What a whirlwind. Like the east winds that come blasting down the Columbia River Gorge, the last month has absolutely flown by. January is supposed to be a boring month, but for me...not so much.

Christmas was fun. We had a great party on 12/22 and I was thrilled with the turnout. I made a signature party drink called a Cranberry Smash and I couldn't mix them fast enough. We had very few leftovers (Susan, as usual, planned my menu for me...) and no one wanted to leave. I think it was a success and I was quite thrilled by it all.

Suzanne really got into the opening of presents this year. She didn't quite know what to do with the boxes once she got them open, but she enjoyed the chaos of it all. Kirk was more than helpful with the unwrapping and opening of her boxes. He doesn't really care who the boxes are for--he just likes to unwrap things. He got a Wii and fortunately for me, it was easy to set up. It is quite a clever game with an interactive remote. And it is harder than it looks. I pulled a muscle in my fanny playing the bowling game and I still barely made it over 100!

Mom and Dad came up for New Year's this time and we took them to the New Year's Eve hockey game. I think mom enjoyed it even though we lost. This is a "transitional" year for the WinterHawks, which is to say that our team really stinks. Oh well, it was fun anyway. One of the highlights was my hike with Hilary out to the parking garage to change her flat tire. Yes, Hilary had a tire that was low and instead of taking care of it beforehand (head-in-the-sand-Hilary) she drove downtown anyway. I was a bit perturbed when I discovered that Hilary did not have a lug wrench, but fortunately the nice young men who were smoking in the garage were happy to help. Turns out they were waiting for their wives and kids to get to the car--nothing sinister about that.

After we took care of Hilary's problem, she went off to a party where she got into some kind of tiff with her not-boyfriend, Jesse. Long story there...

Since we wore out mom and dad, home we went where everyone collapsed into bed well before midnight and Greg and I went to a party at the neighbors. This seems to be a recurring theme when mom and dad come up--run their legs off until they drop and then send them home to recuperate.

An interesting thing happened at the airport--when Suzanne figured out that Grandma and Grandpa were not getting back into the car she started to cry. In fact, she blubbered all the way back to the freeway and then started hiccuping. Glad mom didn't see that--it would have done her in!

Since then, things have been rather chaotic. The weather has been dismal, which means that we've had a couple of snow days--kids at home being bored, so fun! Then we had a rather nasty run-in with the rotovirus, which took Suzanne and me out for an entire week. Blech! Suzanne is a trouper, though. She would blast a cloud of the most foul-smelling gas imaginable and giggle at the sound she made. As horrible as it was, she had a much better attitude than me.

2008 is not starting very auspiciously, but we have no where else to go but up!