Santa Sail 2017

This is Shane's first year on the 76 Seafair Holiday Cruise for Special People.  The SSS Odyssey hosts Santa and the rest of the boats cruise by, waving at Santa.  What a neat event! 

Decorating the Odyssey

The Scouts (the SEA Scouts, not the boy scouts) headed up to Seattle on Saturday morning after an overnighter on the boat and had some extra time to explore the docks and other cool places nearby.  Shane and his friends stopped to admire the Virginia V...

 ...and were invited aboard for a special tour.  They got to see all the machinery in action and got
to actually flip switches and run the machines and do all sorts of things that lead to real jobs in the real world. 

Drawing of the engine

Actual crankshaft as pictured above

The Space Needle BEHIND the Odyssey.  The tall mast is the Odyssey's.

The Odyssey's Mast and the Space Needle

Shane enjoyed the float planes taking off and landing

The Odyssey: Shane's home away from home

Captain Squid Selfie

Another shot of the Virgina V

A rainbow while bringing up the anchor

Cutest Little Steamboat ever!

 After a day of fun and prep for the Santa Sail...

It started getting dark, so the pictures get blurry...but a paddle wheel!!!!

 Shane is learning so much and having the experience of a lifetime.  I borrowed these pictures from the Odyssey's Twitter account from other days:

Man overboard drills near Halloween

Recruitment Activity-Look at all those nice kids!

One more from the Santa Sail

I can excuse Shane from Christmas Tree decorating with his family if he is doing something this special!

Oh Christmas Tree!

Strong Sons are a blessing!

Mark took four kids who could listen and follow directions to pick our tree out from our top secret local U-cut place.

Three of these kids didn't go. Can you guess which ones?

The Pretzel is safe for another year! (Mark is so over hanging the pretzel up high for me)

We missed having Shane around (he was on a sailing trip) and Ian is "too old" to decorate.  Our tree is an 11 foot noble and it was 11 years old!

November Birthday Girls

With Heidi and Genevieve's birthday four days apart and Thanksgiving weekend right in the midst, we had a little gift giving on Saturday for Heidi and a party for Genevieve on Sunday.

Fiona helped Lula make a card for this gift for Heidi.  When Lula found out it was Genevieve's birthday too, she erased Heidi and wrote her big sister's name instead!

Heidi was happy with a hand me down doll from Fiona...

A hand me down pony from Genna...

And Pua and Heihei! I love how she wrinkles her nose when she is super happy.  She also got useful things like shoes, socks, and warm pajamas.

Genevieve invited a few friends she knows from activities that aren't vaulting and their brothers (one for Daniel to play with and one for Shane to hang out with).

Twelve candles for Genevieve...

...and four for Heidi (do I see a little brother trying to blow her candles out?)

The kids all colored cheap mugs from the dollar store with markers that I baked to make the marker permanent.  What a fun craft!  And what a great group of girls! (I met a mom who was new to MOPS last weekend and she asked the socialization question.  I told her my daughter had so many friends, she wasn't allowed to invite them all to her birthday party. That shut her up...temporarily)

Thanksgiving

From Farm to Table:

November Round Up

This month went by faster than I could track.  November isn't over yet, but here are a few highlights...

When your vaulting shoes go missing and you know that Kai loves to bury leather things in the sandbox

Various happenings with These Three (Mark and I in the background)

A few snowflakes teased us

A TON of knitting and crocheting, thanks to Co-op classes!

Lula learning about Worms in Co-op

Shane's class party at Co-op

Shane ranked up to Apprentice in Sea Scouts

Football is done, finally.  Ian is the fuzzy guy on the far right with the 42 on his front.

Mark and Daniel went Cub Scout camping

We also had orchestra and taekwondo and school and work and sickness and raising teens....what a month!