November 28, 2011
“You
don’t believe in me” said the ghost of Bob Marley now seven years in
the grave. “Why do you doubt your senses?” “Because”, said
Scrooge, “a little thing affects them, such as a slight disorder of
the stomach. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of
mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.”

Our New Year started out with a “bang” having new carpet scheduled
to be installed throughout the house in early January. The day
we returned from spending Christmas in Orlando, the packing began.
Everything on the floors, in closets and on all the dressers, tables
and shelves in all of the rooms with carpet had to be boxed up and
hauled out to the garage … a week-long undertaking. While the
rooms were empty, we decided to paint the office, bonus room and
Hailey’s bedroom. Afterwards as we pulled all the boxes and
drawers back in from the garage, we used that opportunity to sift
through and organize everything, adding shelves, updating old
furniture and rearranging all the rooms in the process … essentially
doing a decade and a half’s worth of spring cleaning over the course
of a month.

In the spirit of never-ending home improvement projects, we had our
downstairs bathroom remodel kick in early February after locating a
free granite remnant from the company we worked with on our master
bathroom back in August 2009. The downstairs bathroom was a
small job, but we had lots of setbacks with the contractor which
dragged the process out an extra 2 months. Nora and I did all
the painting, design choices and purchases. Through all of
this we managed to sneak in Hailey’s second year of ski lessons and
our last “free” season … my 2008 clancysskischool.com website
development barter for lessons and tickets ended this year.
Nora did her annual “Girl’s Weekend Away at Whistler” with Jodi and
friends in February, skiing several days in great conditions and
riding the new way cool Peak-2-Peak Gondola put in place just in
time for the 2010 Winter Olympics held there.

Spring
Break was spent in Portland over a long April weekend. Our plans to
take Amtrac down the coast and use Max (Portland’s awesome transit
system) to get around while there were “derailed” when we found out
that morning our train was cancelled due to a mudslide across the
tracks. The Pacific NW early April weather included a marathon
of heavy rain storms. We ended up driving the Expedition down
and back, having a great time ice skating at Lloyd Center, “quad”
bicycle riding through the Saturday Market area, seeing the sights
on the Aerial Tram and doing some art shopping while there. It
was back to Portland again in August to attend my friend Lisa’s
wedding in Ariel, WA near the Oregon border, doing day trips out of
Portland to the Columbia River Gorge, world famous for windsurfing,
and Multnomah Falls, a majestic double waterfall both about 40 miles
east down a beautiful scenic drive along the Columbia River.

The
arrival of Spring triggers the annual daunting task of yard
clean-up, transplanting and adding annuals to all the beds and pots.
Last year we had a contractor bid to put in almost 200 feet of
flagstone paths in our yard for about 35% of the other estimates we
received. His crew did a great job on the upper patio and
firepit areas, but everything else looked pretty bad when finished.
I took a few days off work in June and put in stone steps down to
the firepit and Nora and I chipped away at reworking the rest of the
flagstone from a big pile of leftovers we had stacked behind the
fence, removing all the sand between and replacing it with bark for
a more natural look. With the yard looking good, we decided to
have a big backyard party at the end of July with about 45 of our
friends and neighbors coming. Big parties are always fun:)

Summer saw Shannon signed up for several week long tennis and
volleyball camps as well as her Summer Adventures camp. She
had plans to try out for the tennis and volleyball teams at her new
Junior High this year. Hailey signed up for YMCA sponsored
cooking, art and “H2WhOa” camps and had a fun summer. Nora and
I (mostly Nora) shuttled them around to the camps before, during and
after work. It was more than a little crazy dealing with all
the camp transportation!

We
made the annual Montare neighborhood camping trip to Lake Wenatchee
State Park in July and another to Larabee State Park with friends
over Labor Day weekend. Always fun to get together with all
the other families and spend some quality campfire time, playing
backwoods Bocce Ball and sharing a “few” drinks. Nora and I
joined a Bowling League sponsored by my company this year and I
watched Nora’s average ascend and mine decline with her passing me
somewhere in that stretch … she bowled a 221 scratch a few weeks
back! Nora took Hailey to her first concert seeing Taylor
Swift along with Shannon, Emma and our friend Jill. We snuck
in a few other events and concerts including the Nutcracker, Blue
Man Group and Joan Jett (getting our 70s punk rocker on), Disney on
Ice, opening night of Aladdin at the Paramount, a Sounders FC soccer
game, a UW Huskies football game and a few Seattle Mariners games
over the course of the year with friends.

Shannon started 7th grade at Leota Junior High and was one of a
select few to test into their advanced Math and English programs
based on her academic achievements during her 6 years at Kokanee.
She loves having her own locker, the new environment, faster pace,
and having classes in different rooms with different teachers.
Shannon’s
soccer team just finished a good season with most of the team
together and consistent coaching for 4 years straight now.
Shannon is taking both jazz and hip-hop dance classes this fall,
which she loves after taking very formal ballet classes all last
year. She auditioned and scored 3 different roles (one a
singing pirate) in Leota’s winter play “A Seussified Christmas
Carol”, a cute rendition of the Dicken’s classic where all the lines
rhyme in the style of a Dr. Seuss book. With all the homework
and after school activities, her writing has slowed way down, but
she still has the desire and sneaks in chapter updates to her “Taken
Away” novel from time to time with plans to turn it into a trilogy.
Shannon took a few months of Writer’s Workshops in Seattle with her
friend Yomna earlier this year.

Hailey is in 2nd grade at Kokanee and this year she has a great base
room teacher … we won’t talk about last year’s teacher! She
started taking piano lessons this year, opting out of a second year
of ballet to take gymnastics instead. This was her third year of
soccer and she played very aggressive in contrast to previous years.
Hailey continues to surprise us with her amazing long-term memory
and quick wit. She remembers very detailed things from when
she was 3 and 4 years old … as compared to me, who can’t remember
where I put down my car keys yesterday when I got home from work.
She obviously got her memory from Nora’s genetic pool!

We just rented both girls their skis and boots for the season,
bought our Steven’s Pass season passes for the winter and are
looking forward to kicking that in mid-December though mid-February.
Many of our neighbors have kids in ski lessons and we’re looking
forward to all the social aspects of the ski season in that respect.
We have plans for a 5-day ski trip in February to Whistler and are
starting to pull together our vacations plans for 3 weeks in Europe
this summer. The initial idea is to spend time in both England
and France. We skipped taking a real vacation this year to
save up our money and vacation time for the trip to Europe.
Christmas this year will be spent at home in Seattle and we hope to
hook up with Nora’s sister and her husband when they are back in the
area in December.

Over Thanksgiving weekend we finally retired the ’98 Ford Expedition
that we affectionately called the “Beast”. We just bought a
new 2012 Chevy Traverse and love it. We needed 3rd row seating
to accommodate all the school neighbor kid carpooling we do, so that
requirement was our starting point when we began looking a few
months back. The “Beast” will still be used for summer
camping, ski trips and the occasional Home Depot run

In
closing, may the old Scrooge in you wither and the Ghost of
Christmas Yet To Come bestow upon you to live more, love more, and
spread your Christmas cheer daily from every day forward. As
the stage lights dim, may you hear little Timmy say “God Bless us
all, everyone!” Merry Christmas 2011!
Love …

P.S. – Our website has been updated with the 2011 Year in Pictures.
Genealogy updates
include a full biography of our great*5
grandfather Jean-Baptiste Steffens (1761-1839)
including a picture
and history of a castle he lived in still
standing outside Zurich (now
a 1000 year-old medieval history
museum). Check it all out at
http://www.digital-vision.com/alan.

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