My Baby's All Grown Up and Going to Thailand!

Sarah came home on 12/16 for the holidays. A few days later she got her haircut and died it back to her original red color (She was born a strawberry blond). She looks so mature with her new hairdo. The boys and Maya loved having her home. Yesterday she left for a month in Thailand with her friend Gretchen. She left me in charge of my grand-dog, Lilly. I think I'm going to be a better Grandma than I am a mother. Especially if all my grandchildren are dogs! Yesterday I took her for a walk, on a leash and everything! She's my new exercise buddy. Trevor pulls which makes walking on icy roads even more treacherous, and he weighs 100 pounds!


We had a nice Christmas. Santa brought the boys a real hockey goal. It was in our living room for a few days, now it's outside on the homemade ice skating rink where it belongs. Today Matt's siblings will start arriving for our Annual Wise Clan New Year Gathering. We will exchange gifts and feast on King crab and Prime rib. On Saturday Matt's siblings will all go fishing for Winter King, which is the best salmon on earth. It melts in your mouth like butter! We will be in Soldotna for Chris' first two hockey games. He's going to play goalie! I don't know if his ego can take it. Not everyone is cut out to be a goalie. Our coach is going to rotate several kids through the goalie position. I wanted him to play other positions, too, since it's his first year of hockey.


Maya has been resisting learning to skate. We had our first melt down a couple of weeks ago. Last week she did fine once we were out there. She doesn't like the group activities, prefers to do her own thing. I think I'm going to try her in a dance/movement class after New Year's. We can try skating again next year. Maybe she'll actually be able to bend her arms and legs in her gear! She turns 4 on January 2nd. She decided to have a swimming party with 10 of her friends. We are going to have her birthday party next week, since Matt is on call this weekend.


Sarah leaving for Thailand.

Our homemade ice rink.

Now the boys want a mini-Zamboni!

Yes, our whole family fits in a hockey goal.

On the First Week of Christmas...

On the first day of Christmas, Chris and Maya both came down with the stomach flu. Maya bounced back after 12 hours but Chris continued to have stomach pain all week and missed 3 days of school. When he wasn't lying on the couch with stomach pain, he was busy putting up our Christmas tree. Since he was under the weather he decided to reuse our fake tree instead of chopping a real tree down this year. Chris doesn't like us leaving the tree lights on all the time. He's afraid we are going to run out of electricity before Santa gets here.

On the second day of Christmas, we got about a foot of snow. We actually got 2 feet of snow but the day before it had warmed up and rained. On the top of the ridge where it never got warm enough to rain, people got up to 3 feet of snow over two days. We also lost power for a few minutes several times during the storm.

On the third day of Christmas the sun came out. It was so beautiful outside with all the new snow. It looked like a Christmas card. Nothing like fresh snow to get you in the mood for Christmas!



Maya has quickly learned about Santa Claus. She tells Grandma about all the toys Santa is going to bring her when she see the toys advertised on TV. At our house she looks through catalogs and puts an M on all the toys she wants with a marker. Right now she is sitting on her potty chair with a toy catalog.



Today we are going to watch the Nutcracker. It is a local favorite production that has been reborn every year for probably about 20 years now. Every year the director adds something different so it's always fun. For example, the year the kids had a visiting circus school and learned how to juggle and ride unicycles, Jill worked a circus theme into the Nutcracker. The boys enjoying watching their friends who are in the performance. The high school boys are cast as King Rat and his army, Russian dancers, Matadors and Spanish dancers. In fact, our high school football coach's son thinks that performing in the Nutcracker ballet is what football players do after football season is over!



The performance is is our high school auditorium which is a world class auditorium used for lots of community events. And then we have the Nutcracker Fair. The high school gym and commons area is packed with local artists and merchants hawking their wares, so you can pick up some unique gifts while you are there.



Chris micromanaging Maya as they decorate the tree.

Chris putting the tree together in his pajamas.

Chris and Riley learning to make gravy on Thanksgiving.

Chris is learning to play goalie. Maya is helping to defend the goal while I take shots on Chris. At first she just stood in front of the goal. But when I learned how to do lift shots to get the puck past her, she started charging me and trying to take the puck from me!