Family’s First Christmas

A Merry Christmas indeed!  Time keeps flying though as Jack Jack’s already a month old.  We’re Christmas junkies as it is, pretty much going haywire every year with decorations, family dinners, parties, etc., but this year obviously added another dimension.

The temp is still sub-30, so the snow and ice remain.  And while it makes for some sketchy driving, the scenery isn’t bad.

The water “issue” behind us, or at least to the point that we have hot water again, Abby and I set out to have Christmas basically explode all over the house, have a few friends and family over, and just thoroughly enjoy the Holiday with Jack.  Hopefully, we’ll find some time between now and New Year’s for a little R&R.  But that’s a Christmas wish that’s not likely to happen.

Along with Grandma and Grandpa Rogers and Aunt Chelsea, we had our good friends Rick and Lori over on Christmas Eve with their new baby girl Emily who is a few days away from six months old.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Chelsea stayed the night, so I had my sous chef again for Christmas dinner…although we kept this a bit more low-key than Thanksgiving.

View Full Album

I know mom and dad had a blast, and I think Jack did too.  Granted, it was more for us than him, it’s another milestone first of our family.

Ho, ho, ho!

Winter Exacts Its Pound of Flesh

Mother nature created quite a balancing act this year.  On the one hand, it looks like Jack’s first Christmas will be a white one.  Outstanding!   On the other hand, the temp has been so far below freezing that a water pipe busted at 3am on Sunday.  Definitely NOT outstanding! 

I have to give credit where it’s due here, as I was immensely impressed by the City of Bellevue who not only had the decency to answer my wee morning call with a live body, but sent a crew out within 15 minutes to shut off the water main at the street.  They helped keep a nasty situation from becoming truly disastrous given that the previous owner of our house, in an epically boneheaded move, had buried the water shut-off valve behind drywall – something we didn’t discover until days later.  Anyway, all that “fun” is worth a separate story.

Let’s just say, this isn’t the type of thing you want to see on the outside of your house:

And though I can’t stand shameless plugs, I have to give one here.  Right after the 3am call to the city, the 3:30am call to Beacon Plumbing went out.  Not only did the owner answer the phone himself (evidence of how much volume the weather was creating), he guaranteed a crew would be out by 7am – something no one else would do, if they even bothered to answer the phone.  I almost felt guilty when the guys had to spend another hour digging their truck out of our driveway.