Chess

This past week, Brad has been playing chess with the boys in the evenings. This is the first time he's tried to teach Will and he's catching on quickly. Last night Brad was out and Adam was wandering around bored when he asked Will if he wanted to play chess. Will said yes right away in spite of only having played twice before.

Adam was a good teacher. I was pretty useless since I keep about as far away from chess as I do golf. So, they were forced to rely on their own, somewhat spotty, recollection of the rules. At one point I heard Adam say to Will, "Let's just play this way for now since we don't know the rules." It was getting late and I told them they had to wrap up the game or finish it tomorrow. Next thing I knew Will was running up to me with his hands full of chess pieces to tell me he'd won. Adam's story is that he helped Will to win so the game would be over. There's hope for them yet...

Christmas 2008

Christmas morning started earlier than usual this year. Adam was up at 5 and had the restraint to wait till 6 to wake Will up. Then, since they were told not to wake us up till it was light out, they occupied themselves in their room till 7 when Nedra(who was sleeping over) took pity on them and offered to read them a story.

The big excitement when they first came down were the Pokemon cards in their stockings and the candy. I think everything was downhill after that. My highlight was of course the surprise Bosch mixer. It was a pretty civilized present opening- not too overwhelming or chaotic. Lots to keep them busy for awhile.

After a breakfast of waffles and sausage we got into gear getting ready for Brad's sister Karen's family who where flying in that afternoon. They arrived around 4:30 and all eleven of us(including Brad's mom and dad) sat down to a yummy meal of ham mashed potatoes and rolls and various appetizers- cheese, cut veggies and dip, shrimp and cocktail sauce, olives. It was good to visit with all of them and reconnect.

At the end of the evening, we pushed Lyle's car out of the snow where it was stuck and drove Karen's family to the nearby bank where they had parked when they got stuck trying to come down our street. It was really a white Christmas.

Snowy Scenes

Will is pulling the sled up the hill after a solo ride down.

Brad is pulling the kids to the 5th hole on the golf course for sledding.Our very snowed in house.
Trudging back up the hill after sledding down.

Adam sleds down

the hill lying on top of Brad.

Finally, yesterday, the snow started melting. It's been above freezing for more than 24 hours and the rain has moved in. We reached some new records here in Portland- more than a foot of snow on the ground Christmas Day and at least 13 consecutive days with snow on the ground. It's been a lot of fun- despite the inconveniences of trying to finish Christmas shopping with limited driving ability.

Our best discovery was the hill on the 5th hole of the nearby Eastmoreland golf course. We went sledding there at least three times with friends joining us two of the times. The toboggan we retrieved from Brad's Dad's attic made it all the more fun. All four of us can fit on it at once and it goes farther than anything else we saw. Now we have to wait another 40 years for another shot at sledding on the golf course. And of course, we'll be too old at that point. Oh well- I think we got maximum enjoyment out of it while it lasted.

Snowy Garage

It's been snowing since early this morning. We've had an unusual combination of events for Portland- very cold weather and moisture. Usually it's one or the other. Only a couple inches fell, but it's been super cold and windy. Will tried to make a snowman but it's very powdery snow and doesn't stick together well. Try telling that to Will though. He spent at least a half hour rolling the same ball of snow around the yard without it getting any bigger before he gave up.

We took a long walk this morning up to a bakery to get some treats. Brad pulled the kids on a long plastic toboggan and they had a great time pretending to be snowplows with their hands creating tracks in the snow. Will stockpiled the snow on the toboggan and kept throwing falling apart snowballs at Brad's back. The kids tried sledding down our driveway but it just wasn't very satisfying- too slow. School is already cancelled for tomorrow though, so they'll get another try.

Sunny Garage

The garage is done! They finished painting about a week ago. Here's a sunny shot of how it looks.

Will Sings a Song

Will has been working on learning one of the songs Adam did for a musical presentation at school. He listens to it over and over again and has some great moves he's developed. I know the in and out blurriness is annoying-but I think it's still worth watching.

Pokemon Power

Adam had his 8th birthday party on Saturday with all the Pokemon fun you could ask for. There was Pokemon Bingo, a Throw the pokeball in the bucket and win a card game, a Pokemon trivia game, a scavenger hunt, a Team Rocket balloon blast and last but not least, a Pokemon Pinata game.

Brad had the idea to make a pokeball pinata- also referred to as a pokeata. They actually made two which worked out well because two kids could swing at once. He and Adam came up with a fun game to go with it. Instead of just whacking the pokeata, they had to draw a slip of paper indicating how many whacks they could take and whether they were "confused"(spin around and blindfolded), "paralyzed"(blindfolded and only move one arm) or had vision(no restrictions). At first we thought it wasn't going to break. Everyone got at least two whacks and finally a crack developed in the first one and then it was all downhill.