At the Beach

Steve and I are in Manzanita for a couple of relaxing days.  This is an annual trip we normally take with our friends the Peelers to celebrate the New Year.   They weren't able to come and we miss them but are glad we have a couple of days to bum around.  I'm reading, Steve's writing, we have a room with a great view and we're watching it rain sideways. 
-Holly

The Last Santa Letter

Here is this year's letter from St. Nicholas.  The paper doesn't fit on the scanner, so we had to take pictures.  It didn't turn out great so if you'd rather, you can read it typed up.  (Facebookers, if the links don't show up in this post you can go to ourrandomdays.com)

For those not familiar with the letters, here's a quick explanation.  Daniel Elf is the head elf, Phil is a Polar Bear, Ms. Alice a penguin, and QWERTs are the Quick Wrapping Efficient Robot Team.

This is the 11th letter the boys received and will be the last.  I (Steve) began them in 2001 when Joe was 3 and Tim was 6 months.  They were a lot of fun to do and we would re-read the older letters as it got close to Christmas.

The boys have grown up enough they still enjoy them but it's not the same as when they were little and the letters were a real treat they looked forward to finding on Christmas morning.  It's nice that they appreciate that I write them and Holly illustrates them, but it feels like it's time to be done with this tradition.

If anyone has read this far and is interested, here is the original letter from 2001 where Daniel Elf got stuck in the train's smoke stack for the first time.  There is a little water damage on the original copy, but Holly patched it up this year so we scanned it in before something like that happened again.

It's All About the Magic Hat

Here is the solution when your parents tell you to get you hair wet and put a hat on so it doesn't look like you're being raised by orangutangs that don't care about personal grooming.  We were hoping it was a magic hat that would make his hair lay down flat.  It didn't.

Preperations

We are very close to being ready for Christmas.  The house is ready, it's all the other odds and ends we haven't taken care of yet.  Steve and the boys are out of school and Holly got to join them starting today.  Soon all our Christmas letters will be in the mail, all the cookies cooked, and presents wrapped.  This year we may actually finish ahead of time!

Leaf Time

Steve blogging here.  Last month the boys helped rake and bag all the leaves.  This included putting them into the big paper sacks Holly bought.  While she was around the corner Tim climbed in one of the sacks.  Joe filled it up with leaves and then shouted at Holly the bag was too heavy for him to move, he needed help.

She made them wait at least ten minutes while she finished raking leaves in the back.  Finally,  she came around to the front yard.  She went to pick the bag up and move it, Tim jumped out, screamed, and scared her pretty good.

Of course I was very angry and upset they'd done this, and not gotten it on video tape.  Now they know better.