Merry Christmas!

Our second Christmas in the Pacific Northwest with the Chisholm/Fujimoto gangs was wonderful. It would be impossible to report on all of the festivities in the past 11 days, but here are some highlights:

• Dad Watson's: We met up with some Puddle Jumpers (LT's soccer team) and McDonald for beers & Capt. Neon burgers.
• Never Ending Story: Staring EMILY CHISHOLM, so friggin' wonderful to see Em in action again. If you are in the Seattle area, you must see this play at the Seattle Children's Theater. Bravo EM!
• Epic Drive to Redmond: Laura gets the MVP for this drive since she had the stomach flu and was sick the entire 10 hours. Honorable mention goes to Dave and Amy for being awesome with Hayden and for driving.
• Christmas eve snow: Sledding, snowball throwing competition and our rendition of a luck dragon in the snow. It was so great to play with Hayden this entire trip -- he is an absolute joy and is too cute to describe.
• Christmas: Advent wreath, countless candles, yummy meals, Night Before Christmas book reading, hours after hour of football, mountains of toys for Hayden and the other grandkids. And we cannot forget the fireworks. Thanks to Henry, this is a consistent edition to our Oregon visits -- he believes it is necessary to celebrate all holidays with fireworks, even Flag Day!
• Excellent fun-filled family visits: Chisholms, Andersons, Chambers, and Huckes
• Drive back to Seattle: Calm and relaxed, and for you East Coasters, we used chains on our tires to get through the snow on the mountains between Central Oregon and Seattle!
• Joshua and Laura Day: Of course, we spent a day going sailing on Lake Union with a boat borrowed from the ever-growing Center for Wooden Boats and rock climbing at Stone Gardens, where we first met.

This trip was great because we spent a lot of time lazing around and laughing. And, really, isn't that the point?

Thanks to all of you who helped make this trip wonderful for Laura and me. If our paths did not cross this holiday we still want to wish you a very happy and blessed season.

Happy Birthday, Scott!!

So this is another birthday where you are too far away for us to properly celebrate with you. What this means is that I still owe you a night on the town in Philly, where we reenact our night out in Chicago, which I won't get into in this public space for obvious reasons and because there is a picture of my mother in this post.

Happy Birthday!

love joshua and Laura....and Shanti

16 Months

Can you believe we have been married 16 months now?

It's wonderful.

Finito ... until January 22nd!

I'm done with my first semester of school. Yippy! Although hanging out with the cat all day isn't a bad gig.

Game night

Fact #1: Game nights are always fun.

Fact #2: Game night when we play Curses can get out of hand.

Fact #3: Capturing how much fun game night is in picture form is both awkward and nearly impossible.

In the picture to the left, Kaitlyn is dancing with her arms, yelling like a drill sargent and has to act like she is in an earthquake every time Joshua speaks. Joshua, below, is constantly giving himself bunny ears and playing the electric guitar. Somehow all of this is super funny to us. I spent most of the evening laughing so hard that I was crying, which was a mess because my wrists were "super glued" to the top of my head and I had to speak like I had golf balls in my mouth.

Next game night, you will have to join us ... especially because Matt (unfortunately not pictured holding his nose and operating on a sponge carrot) brings really good cheese and crackers. And Sarah (above on the left) has an amazing falsetto.

Welcome Home, Soldier!

After a chunk of time in Afghanistan, Patrick has returned to the States. Hooray!

Now with more awe-worshiping ability!

Dear World,
You can now post comments without having a blogger ID name and password. Just click on the "Comment" button below. After you write your comment, choose "Anonymous". It would be nice if you signed your comments. Although, if you want to go unnoticed, be our guests. Obviously, we will quickly delete any snarky or rude comments, so all the weirdos out there just shouldn't even bother.

Feel free to comment on anything and everything. You can even go back to old entries and comment on them.

Honestly though, who are we kidding by calling them "comments"? We should be frank and label it "praises" or "accolades" or "wow, Josh and Laura are amazing-isms." Right?

Thank you,
The Management

Shanti Update

Things Shanti Has Stopped Doing:
* Jumping on our eating surface to bat the food off my fork.
* Sleeping on the dining room table every night.
* Attacking feet.

Things Shanti Does Now That Are Awesome:
* Sleep on my lap as I work on the computer.
* Bat pens off the coffee table. (Believe us, the venom she feels against pens is awesome.)
* While standing on the floor, she can put her paws on top of the dining room table and almost do a pull-up trying to get a view of the table top.

To thank our wonderful kitty who is growing up into an awesome cat, we dress her up like a reindeer.

Winter Coat Time! And the Death of the 'Stash

Here at Casa de Chisholms, we celebrate the little things. Like the official switching from our fleeces to our winter coats! Doesn't get better. The other day we decorated the house -- ornaments hang from the chandelier and the ceiling fan due to our noticeable lack of tree (next year, next year ...) -- and went out for a drink to celebrate the occasion. May not seem like a big celebration but, for us, it was perfect.

Unfortunately, folks, this is the last photo you will see of Joshua's mustache. It died in a fit of frustration at how much it obstructed the eating process -- "och, that hurt" was a common theme as the mustache tried to be consumed along with dinner. While I loved the 'stache for the first five months, by month six I missed seeing my husbands lovely smile (*ahhhh*).

That mustache first joined us when we were visiting Seattle in July.

It stayed for our first anniversary.

It helped with the house rehab and move.

It stayed for an entire rugby season, a community action, a few tennis matches, a birthday and visit, the creation of four povitisas, a hockey game and a football game.

(Not pictured, a high school reunion, multiple family functions and meeting everyone from the Geography Department ... yup, all those people think that Joshua is a "guy who has a mustache." Pretty funny stuff.)

We went through a lot together, but it was time ... knowing Joshua, I'm sure we are moving into another stage of wonderful hair creation.

This morning, after a few beers, Brian and Joshua headed off into the crummy weather for Joshua's first professional football game: Eagles vs. Seahawks! They gave me their best Eagles fans impression and it went something like this:

Brian and Bridgette got tickets to for Joshua for his birthday. When they finally got home this evening, it seems like they had a great time. An avoiding-cops-and-hanging-out-with-professional-hockey-players good time.