violetismycolor

darn it...

Gosh darn it!  I am getting a cold AND Oregon State is really doing a lousy job at the Emerald Bowl tonight.  Can't something go right?

click and watch the doggie and the snow...

Cookie and the snow on Christmas Day. Wee....

more about snow...

To address Marilyn's comment:  In the Oregonian today, the headline was about yesterday's snow...something about "70 years in the making".  Apparently, there was a 'trace' of snow in 1990...but the last recorded actual snow (that stuck) was in 1937.

The National Weather Service puts Portland's chance of snow on Christmas Day at 1%. 

So, yesterday's snow was an awesome event for us.

I met someone at our local coffee shop this morning who said, "I'm from Oklahoma and I came here to get AWAY from snow..."

I guess it's all in your perspective.

a white Christmas?

How is it possible that we actually had snow on Christmas?  This is the first time EVER that we have had a white Christmas in Portland.

Let's just say it was magical, and made it an even better day than it would have been.

craziest Christmas stuff...

The BBC Online has a section called 'The Day in Pictures'.  They collect the most interesting images from around the world.

This is Thailand, I think.  Okay, so who thinks that Santa rides in on a BLUE elephant, dressed in red and white, to deliver presents to the kiddies? 

But the elephant is darned cute, isn't it?

Maybe the elephant could do my 'Santa' duties?  Like make the homemade carmelcorn, clean the house before our Christmas Eve Dinner, wrap the last of the presents, and do tonight's cooking?  Please?

zoolights...

Zoolights with my sister, Ann, and her family was awesome.  Adam, Bonnie, and Ross really love getting together with their cousins.  We got there early and so, found parking.  I had gotten the tickets yesterday, so we just walked right in.  AND we were smart enough to get in line for the train just when they opened that up. 

A very fine dinner after=a perfect evening...

which I topped off (like a cherry on whipped cream) with a viewing of White Christmas with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye...can you say Christmas?

second cousins...

I got a Christmas letter from one of my (49) first cousins.  Reading along about how and what his kids were doing was interesting.  But then I read that his daughter was going to Gonzaga next year on a volleyball scholarship.  My niece Maria goes to Gonzaga on a basketball scholarship.  Now, these two girls don't know each other, but they ARE second cousins. 

So, I called Maria to tell her and she told me that one of her other team-mates (who is also of a Dutch background) ALSO had a second cousin coming on a volleyball scholarship.  Seems it is the SAME girl.  I'm still waiting to see how their relationships are different.  I am assuming that this other girl is related through my Uncle Jos, who is married to my mother's sister.  I think that they are both this girl's second cousins but from opposite sides of her family...small world!

hmmm...

Chemo day.  Exhausting, and I didn't even have to do anything but sit there...

My dad is doing great, though, and the doctors are very pleased with how he is coming along.

Yay.

arggghhh...

Christmas is stressing me out.  I am trying to make sure that everyone will have a wonderful Christmas morning, finding just the most perfect presents under the tree. 

Trouble is, I have to make sure that I am getting equal amounts of presents for everyone, so that no one feels like they have been left out.  And that is really hard.

All I want to do is to sit down with some homemade eggnog and veg out, watching some TV...

But then, I would have to make the eggnog myself and I just don't have the energy.

almost home...

Bonnie's flight is somewhere over South Dakota, and she will be home in about 2 hours.  Yay!

No problems whatsoever with weather.  She beat the storm.  Luckily, my ploy to get her home without passing through Chicago was a winner.  Chicago has had major backups all day long.  Her flight was on United, from Syracuse to Washington Dulles, then Dulles non-stop to Portland.  So glad that I did that!