January 2024

Mikey headed over to a friend's house for New Year's Eve.

Katie decided to stay in.
She enjoyed her 12 grapes at midnight. 

Her eyes are closed so she didn't have to witness our New Year's kiss.

So old and so tired, and according to Katie, so gross.

Ralph was overjoyed staying up late to ring in the New Year.

He's old too.

A few more days of Winter Break remained.

This is what was left of the gingerbread house at the end of it.

Back to school, work and responsibilities.

Boo.

I headed to Goodwill to shop for dragon treasure for The Hobbit.

Auditions for the spring musical were held in December before Winter Break.

Cast announcements came right as the kids were returning to school.

Katie did not get a part. She decided to apply to be part of the behind-the-scenes Tech Crew.

Mikey was cast in an ensemble role.

The Friday after break, Mikey and I went out on a date.

He was in burger heaven.

Where were Katie and Huzbend?

They were taking a truffle making class!

A picture showcasing the perils of hand rolling truffles.

They were also able to make some other chocolatey creations.

Each got to bring home a box of chocolates.

Some of them might have looked sketchy, but all of them were delicious.

With only about a week out from opening night of The Hobbit, costume creation and set building was ramping WAY up.

Here's Nori modeling his purple cape.

Mikey lent a hand painting some scenery.

That same evening, we headed to our friend's house to celebrate Dia de los Reyes Magos (Three Kings Day).

Time to cut the Rosca de Reyes (King Cake)!

I don't think either of my kiddos found a Baby Jesus this time.

After Rosca, it was time to play Lotteria.
Many quarters were won.

More Hobbit.

Goblin masks ordered from Amazon were not going to make it on time.

We had to come up with a replacement.

Overnight paper mâché masks from Amazon and Home Depot paint to the rescue!

I cranked these puppies out in a day so they could have them for dress rehearsal.

Grocery Lad and Nori - ready for dress rehearsal!

And...it was Opening Night.

To say this show was pulled off by the hair of a tween dwarves chin would be an understatement.

IT WAS CRAZY!

But, in the end, through all the chaos and crazy, the kids pulled off an amazingly entertaining show.

"AT YOUR SERVICE!"

"Gee, Mr. Baggins! Dwarves! Hundreds of 'em! Like locusts!"

Opening weekend was a success and so much fun to watch.

It didn't hurt that I am a Hobbit superfan.
Most of the high school shows span over the course of two weekends.

With one weekend down, there was only one more to go.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Katie and I headed to Olympia for our state PTA Focus Day.

Focus Day is a day to meet with legislators and talk about advocacy issues that are important to us.
Katie was not shy about advocating for students.

The next day, we were hit with two disasters.

#1 - A giant ice storm rolled into the state and shut down schools for two days. This, in turn, cancelled a pick-up rehearsal AND one whole show for The Hobbit.

#2 - Katie came down with COVID and had to miss the last weekend of the show.

That totally sucked.

She took it okay.

I was a mess.

I'm glad that I took photos that first weekend.
That was the last time she was on the high school stage in an acting role.

Alas, the show must go on.

With Katie isolated in her room, we were able to keep Mikey healthy.

Here is Mikey in his goblin garb.

Fighting the good fight for Team Goblin.

Sadly, Mikey Goblin doesn't survive the fight with the dwarves and is passed over as a dinner option by Gollum.

Fooled you! It was all stage magic!

Mikey actually survived and played Mario Kart with Gollum backstage in the Green Room.

The Hobbit was the most monetarily successful show in the high school's history.

Amazing.

As soon as the closing night was over, all of the students work to "strike" the set.

They pull everything down and clean.

After they do that, they have a ceremony where everyone shares a special thought or memory.

They usually don't get home till 1am or later.

Katie had to miss it. Stupid COVID.

Some friends of ours made sure she got to celebrate as well by dropping off some allergy-friendly treats.

I am not going to lie.

The majority of January was all about The Hobbit.

After the show was over, the kids had a little more room in their daily schedules and life returned to its normal, busy (but not drama show busy) routine.

I share this picture below because it is gross.

Huzbend tried to make a chicken meatloaf and did not precook the sausage.

We call this

ZOMBIE LOAF.

Huzbend actually ate some.

After he microwaved it.

At the end of the month, we celebrated a friend's 50th birthday.

Jon was a friend that Mike, our friend from high school, met in college.

The day after the surprise party, we had everyone to our house for dinner and then the day after that, the guys went to see the Seattle Kraken hockey team play.

December 2023

December is usually the month that I finish clearing the leaves out of the yard.

We have A LOT of leaves.
This year, the last of the leaves left our yard on December 20th.

One of the last tasks is cleaning the leaves out of the hard-to-reach places.
As I was raking some leaves out from under a tree, this little guy rolled out.

I thought I had stabbed him with one of the rake tongs, but he was okay.

I think I disturbed his winter slumber. He wasn't very hoppy.

I picked him up and moved him underneath a nearby bush.

After snapping a photo so I could share him with Katie and Mikey, I covered him up with leaves I left so he could cuddle up and not be eaten by Ralph.

The beginning of December was taken up by rehearsals for The Hobbit.
Katie was cast as Nori, a dwarf, while Mikey was cast as Grocery Boy, a Hobbit lad who "was not very smart". He was a little perturbed at that description. He also played a goblin.
The Hobbit would be performed in January, so the rehearsal schedule (for Katie especially) was ramping up.

One Friday, Katie was called for rehearsal and Mikey wasn't.
He was going to participate in a livestream for his high school Esports team, so I took him to dinner.
We went out and ate some potstickers and bulgogi/kalbi bowls for dinner.

Mikey loves potstickers.

The high school had a Winter Market.

At the market, student-made items were sold to fundraise for their clubs.

In between college essay writing and filling out applications, Katie made earth cookies to sell at the Winter Market for the Climate Action Club.

Right around this time, the high school FINALLY received signs installed with its name.

It only took three years and three months.

Sigh.

Preparation for The Hobbit sometimes happens on weekends at "work parties".

At these events, students build and paint sets, find and organize props, and work on costumes.
You would be amazed at how many hours of work goes into each of the productions.

Here's Katie modeling a dwarven undershirt.

And here she is helping distress some goblin armor.

Mikey made me waffles for my birthday.

They were delicious.

Huzbend and Mikey also made me a carrot cake with pineapple filling.

Huzbend made this crown/wig out of toilet paper rolls.

Modeled after Marie Antoinette, it says "LET THEM EAT CAKE"

at the top.

There's a story behind the crown/wig.
I complain that no one ever recycles their empty toilet paper tubes.

Winter Break had started.

The kids were off of school for the next two weeks.

Yay!

Katie had another photography assignment.

This one was to get lights in the background to look like blurry dots while keeping a subject in focus.

We walked around our neighborhood and used Christmas lights.

This is a picture I took to experiment and understand what Katie had to do.

Katie decided to use Pip as the subject of her photos.

He's not creepy.

At. All.

Since we can't have Peanut Butter Blossoms, I had been wanting to make them by substituting with Sun Butter for a while.

It would be easy to make them gluten free. 

The problem was dairy.

There were no Hershey's Kisses without dairy.

Well, guess what?
I found a company that makes dairy free "Smooches".

HA!

We got baking! 

The end product.

The kids LOVED them.
And, most likely, ate way too many cookies over holiday break.

On Christmas Eve, the kids did their traditional gingerbread house decorating.

Sadly, the company that made these allergy friendly gingerbread house kits has since closed.

So sad. They have brought many happy memories over the years.

Mikey's Side.

He takes the "more is more" approach to decorating.

Katie's Side.

Yes, that is a deceased candy cane person slumped against the side of the house.

Christmas Day late morning was spent opening presents.

Thank you!

Ralph got some presents too.

It took him about 5 minutes to disembowel this Lambie toy.

It's weird when your kid is old enough to get excited about receiving bookcases for Christmas.

For our special Christmas Day dinner, we had bacon-wrapped filets with a bacon/mushroom sauce, green beans, roasted potatoes and fizzy apple cider.

Mikey approved.

The week between Christmas and New Year's, the kids relaxed, read, played video games, built things, and ate LOTS of cookies.

Here is Mikey building a wood kit rifle that shoots elastic bands.

He worked through multiple bouts of frustration (actually having to disassemble it once) and spent hours and hours putting it together.

Katie is a big fan of the Great British Bake Off.
Mikey's a fan too and sometimes watches it to fall asleep because he's seen them so many times.

In the last season, for "Party Week", one of the challenges was to bake a "Caterpillar Cake".
I guess it's a popular birthday cake for kids over in the UK.

Katie wanted to immediately make one.

I promised her that we would over Winter Break.

It was time to fulfill the promise.

It was a complicated endeavor that took a lot of research.
How do you make a gluten free, dairy free swiss roll? Swiss merengue buttercream? Chocolate ganache?

We got to work.

It took ALL DAY.

That is not an exaggeration.

I think the thing I am most proud of was the swiss roll.

It worked perfectly.

No baking fails.

Here is our finished caterpillar.

He was ABSOLUTELY DELICOUS.

Not perfect. Good enough.

The ultimate compliment.

This is what we felt like after spending all day baking.

On New Year's Eve, we got out and enjoyed some crisp sunshine and mud.

We played frisbee golf.

Katie joined us and took over Ralph walking duties.

I'm thinking someone enjoyed his walk through the woods.

Lots to sniff.