One of the VERY BEST parts about losing power and escaping to the south for a few days was having a big family dinner at Derek & Sara's, comprised of the five original Pearsons (as pictured above), plus wives, plus sons/grandsons/nephews, plus Danny's parents, representing the Canadian contingent of the family. We hadn't all been together in one place in a blasted long time, so it was happy for my heart :)
Just before the wind storm, we embarked on our latest home improvement project, which was to install surround sound in the study. When we were at the speaker store, the sales guy took us to the room where they keep their "high end" stuff. He showed us a pair of cables that cost $15,000 and a speaker that sells for a mere $40,000. Gasp, choke, sputter. We, of course, are not in this class of sound equipment connoisseur. (Seriously, can you imagine?!)
Step one involved taking the monitor off the wall and removing the speaker that was already attached to the bottom. No more wimpy speakers in this house!
One speaker up....
Three speakers up!
Hidden wires are better than visible ones, so for the two rear speakers, Jan Michael drilled holes in the walls and, for this speaker, ran the cables through the laundry room and then back into into the study. For the speaker on the opposite wall, he had to drill to the outside, run the cable around the house, through a shed that is attached to the house, back into the laundry room, and through the study wall into the receiver. Somehow plans never seem to go as smoothly as we'd like, and when we got to the part about drilling into the shed, we discovered that we'd lost the key to let us in, which led us to buy bolt cutters in an attempt to cut the padlock. But bolt cutters don't work on locks that are hardened, so we tried to take the door hinges off, and discovered that the screws holding them in place were stripped. Finally we cut through the latch holding the lock, and gained triumphant entrance into the shed. We must have really rammed it shut after we were finished, though (to make sure the wind wouldn't blow it open), because now the door is stuck and we can't get back in. Hahahahahahaha. 
Happy boy and his new toy :)
I'm only pretending to be useful. How wise would it be for me to actually use a power drill on the wall?!
There are about 50 cables that had to be connected to the reciever. Jan Michael spent a lot of time doing this. 
The end of the job entailed going back to the speaker store, not once, but twice, because the bass they sold us originally was faulty, and then something with the receiver was screwy, but at this point we can say..... All done! Now we can have very loud games of Mario Cart :)
Merry Christmas for us because we spent the weekend with our dear family :) Also, Grandma Ruth celebrated her 93rd (!) birthday yesterday, so we had a fancy dinner and very- bad- for- us dessert. We were given some very special, thoughtful presents from both sides of the family, for which we say THANK YOOOOOOU!
Caleb ponders how to steal his pants from his Daddy's head,
and then enjoys a good laugh about it with Uncle JM.
Playdough!!
There should be an award for having the cutest 2-year old nephew. [Because his cuteness is all my doing, of course :) Pbbbbbbbbb]
First there was the flood, then a bunch of crazy snow, and now one of the biggest windstorms I've ever seen. We lost power last Thursday, along with everybody else in the Puget Sound area, and it wasn't restored until sometime yesterday. We decided last Friday we weren't going to put up with a loss of heat and light for any length of time, so we retreated south to my parents' house for a few days, and then to Derek and Sara's for a night. We were ready to stay with our families through Christmas because we'd heard not to expect power until sometime this weekend (or after), but fortunately things seem to have moved more quickly. The biggest hassle for us has been having to strip the refrigerator bare [drinking milk that sat for six days without refrigeration didn't seem wise :) ], but so many, many people are having to contend with trees in their yards, and trees in their houses, and houses without heat in very cold weather, and no place to run to. We are reminded again of what we have to be thankful for. 
So. Derek and Sara came to visit last weekend, and we had loads of fun. We went for a drive in their new sweet ride, ate too many french fries, looked at snowboards, and took a trip, as you can see, to the botanical garden to see the lights. Sara has Fridays off, so she is maybe (I hope) going to come back one of these days for shopping. Derek, you come too!! 
Lovey-dovey birds
Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy.
Last night we had a date at the Bellevue Botanical Garden to see their VERY BEAUTIFUL display of Christmas lights. It's one of my favorite holiday things to do. Instead of the usual Santa and his reindeer kind of thing, you stroll through the garden to see three-dimensional flowers, shrubs, vines, etc, all found in the Northwest. They say the exact number of lights used is unknown, but they estimate the total at about 500,000. Most of the pictures we took didn't turn out very well, and these definitely do not do justice to what we saw. If you are ever in the area between Thanksgiving and Christmas, you absolutely should check it out... (besides, it's free!)
