Lights Out!

Apparently, if we receive two tenths of an inch more in snow before the end of the year, we will have broken the record for the snowiest December in the Portland, OR area!

Last Sunday brought snow atop freezing rain atop snow, canceled church services, and fun nighttime adventures. If you have never experienced freezing rain, you are missing out. It is beautiful and dangerous. This happens when it warms up enough in the clouds to produce rain, but the ground is still so cold that the rain freezes on contact, leading to an ice frosting on everything it touches. Consequentially, church was closed and we stayed home all day.

(we are going nowhere!)
Freezing rain is beautiful, but it makes tree branches very heavy...and we have a lot of those in Oregon. Sunday evening this led, as it often does, to a power outage. Alex already had a nice firing roaring in the fireplace, so we lit some candles, were joined by our friends from upstairs, and enjoyed the rare treat of a cozy night with no electricity. Brian brought home some hot deli food, and we all cuddled up in front of the fire while Alex read Price Caspian aloud.

I'm married to a 30 year old man!

Weird.

Yes...I've been a slacker about blogging! I'm sorry! I've got no good excuse.

Well, life is good. Last Monday was supposed to be my last day of work (before the Christmas Break...not my last day before baby comes...) but--Hooray!--we had a week worth of snow days!

NW Oregon doesn't get much snow. So when there is snow, everything stops while we play in the snow and avoid driving on the roads. Last week Alex either worked from home or walked to the bus stop on a more main road and took the bus in to work. I could think of no good reason to leave my happy nesting projects...so I stayed inside and worked furiously to get our house back in order. It's not done yet, but it's getting closer.

So...Alex is 30! Yikes! But, he did get in some important things before he left his 20s:

He skied down the hill that we live on.

The snow was starting to melt a bit, and the road had been gravelled, so he didn't make it very far!

For his last dinner of his 20s he chose...

Yup. Fruity pebbles with whipped cream and a Mountain Dew. That's my man--father to my unborn son!

He had a fun birthday. We lit a fire in the fireplace and the weather calmed down just enough that some friends were able to come and celebrate. I made some yummy chili and guacamole for dinner and we watched The Christmas Toy (best Christmas movie EVER).

I made a Banana Cake with Penuche Frosting (YUM!) and Alex managed to blow out all 30 candles (with a little help from neighbor-David).

Alex got some fun new toys:

• A Transformer (from Vince and Christi)

• A Spice Girls doll (thanks to Adam and Candice)
• A silly picture of neighbor David so he can look at it and laugh when he is at work
• 5 lift tickets to Hoodoo Ski Resort (from his parents and myself)
• And.......drumroll........our nephew Garrett gave Alex a guitar!

Not just any guitar--THE guitar that Alex has been drooling over for 6+ years. Garrett made this custom pick guard and then let Alex babysit his guitar while Garrett was serving a 2-year mission for our church. Alex was very sad to see it go at the end of those 2 years and hasn't found a guitar with the same sound yet. And now--it's his! It didn't leave his hands the rest of the evening. Believe it or not, but in this picture he is actually still playing the guitar while mostly asleep!

In other news, my tummy is getting bigger and our baby boy is very active in utero (= Although, he always stops moving as soon as Alex puts his hand to my belly! Speaking of this kid...I need to go eat some breakfast!

slacker!

Jen needs to blog. She's a slacker.

[from her husband, who does not have a blog, so that he doesn't have to feel bad about not updating it]