:)

Snow week

They made the call later this time, but school officials have canceled classes for the fifth-straight day. I'm disappointed to not see my coworkers and students at all this week... I have Christmas cards all ready for them and we had some fun holiday activities planned. But what a treat for everyone to have an extra week to enjoy the snow and the season!

We woke this morning to a layer of fresh snow on the house and garden:
I hope you're all enjoying the snow!
-Liz :)

Toys!

Since I've been off all week, most of my waiting-until-the-last-minute Christmas chores are done. So I returned this morning to my old stomping grounds, Medical Teams International, for some volunteer work.

Luckily for me, it's toy drive day! I spent about most of my day sorting toys from the KGW Great Toy Drive to go to local agencies. There was a massive pile of Les Schwab bags filled with toys. Each agency had a request sheet with the number of toys needed, broken down by age and gender. Some needed 50 toys and others needed 1,600. It's a really fun project, but harder than you'd think :)

What a great way to spend a day off!

-Liz :)

"A" for effort

After fighting the crud for 2+ weeks, I was anxious to get back on the workout wagon and burn off some of those Christmas-cookie calories. But then the snow/ice hit. I clocked some miles walking to see family the first couple snow days, but my heart and lungs are yearning for more. Brad suggested we hit the THS stadium this evening to run some stairs, so we bundled up and drove over.

Unfortunately, many of the stairs are still covered with a slushy, slick layer of ice ... and there were no lights to illuminate our path. So we decided to give ourselves an "A" for effort and return home with our spinal cords and skulls intact.

:)

I LOVE snow brunch!

Monday, Mom, Eryn and I walked up to Ma & Pa's house for snow brunch.
After getting our fill, we headed for their sledding slope, which has always been a source of snow-day fun!

Whose idea was it to plant a garden at the bottom of our sledding hill?!?!

Eryn made it all the way to the filbert tree... the record for the day:
Missing the holly tree:
Not a bad way to end a day of sledding :)
-Liz :)

Snow day!!!

My first snow day as a school employee... yipee!!!!!

Last night we walked to mom & dad's for dinner and tree decorating. Now I'm all bundled up and headed on foot to Ma & Pa's house for Snow Brunch!!! There might be some snowy hot tubbing, too :)

-Liz

White elephant

Any excuse to decorate the house and make some food...

Linus posed nicely for Brad:

Do I have enough Christmas Mickeys??

My awesome bosses at CE2 gave me this cupcake stand for Christmas. Thanks Sue & Andy!

Soon, our guests arrived for our annual white elephant Christmas party.
Unfortunately, I was too busy having fun to take any pictures of the action, which included "I Love Meat" stickers, a giant Scooby Doo, Easy Cheese, flashing Christmas earrings and a Fleet enema kit!

-Liz :)