Happy Holidays
This was our first holiday season away from our families. We decided to stay in the Pacific Northwest rather than paying the gouging airlines for tickets home. We had an enjoyable, happy holidays here, celebrating with great friends and their families.
The season kicked off with a lovely trip down to Portland for Thanksgiving. We spent several days with Andy, Jen and their cute pets Koby (hyper pup) and Vega (meow). Koby was smitten by Noah. See the cute pic of the two.
About 18 of us "transplants" who didn't go home for Thanksgiving got together at our friend Lorra's house to cook dinner. Noah made up a delish turkey, the showpiece and main event. It was tasty as usual (some thanks needs to go to our friend Alton Brown), whereas my pecan pies were a little sorry. Boo to runny, goopy pie filling.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we had a Mid-Holiday Feast at our house. The plan was to make up another feast on our own since we didn't bring any leftover turkey home with us the first time around. Noah did it up big again; however, a flood of biblical proportions dampened our dinner plans.
If you'll recall, Seattle experienced heavy, torrential rains at the end of November that flooded many areas of the city. Our street saw some pretty bad flooding. Noah was trying to help clean the storm drains on the street, and the water came up to his thighs. I'd never seen so much rain in my life! Noah carried me to our house because the water was somewhat high around the townhouses (and I didn't want to mess up my shoes). Luckily, the water never made it into our house, just a little bit in our garage. The rest of the houses toward the end of our street weren't so lucky. Their basements were flooded, and the tenants that lived in the lower levels had to move out. The street was pretty disgusting.
Back to the dinner: Some friends actually braved the floods to have some of Noah's turkey. Loren, Russ, Mike Verk and Tad came over and feasted with us. Great fun!
One of the highlights of the holiday season is my company's holiday party. Open bar, dancing, fun with people who actually like each other. Definitely not your typical office party. This was the third PN holiday party for us, and it was probably the best one to date. Noah busted some moves on the dance floor with me, I won an iPod Shuffle and Noah walked away with some peppermint bark. Here's a pic of us all dolled up.
We didn't get a Christmas tree this year, but instead decorated a lamp with lights. You get the same effect...okay, not really. But it's still cool.
Here's a pic of sneaky little Boris trying to peek into his presents from Noah's sister, Anna. I like the crazy lights.
This was a big Christmas for all of us. Noah got a Nintendo DS and a bowling ball. I got an assortment of scarves and cool socks, as well as season 2 of "The Office" and a bad ass rain jacket. The kitties got a sweet Pet Sport club house from Anna. They looove it.
We spent Christmas day with our friend Loren and his family in Bremerton. We took the ferry over and had a fun day with the Halls. We enjoyed delicious ham and watched a drawn out, but fun, gift exchange. We appreciated the Halls opening up their home to us as they did :)
Noah and I also had a mini holiday with Loren and Sarah. We took off to Leavenworth, a small Bavarian village in the Cascades. The village was absolutely beautiful; everything was covered in snow. We stayed at a lovely inn with a cute loft.
We went snowboarding one day. I didn't bust my ass too much getting off the lift, but I did have a rough day. I took one hard tumble, but what did me in was a snowboarder plowed right into me. I have a gnarly bruise on my right leg, and you could see where the edge of his board slid across my leg. Otherwise, it was a fine day. Noah got some good runs in and broke in his spiffy new jacket.
We spent a good day piddling around the village. Here are some photos of the village and our friends (Noah's the silly one with his hat pulled over his eyes). It was a cold, foggy day, so it's hard to see the huge mountains in the back.
We left to return to Seattle on New Year's Eve. As we packed the car, Noah spotted the coolest thing. There was a little barn owl sitting in the snow outside of our cabin. Check out the owl and see if you see something "different" about the photo.
Do you see the legs sticking out from beneath the owl? That little owl had just killed a bird for breakfast. It was amazing how an owl killed something that was its own size. You kind of felt bad for the owl though, because he couldn't go anywhere with its kill. The poor thing was probably starving and went for something big (it's eyes were definitely bigger than it's stomach). We watched the owl for a while as it tried to fly away with its breakfast. After a while, it only got so far as 10 feet from where we originally saw it. We didn't stay around to see what the owl did, but I hope it got out okay and filled its belly.
Well, that was Holiday 2006 with the Beckers. We hope you all had a memorable one and got everything you wished for. We wish you the best in the New Year and hope to see you soon!
The season kicked off with a lovely trip down to Portland for Thanksgiving. We spent several days with Andy, Jen and their cute pets Koby (hyper pup) and Vega (meow). Koby was smitten by Noah. See the cute pic of the two.
About 18 of us "transplants" who didn't go home for Thanksgiving got together at our friend Lorra's house to cook dinner. Noah made up a delish turkey, the showpiece and main event. It was tasty as usual (some thanks needs to go to our friend Alton Brown), whereas my pecan pies were a little sorry. Boo to runny, goopy pie filling.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, we had a Mid-Holiday Feast at our house. The plan was to make up another feast on our own since we didn't bring any leftover turkey home with us the first time around. Noah did it up big again; however, a flood of biblical proportions dampened our dinner plans.
If you'll recall, Seattle experienced heavy, torrential rains at the end of November that flooded many areas of the city. Our street saw some pretty bad flooding. Noah was trying to help clean the storm drains on the street, and the water came up to his thighs. I'd never seen so much rain in my life! Noah carried me to our house because the water was somewhat high around the townhouses (and I didn't want to mess up my shoes). Luckily, the water never made it into our house, just a little bit in our garage. The rest of the houses toward the end of our street weren't so lucky. Their basements were flooded, and the tenants that lived in the lower levels had to move out. The street was pretty disgusting.
Back to the dinner: Some friends actually braved the floods to have some of Noah's turkey. Loren, Russ, Mike Verk and Tad came over and feasted with us. Great fun!
One of the highlights of the holiday season is my company's holiday party. Open bar, dancing, fun with people who actually like each other. Definitely not your typical office party. This was the third PN holiday party for us, and it was probably the best one to date. Noah busted some moves on the dance floor with me, I won an iPod Shuffle and Noah walked away with some peppermint bark. Here's a pic of us all dolled up.
We didn't get a Christmas tree this year, but instead decorated a lamp with lights. You get the same effect...okay, not really. But it's still cool.
Here's a pic of sneaky little Boris trying to peek into his presents from Noah's sister, Anna. I like the crazy lights.
This was a big Christmas for all of us. Noah got a Nintendo DS and a bowling ball. I got an assortment of scarves and cool socks, as well as season 2 of "The Office" and a bad ass rain jacket. The kitties got a sweet Pet Sport club house from Anna. They looove it.
We spent Christmas day with our friend Loren and his family in Bremerton. We took the ferry over and had a fun day with the Halls. We enjoyed delicious ham and watched a drawn out, but fun, gift exchange. We appreciated the Halls opening up their home to us as they did :)
Noah and I also had a mini holiday with Loren and Sarah. We took off to Leavenworth, a small Bavarian village in the Cascades. The village was absolutely beautiful; everything was covered in snow. We stayed at a lovely inn with a cute loft.
We went snowboarding one day. I didn't bust my ass too much getting off the lift, but I did have a rough day. I took one hard tumble, but what did me in was a snowboarder plowed right into me. I have a gnarly bruise on my right leg, and you could see where the edge of his board slid across my leg. Otherwise, it was a fine day. Noah got some good runs in and broke in his spiffy new jacket.
We spent a good day piddling around the village. Here are some photos of the village and our friends (Noah's the silly one with his hat pulled over his eyes). It was a cold, foggy day, so it's hard to see the huge mountains in the back.
We left to return to Seattle on New Year's Eve. As we packed the car, Noah spotted the coolest thing. There was a little barn owl sitting in the snow outside of our cabin. Check out the owl and see if you see something "different" about the photo.
Do you see the legs sticking out from beneath the owl? That little owl had just killed a bird for breakfast. It was amazing how an owl killed something that was its own size. You kind of felt bad for the owl though, because he couldn't go anywhere with its kill. The poor thing was probably starving and went for something big (it's eyes were definitely bigger than it's stomach). We watched the owl for a while as it tried to fly away with its breakfast. After a while, it only got so far as 10 feet from where we originally saw it. We didn't stay around to see what the owl did, but I hope it got out okay and filled its belly.
Well, that was Holiday 2006 with the Beckers. We hope you all had a memorable one and got everything you wished for. We wish you the best in the New Year and hope to see you soon!
1 Comments:
Glad you two had a good holiday season!
In the owl picture it looks like those legs are his own, and he's just laying on his side. Weird.
By the way, the Christmas Lamp is priceless. You should patent it.
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