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I only worked seven days in December, (not counting the many hours I cleared email, responding to students, faculty, and staff each day.) As the photos below show, I otherwise had a month of family events. Nancy and I have named our newest family member "Alberta." Our Christmas tree this year, and hopefully for every year to come, is our new Dwarf Alberta Spruce. It can grow 6' to 8' tall. I suspect it will one day be too bushy to come in through the deck door. Then it will have to watch the Christmas festivities through the window. All we did at 1228 99th on Christmas day was to open our stockings. Stockings for Jean, Joel, and Randy went up to Susan's to be opened. Parties on the 21st in Auburn, the 22nd in Renton, and the 25th in Redmond are pictured below. Maybe Charis takes after Nancy, "go, go, go, go, crash (sleep)." |
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December 6th found us converging on Susan's house for a special birthday party. Bob and Kim Disher joined us from Dallas, OR. Nathanael, Cynthia, and Jonathan were there, as was Julie Adams (who provided the Yule Log cake above on the 25th). Jean was away at one of her performances. When we arrived, Charis was experimenting with
the ceiling light switch. Charis often travels with one of her teddy bears, all of whom seem to be named "b-bear." Annie passed on Pom Pom, her big brown bear. Annie prepared an especially exotic birthday cake. Julie Adams gave Charis a wonderful fuzzy jacket. And she also got a Nativity Scene that was like the one found in her UPC Sunday School room. She loved the "Charis cookies" I baked for her. They were my normal Tollhouse recipe, without the chocolate chips due to her dairy allergy.
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Rowan Pastricks' 2nd birthday was just after Jeans' so we invited Richard and Alicia and their new baby Corvin to celebrate with our clan and friends. With Joel in attendance, it made for another big group around Susan's table. It's a challenging thought to consider that many of these November-December parties will be at our house in 2020. I made Alicia happy by photographing Rowen with his "R" Annie-made birthday cake. Many of Jean's gifts had a Star Wars theme and her cake was a mini-wedding cake. |
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Again this month, Nancy hired Ever-Green Tree Care, Inc. to trim a number of our large trees. They were busy at work when I arrived home at dusk on the 9th. As I looked north, walking home up the Smith's driveway, I saw one especially long branch pointing west from our south most True Cedar. As I watched, that branch was cut. I took my QFC groceries in and grabbed my camera. The 50mm f1.8 lens made it look like I'd arrived in broad daylight. In fact, the four workmen we switching on their work lights at dusk. Along our north fence line, a number of trees had been trimmed that grew over Torrey's yard. In addition, the big pile of branches south of the shed was removed. These had been there since Nathanael had trimmed the big Hemlock years ago. We hope this additional effort will please our neighbors. As the only wooded residence in the neighborhood, and the only double-sized lot, we are delighted with our bit of green in Bellevue. But not everyone has the same opinion of our yard.
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I only scheduled myself to work on the 9th, 17th, and 23rd, between December 6th and January 1st. I knew it would allow me to spend more time with Charis. On my first seven-hour visit to relieve Thomas, I managed to capture a series of fun candid portraits of Charis. From the many shots, I created this 8"x12" collage which I had printed at COSTCO to give as framed Christmas presents. Clicking on the picture shows it converted into a 1920x1080 wallpaper image. On one of my visits, I was surprised by Annie. I thought she was at school, but she came upstairs at Susan's about the time I expected her home. She'd been sleeping the whole time I was there, home sick from school. |
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Nathanael, Cynthia, and Jonathan stopped by for a few hours on Sunday the 15th. They were here long enough to talk me into baking more of my traditional cookies. They will fly to the east coast on the 23rd, so I was happy to send them home with a box of cookies. (I slept over at their place on the 22nd, in order to retrieve the car when they went to the airport at 4:30 AM.) While Jonathan is six-months younger than Charis, his language acquisition seems ahead of hers at that age. He has a few words and clearly understands more. Once again, as soon as Nathanael carried Jonathan into the house, he reached out to his grandpa. Which, of course, pleased me no end, since Nancy and Jean were also there. He is easy to carry. On the 20th, I did a marathon cookie bake, preparing two quadruple batches. But Cynthia, Annie, and Jean all insisted I bake my Oatmeal Scotchies. A double batch of those were made before Christmas.
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With a flight to the East Coast very early on the 23rd, Nancy and I and the Pastrick family had a Christmas breakfast prepared by Nathanael on the 21st. Rather than cart presents with them, Nathanael, Cynthia, and Jonathan opened gifts early. Annie, Susan, and Charis were all ill so they could not attend. And Jean and Joel went down in the late afternoon since they had morning tickets to the new Star Wars movie. At 18 months, it was no surprise that Jonathan was a colorful eater, but what was surprising was that he was using his knife and fork together! But his face wasn't going to get cleaner playing peek-a-boo with fruit-coated fingers. It might have been the first day of winter, but that didn't keep Jonathan from going with his full-Tarzan look. Richard and Alicia Pastrick don't have family in the area so their family has attached itself to the Sleight/Disher clan. I got the nice shot of young Corvin Pastrick with his dad Richard. Brother Rowan is close in age to Charis. |
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Bits and Pieces
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[ BACK ] |
On
the 14th, Nancy drove me up to Randy's duplex in Lake Stevens to install
the 43" Samsung TV I'd bought him.
He's happy with it, even though we were only able to get
a few channels on it with the antenna I brought.
Two of these are the CW and GRIT, a westerns-only channel.
