The Nelson Narrative

It's been a pretty good year so far.  A few weeks ago we bought a new car, a Toyota Highlander Hybrid, to replace our aging Highlander that needed all kinds of things done.  We love it.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles I was hoping for, like a DVD player, but it has enough (back-up camera, lane departure, etc.), and the girls have iPads and what-not anyway. Old car New car (I think one of the girls snapped this) Kona got spayed, so that's out of the way. Olivia started dance classes.  Hip hop and dance troupe, which is the group that performs in the annual recital.  Everyone does the recital anyway (well not everyone, but most) but the dance troupe does a big performance at the end that's an actual dance theater number.  One year it was Cinderella, one year it was Alice in Wonderland and this year it is the Little Mermaid.   She has several friends that are doing it to so it should be a lot of fun. Then last week Kayley h...

I've been at my new office for about 2 1/2 months now and I'm loving the 5 minute commute.  I don't know if this is a trend everywhere or just my company or what, but we are transitioning to smaller workstations (can't really call it a cubicle anymore) with new furniture that includes a sit/stand desk. Before:   Standard cubicle w/upper shelves After: New, much smaller workstation Really close to my neighbor The view from my seat turning my head to the right a bit.  I'll take it! The view closer to the window  

So if you recall, this time last year was crazy busy for us.  Olivia had dance on Mondays, gymnastics on Tuesdays and violin on Wednesdays.  Kayley had piano on Tuesdays, and then they both had Girl Scouts just one Wednesday a month.  It was pretty hectic but the dance was only late January through mid May, so the rest of the year wasn't quite as bad. But I'm happy to report that this year is much calmer.  Kayley is doing gymnastics and Olivia is doing dance, and that hasn't even started yet (it starts on the 22nd).  That's it.  Other than Olivia is still doing Girl Scouts which is only once a month and she was doing choir but gave that up after Christmas.  And they were both doing soccer but that ended in November.  As much as I would like them to take some sort of music lessons, I'm definitely enjoying the lighter schedule for now.

We usually get snow a few times a year but hardly ever on Christmas.  And if it does snow on Christmas or Christmas Eve it doesn't stick.  This year it snowed Christmas Eve and stuck around through a few days after!  I couldn't believe it.  And not just at our house but at the in-laws, too. We went there Christmas Eve and spent the night, came home after a nice turkey dinner and then it was back to work for me on Tuesday, but only for three days and now I have another 4-day weekend!  Woo-hoo! Olivia got a ukulele... And a new bike Kayley got a hoverboard and LOVES it, I might add. Kona got a toucan My mantle  Kayley delivering gifts via hoverboard

So I missed a few days of my 25 days of blogging.  Oh well, it was inevitable. I had been looking forward to this weekend even more than I normally look forward to weekends (which is obvioulsy A LOT) because after a few pretty busy ones we have absolutely nothing going on and I have a new project I started last weekend and couldn’t wait to continue.  I am pretty good about purging my closet a few times a year and donating clothes I don’t wear anymore and what-not, but there are several household items in all parts of the house that I’ve been holding onto thinking that I will get around to using them or selling them but I never do, so my new project that I started last weekend and am going to continue over the next several weekends is going through every. Single. Room. In the entire house and getting rid of absolutely EVERYTHING that we don’t want or use.  Last weekend I did the master closet, Friday evening I did the linen closet and yesterday I did the master bathr...

On Monday the 4th and 5th grade choir had a field trip to the Seattle Center to perform for Winterfest.  Paul had the day off because he had to take his friend Joel to the airport and the timing worked out so that he could go watch Olivia.  I was really impressed with how they sounded at the first performance so I can only image how they sounded here.

We live in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, and we have lots of wildlife (bears, coyotes, bobcats, deer, etc.) that was here before all of our homes took over their habitat.  People are always posting animal sightings on FB, because it’s just cool to see a big ‘ol black bear ambling down the side of the road, and also to warn people that might be about to head out on an evening walk that there is a bear/coyote/bobcat in the area. Lately there has been a huge increase in coyote sightings in particular.  Last Thursday a friend/neighbor texted a group of us to say that a coyote had been in her driveway while her son (6) was out playing (we both have homes that have the driveway/garage in the back with alley access).  She shooed it away, and a short time later it was back and all the way up to her patio this time (she has a pretty long driveway).  We were all like “Whoa” but then we got on with our evening. Meanwhile, the next door neighbor girl was over ...