We added mirrors to two of the walls in the kid’s playroom in the basement. Joe went to four Home Depots in the Seattle are to find the 7 large mirrors we needed. The kids enjoyed helping press the mirrors to the wall until the mastic stuck. This mirror slid slightly off square when we pressed it on which created quite a challenge to deal with when we mounted the 4th mirror onto this wall.
Our caroling group sang at the main cottage of the memory area of the nursing home. We had an audience of about 15 people. Quite a few of them were pretty unresponsive to the singing. Monti was very comfortable and good at interacting with the residents at the nursing home. She left with a strong desire to go back and help out a couple of her favorite residents.
After Dahlia’s trip to the emergency room the pediatrician nurse reminded me the girl’s were overdue for their well-check. Once at the doctor’s office the girls did their best to make their gowns fashionable. The nurse checking us in had the same heart condition (SVT) as Dahlia does. Everyone checked out fine and no shots were required.
We all got into a rockin’ mood by watching ipod commercials before
trying to get some live action dance shots for our Christmas card. We
put U2’s “Vertigo” on repeat and everyone danced to it while Joe
and I took turns snapping tons of shots. After that I had a date with
my old pal Photoshop. Joe told me I could only work one day on the
card because he knew I could get very hung up on the details. (I kept
it to one day too).
Dahlia has been begging for a playground and our yard is just not
right for it. Last weekend we started thinking about adding some
swings to the garage. I bought the stuff and Joe hung them up. They
LOVE the swings! To quote Monti, “She is the luckiest girl in the whole world.”
After leaving the water park exhausted we realized we were also
starving. Nothing much is open Thanksgiving evening off the
interstate except Denny’s so that is where we had our Thanksgiving
celebration with Boca Burgers and mac n’ cheese. Monti added a bit of
traditional Thanksgiving by getting mashed potatoes as her side item.
Throughout the main areas of the hotel were kids running around waving
wands at anything and everything. It was absolutely killing Monti not
being involved in whatever they were doing. We headed to the gift shop
to see what it was all about. The game was called MagiQuest and it
required the purchase of a wand and a game. Once we had a wand we were
able to activate quests that sent us throughout the hotel trying to
find symbols or hidden objects. When you came across one of the
objects you needed you would wave your wand at it. The game kept track
of what objects you had collected and what quests you completed. The
objects could be found on 5 different levels of the hotel. We played
for a total of 3 hours and we walked a countless number of stairs. It
was a big hit with the girls. On a personal note I am still having dreams involving my unsuccessful search for the howling stone wolf.
We left right after caroling practice on Wednesday for Great Wolf Lodge. It is only 82 miles from Issaquah but due to holiday traffic it took us over 4 hours to get there. Monti must have asked “When will we get there?” thirty times before Joe told her no more. Once there we were able to play in the water park for an hour before heading to bed. The girls thought they were so special sleeping in their own private Wolf Den in our room. It contained bunk beds and their own personal TV to watch the Disney channel on. Of course they slept in those wonderful bunk beds for about 2 hours only before joining us in our queen sized bed.
We had our first practice and organizational meeting for the school
caroling group. A group of 50 students will be performing
Christmas carols at a two of the assisted living homes in Issaquah.
The woman organizing the group had a subset of us over to her
house to figure things out before the entire group would practice together.
Monti is one of the kids singing a solo. She is doing the first verse
of “When Christmas Comes to Town” from The Polar Express movie.
After the musical I took the Dahlia, Monti and her friend Samantha out to dinner. We had a good discussion about all the fun elements of putting together a play including everyone’s favorite – costume design. All I heard about was how much they loved the full yellow gown that Belle wore during the show.