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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.