BERJAYA

The weather continues to be atrocious. Here it is on Monday night.

We managed to get the presents all wrapped and under the tree by Tuesday evening. The tree looked pretty and peaceful.

The sunset that evening was gorgeous. Here is the tail end of it.

I finished putting a large pompom on my last present.

Then yesterday, Christmas Eve, we got the chores done. I am thinking that I will call my two Beilefelder roosters Big Bill and Little Bill. Big Bill is on the left, and Little Bill is on the right.

We packed up and drove to Renton to have Christmas Eve dinner with my Aunt and Uncle. This is their tree.

A special visitor was Zephyr, my new great nephew. This is my first time meeting him. Here is Al holding him, his great grandson.

Here he is with Loki opening a present.

We had a lovely meal and gifts. We drove home, and this morning got the chores done and prepared for Christmas breakfast here with the family. Here is the spread of baked foods I prepared. Tom made eggs, bacon and potatoes.

Tom’s kids, their partners and kids came. Diana’s mother Ruth came too, and it was our first time meeting her as well.

Ryeleigh was feeling left out.

Piper seemed to like her Labubu doll.

William liked his Seahawks hat.

Tom liked his Whoa sign.

After presenting opening and visiting the barn, the kids settled into their devices on the couch.

A good time was had by all. But now we are tired.

P.S. FYI The successful recipes of Christmas this year were Giant Almond Croissant, Maple-Pecan Sticky Buns, Christmas Salad, Best Fruit Cake, Rice Krispies Treats With Chocolate and Pretzels, Peanut Butter Blossoms, and Cherry Rugelach With Cardamom Sugar.

Less enjoyable for me and apparently the crowd were Holiday Rocky Road and Fudgy Bourbon Balls.

The area’s rivers’ flood waters are receding, but the weather remains atrocious. This is the rain during chores on Tuesday.

That afternoon we did some Christmas shopping in downtown Mount Vernon. It was my first opportunity to look at the Skagit River there. It was down but still at flood stage. Here is the flood wall that saved the town from flooding.

And here is the river on the other side of the wall. It is still impressively high.

There was a nasty windstorm that night. We very briefly lost power, but a lot of our neighbors were still without power the next day at noon. We did lose our broadband service though.

On Thursday I baked cookies which was a great thing to do on a crappy weather day. We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to watch the Thursday Night Football Seahawks-Rams game, but our broadband was restored.

So we were able to watch a most-incredible game.

We did receive an email from our vet on Thursday. Steve’s urine infection is cleared up. He is still anemic but not worse. His white blood cells are up, but she thought it was from inflammation from the liver masses she saw when his spleen was removed. But the bad news is the spleen masses are cancerous. She is awaiting more results to determine the next steps. So this sucks, but Steve is for the moment back to his normal self except he still like hanging out in the house. Which is just fine.

On Friday we drove to Bellevue to celebrate Al’s birthday by going to dinner with him and Mom. En route we stopped at Bellevue Square to pick up a Christmas present. It was packed. Finding parking was challenging too. But we were able to complete the task. I was hoping for some more time to check out the mall at Christmas time.