National Swearing Day

National Swearing Day was a disaster, again.  Another year, and no expletives crossed Dwayne's lips.  What good is National Swear Day if we get our tree in perfect peace?

But we had extra special guests with us this time.  Brian and Sandi met us at the first tree farm, and we made an outing of it, even if we didn't find a tall enough tree at this one.  

Piper helped one cousin write a letter to Santa...

….and the other cousin meet the farm dog.

Look closely--this Little Tike car has a tree tied to the top!  I was in heaven.

 Of course Piper is driving the reindeer!

It may not have the right tree for us, but I XOXO this farm.

We drove over to the next town and stomped through the thick frost to find Our Tree. Amber was such an awesome sport and adventurer!

And still, no swearing....

What kind of #$^@%-ing National Swear Day is this??

Amber came back with Auntie Denise to help decorate our kill, and to give Lil Sis a chance to nap undisturbed.  She was quite the helper. (Kyla waited until later to relocate the 5 ornaments on two branches, fully willing to believe that she and her siblings had all done the same.)

Wes found every excuse he could to put ornaments up high!

After watching her cousins scramble up and down, Amber worked up to standing on the "tall chair" to hang decorations herself. 

There's my elves!

A New Use for Piper

Our intimates know about Kyla's movie (and book and audiobook)...oddity. Any hint of drama, or suspense, or mystery--or even dialogue--can set her off keening, galloping up and down the hallway before slowly returning to her seat before doing it all again.  It's, um, distracting for others.  

Dwayne and Piper came up with a new work around. Piper is Kyla's seatbelt.  She sits across Kyla's lap to keep her grounded when Kyla wants to flee.  It works better than it ought to, and Kyla gets a sort of snuggle from her usually very prickly little sister, and Piper tolerates it because she's being helpful and doing a job only she can do.  Win, win...wait, Kyla, come back!

In the background is a common landscape in our basement--Wesley's new improvements on blanket-forting. Notice the total lack of access to the fire place and three-quarters of the room.  I'm kinda over it. But when he hates to do schoolwork, sometimes he can be convinced to take it downstairs and work on it happily in his cave. 

45 Excellent Years

The International Dyslexia Association's 2019 Conference was in Portland, OR, this year.  And since it is always adjacent to Veteran's Day weekend, it is always on my birthday.  I had never attended before, but I flew down from Payne Field really early Thursday morning and made it in time for the 8am session.  The conference was over Sunday at noon, and Dwayne drove down Saturday night, leaving the kids with my parents for two nights.  Which meant, on my birthday, I got to finish up the wonderful learning weekend, Dwayne slept in, and then we got to play in downtown Portland for 24 hours before driving home.  The Art Museum was a fabulous afternoon activity, we "discovered" the Swank and Swine for our dining pleasure, and in the morning, got to do one more city walk when we came across this Veteran's Day memorial. We joined the crowd to sing the Anthem and pay our respects to service men and women.  It was a proud and meaningful moment, and an excellent recap of several great days in Portlandia.

Heart Attack Hill in Autumn

Jen and I meet almost weekly to pant up Heart Attack and if the day is just right, you can get to a certain point and have the Olympics in front of you and the Cascades behind you. (Granted, the mountain ranges don't move--we just have a certain amount of cloud cover in the PNW, you may have heard).

Kyla and I went a few weeks later, and it was still lovely!