique moped, freshly repainted, sitting proudly in the center waiting for spring and breaks.

I must include my mom's list of everything she could think of that Dad and the rest of the family did during their three-week "vacation"

• Collect and haul to transfer station 1,000 pounds of leaves (thanks Daniel and Joy!)
• Replace kitchen faucet (thanks Dan!)
• Repair dryer and remove pocketfull of very battered change (thanks again Dan!)
• clean out gas stove lines
• fix hole in entry floor
• add non-stick mats under all area rugs
• paint and install handrails to downtstairs (thanks Tilly and Uncle Dan)
• install light 10+ light fixtures upstairs and down (thanks Daniel, Tim, Ariel, Joel)
• Refurbish wood stove, put in new piping, stoveblack, polish windows and brass, clean out several pounds of nails and ash
• Unplug main shower drain and fasten drain screen
• Replace shower curtain and bath mat (thanks Joy and MinMin)
• Clear several alders on slope to vastly improve the view (thanks to three ladders, pole saw, chain saw, and careful placement on the bank)
• Install blinds in library and downstairs master bedroom (thanks Joel for installing the other four!)
• Adjust all blinds for length (a tedious process!)
• Replace downstairs bathroom shower rod
• Install downstairs bathroom closet doors 
• Install fan timers in upstairs and downstairs bathroom
• Clean windows downstairs
• Fix multiple outlet covers
• Fix oven light
• Install under-counter lights in downstairs kitchen
• Install 4 shoplights (Yay Daniel and Tim!)
• Design and install shelving systems in upstairs bedroom and 3 downstairs closets
• Also supervised completion of:
• Repair of flooring in downstairs bathroom
• Installation of internal jacks for internet and phone

It is good to come from a family of such busy, helpful, productive people!

My parents and Daniel and Amanda headed back to Alaska last Saturday (the fourth) and Tim, Grandpa, and I got busy resetting the house for Alice's arrival the following day. 

We did spend a little quiet family time walking the beach between guests. We've now discovered the many joys of Double Bluff beach, one of the many fabulous dog parks of Whidbey Island.

I don't think I actually took pictures in the last week while Alice has been in town, so I'll summarize among the pictures of our lovely afternoon at the beach while we were trying to exhaust Tilly in preparation for Alice's arrival.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of work all week while Alice was here. Tim and Alice spent time taking Tilly to parks, shopping, working on our lion puzzle, and hanging out. We had some wonderful dinners at home and out, and yesterday I had the day off from both jobs to spend with Alice and Tim. I now have a second job working providing in-home care to patients in need through Island Home Nursing in addition to my previous job cleaning kennels. My busy and exhausting work life had to compete with all the family visiting for the last month, but I think both jobs are going pretty well.

Today, Tim had double doctors appointments scheduled, so Alice and Tilly hung out with friends in Seattle while Tim and I went to Harborview Medical for a couple hours. Tim now has the "green light" to do whatever hurts and doesn't work to his hand until it gets better - thinks like passively stretching and straightening and stretching his fingers, playing with magically hardening playdough, and moving one finger at a time. Instead of a protective splint for sleeping in, Tim has been fitted with a new straight fingered brace for eight hours of unconscious passive stretching. I'm still rooting for this week being the week he gets to start doing some work again, but we'll see how he holds up with this new phase of physical therapy.

Alice stayed in Seattle with friends for the night and a shorter drive to the airport in the morning and Tim and I have been relaxing in our quiet, empty home eating home made french fries.