Day 27: Piazza Italia

Daniel has wanted to be an Italian chef when he grows up for quite some time, so to celebrate his birthday tomorrow, he asked if we could go to an authentic Italian restaurant. We googled "authentic Italian restaurant Portland OR" and discovered Piazza Italia in the Pearl District. The atmosphere was great, the waiters spoke Italian, we were serenaded by an accordion player in Italian, there were soccer jerseys all over the ceiling and the food was amazing, so the birthday boy and his family were all very happy.

Day 26: Sledding Party

We  had a marvelous day of sledding and are so grateful for all our intrepid friends who joined us on the mountain for fun in the snow. Daniel and Anna thought it was their best sledding birthday party to date!

Day 25: Sleds

We are getting ready for tomorrow's sledding party, our annual celebration of Daniel and Anna's birthdays. Johnny found all the sleds and hosed them down in readiness for our trip up the mountain.

Day 24: Salt crystals

Anna wanted to try growing salt crystals and so far she is having great success. Next on her agenda, sugar crystals.

Day 23: Speaking Assessments

I made good use of my Voice Memo app today to record my French students' speaking assessments.

Day 22: Maple Leaf Rag

We are all enjoying Daniel's first forays into learning Scott Joplin.

Day 21: Hoyt Arboretum

Another beautiful day and the kids and I went hiking at Hoyt Arboretum.

Day 20: That's my girl...

I was straightening up Anna's bedroom and found a book and a flashlight under her pillow. I used to read late into the night by the light from the hallway when I was her age...

Day 19: Beach Retreat

I was very privileged to be invited to go on the church's high school/college girls beach retreat. It was a wonderful time of fellowship and a gorgeous day at the coast.

Day 18: More birthday celebrations

Today we were celebrating our friend Sarah's birthday, and she was a little embarrassed to be sung to by the staff at "Red Robin".

Day 17: Almost three weeks...

This shellac manicure is almost three weeks old and is still looking pretty good. I am almost used to having blue fingernails.

Day 16: Birthday Slippers

Anna was very pleased with this birthday gift - she loves cupcakes and purple is her favorite color!

Day 15: Birthday Girl

This girl makes me so happy - and she was pretty thrilled to get an ipod nano for her birthday. I can hardly believe she is eight already...

Day 14: Cardamom

I made some rather delicious apple sauce today, and took the risk of adding some freshly pounded cardamom pods. As I suspected, this wonderful addition meant that only I was interested in eating the finished product, so I will be enjoying it for a few days.

Day 13: Children's Chapel

Now that we no longer are spending our Sunday School time preparing for a Christmas pageant, we are back to our regular Sunday School routine, which starts with Children's Chapel.

Day 12: The Art of Owling

Noah, Daniel and I spent a delightful morning with some friends at Tryon Creek State Park, where we went on a guided ranger hike entitled "The Art of Owling". Not only was the ranger really excellent in leading the hike and sharing information, to my surprise we actually saw an owl. Here he is roosting at the top of a very tall tree.

Day 11: Campfire Candy

We will spend eight hours at our local store selling CampFire candy this weekend. I really hope we can reach our targets by Sunday!

Day 10: New floor

Followers of this blog may remember the high drama of passing a school bond by six votes in May 2011. I realized I have taken no photos of the beautiful work that was done at the school over the summer as a result of the bond, but here is a shot of the completely redone hallway floor.

Day 9: Clothes closet

Some of the proceeds of our church's Christmas bazaar went towards restocking our school's clothes closet for students who need help with code of dress. As a clothes closet helper, I know that this was a welcome gift!

Day 8: Introducing...

...Emily! Anna has wanted an American Girl doll for a number of years and was overwhelmed to learn that her grandparents wanted to give her one for Christmas. She researched each doll diligently (and read the online reviews for every single one) and decided on Emily for two reasons: her character is from the 1940s, and so would have been a contemporary of Nana; and she is British,  the only British American Girl doll. Nana and I were both very touched.

Day 7: Family History Project

The kids go back to school tomorrow and Daniel's Christmas break homework was this family history project which he finished today. He is now practicing the speech that accompanies it, ready to be called on to give his presentation sometime this week. He asked me if it was wrong to be proud of having such an interesting family...

Day 6: Epiphany

Another long story, but we held our church's Christmas pageant today, on the feast of Epiphany, and it was really great.

Day 5: Unexpected beach trip

It is a long story but I spontaneously drove to Newport last night to help out a friend. As well as a very special time with that friend, I had the opportunity for a solitary walk on the beach this afternoon which was just beautiful and an unexpected gift.

Day 4: Feeding the fish

We visited Portland's new aquarium today. It is small but very well put together and the kids loved feeding the fish and touching all kinds of sea creatures.

Day 3: Aerial tram

Sadly, today was the last day of Bumpa and Nana's visit. It was a clear day with beautiful views of the mountains, so we decided that taking a ride on the aerial tram would be a fun activity.

Day 2: Candle-making

Anna really enjoyed making a dipped candle today - another of our post-Christmas art/science projects.

Day 1: Favorite gift

This is one of my favorite Christmas gifts - a pottery candle holder that Johnny made and glazed for me. What you can't see is that it is sitting in a reorganized and spotlessly clean bathroom. It is a January 1st ritual for me to pick a room of the house and get it completely acceptable for a new year. Being busy with guests this year, I picked the smallest room in the house!

Day 366: Message from Noah

David found this on his desk this morning. Noah had cut them out and placed them on the desk so everyone would know to whom it belongs.

Day 365: A wonderful surprise

I had never heard of this book before but I am reading it to the kids and it is indeed, as Philip Pullman says: "Brilliant, irresistible, a wonderful surprise".

Day 364: Art and science project

The kids received a number of fun science and art projects for Christmas. Noah was eager to get started with painting his 3D solar system.

Day 363: Peacock Lane

Peacock Lane is always so beautiful, every house lovingly decorated, but it was nice to visit after Christmas when the crowds were gone and we had the place to ourselves.

Day 362: Boxing Day treat

We loved this movie and can't wait for part two!

Day 361: Christmas Day

Many amazing and wonderful moments this Christmas Day and many extraordinarily generous gifts, but the best present this year: having Bumpa and Nana with us to share all the Christmas magic.

Day 360: Treats for the neighbors

Christmas Eve means baking up a storm and then setting out to deliver treats to the neighbors.

Day 359: Advent Carol Service

I was fortunate to sing in the choir for the Advent Carol service so could only photos afterwards. I love this gorgeous Advent banner at church.

Day 358: Off to the Nutcracker

It is Anna's dream to have curly hair. Many thanks to Sarah who came over to curl Anna's hair so she could go the ballet looking even more fabulous than usual.

Day 357: Smores on the Solstice

What better way to celebrate the Winter Solstice than to invite over a bunch of neighborhood friends for Daniel's homemade meatballs, then build a big fire and make smores!

Day 356: Visit to Santa

We went to the mall to visit Santa, as we do every year, and Anna and I were intrigued by our reflections in these baubles.

Day 355: Buche de Noel

Getting ready for my last French class of the year and decided to make the students a Buche de Noel to celebrate Christmas break.

Day 354: Food Drive

Today was the school's annual food drive. It is wonderful to see how generous people can be and heart-warming to know that these food boxes will really make a difference to families over the Christmas break.

Day 353: Gingerbread houses

Time for our annual Gingerbread House construction! Fun to build and fun to eat...

Day 352: Spices

Some friends at church recently opened a spice shop that sells the most amazing products. It is Daniel's new favorite store. We visited today and bought all kinds of wonderful spices we cannot wait to use. The Alderwood Smoked Salt is out of this world!

Day 351: Piano recital

Christmas showcase today and Daniel and Anna both played very well. I loved the reflections in the piano as Anna and her friend Tristan played their Swan Lake duet.

Day 350: All decorated

I realized I hadn't taken a picture of the decorated tree. It looks lovely...

Day 349: How often does this happen?

I haven't been to enough basketball games to know if this is a rare occurrence, but it made everyone laugh. The ball was stuck up there, until another ball was found to dislodge it.

Day 348: Christmas Program

Noah sang his heart out at his Christmas program this evening.

Day 347: More basketball

Another great game...

Day 346: Portrait

Noah drew this portrait of me today, and I was indeed wearing a top that says "London" on it.

Day 345: Wreath

Our front door never looks quite so elegant the rest of the year...

Day 344: Christmas Tree

Our annual pilgrimage to the tree farm to find and cut down the perfect Christmas tree was entirely successful.