15" of snow, 3 missed Blazer games, 2 Christmas celebrations, and a Turkey in a Pear Tree

All that snow I mentioned in last week's blog...it didn't go anywhere. For a long time. In fact, more snow accumulated onto it. By Monday, the city of Portland had achieved the most snow in December in 40 years.

As is typically the case in Portland during periods of snow, the town was paralyzed and shut down. I didn't even try to go into work Monday - Wednesday, not after it took me 2o minutes to drive a half mile to Safeway. Nope, sticking close to home and working from the confines of my laptop seemed a good idea indeed.

On Tuesday, however, my week of work productivity from home came to a screeching halt. The power went off. We had already endured no cable, mail pick-up, or garbabe pick-up (in 2 weeks). Power is another thing indeed. We packed up the family, lunched at El Tapatio, and retreated to the in-laws. Course, Luis got stuck outside their house trying to pull a U-ie to park.

The power that was restored Tuesday evening went off again for another 4 hours Wednesday afternoon. This time we made due on our own. We busted out board games for the kids (Siena is quite adept at Memory) and the kids played in the snow. Mason LOVES playing in the snow, even if it does go up to his thighs. We even made our first fire in the fireplace.

YaYa was bound and determined not to miss Christmas eve at our house so she and Papa Ron got in their Acura sled and skated down to our place.

YaYa came with gifts and cookies in tow, much to Mason's delight. And clearly the three of them coordinated their outfits beforehand.

Luis has become a master brewer of gluhwein over these holidays. For those unfamiliar with gluhwein, it is essentially red wine with holiday spieces heated in, such as lemon, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Good stuff.

Mason of course assisted in the Christmas eve food preparation while his little sister antisocially played GameBoy in the living room.

Aaahhhh yes. The staple of the Cruz family holiday decore...the "Fragile" lamp...luckily Mason hasn't yet started stroking it affectionately...

I'm sure if you were to ask these two what the best part of Christmas is, they'd say the presents. We haven't yet successfully instilled the whole "giving is better than receiving" and "the holidays are about celebrating the birth of Christ" thing. We're working on it but kids will be kids.

Mason LOVES his new tool box and tools. He took them to bed with him Christmas eve and has been fixing things around the house ever since.

So, Luis made his gluhwein. After the wine has successfully stewed and all of the spices have been taken into the wine, the next step is to strain out the orange and other thicker flavorings. Luis though, apparently thinking he was straining pasta, strained his wine over the kitchen sink with no receptical to catch the cleanly strained wine. After a shout of "WHAT AM I DOING?!?", all that was left of his blessed gluhwein was one small juice glass that the four adults had to share. Well, nothing like watching YaYa try to figure out how a toy helicopter works...she even had to put on her glasses.

This is our second fire of the day...and our second fire EVER! This fire place thing isn't too bad. Too bad our fireplace is butt-ugly!

The new toys...this is Mason's car-making kit.

Christmas morning.

Santa Clause brought Siena a new art table that both kids like playing with. Mom likes having all of the coloring books and art supplies in one place.

Siena also LOVED the Brio train tracks that auntie Lou gave the kids. Now we can make some cool track configurations.

I baked my first turkey ever, due to Fred Meyer not having the pre-made kind. This is our 19lb monstrosity. I managed to get the neck out...but didn't know where to find the giblets. It was like dissection in high school biology. This raw food prep isn't exactly my thing...

The Cruz clan came over Christmas day. Here's Luis and the girls playing with Siena's new dress-up dolls...

We took this picture out of utter amazement that all 5 kids were sitting at the table and eating together...

Out of all the new toys that Mason, Siena, and Andre had, what do they bust out but Mason's 2 year old race track...go figure.

Back to important things, like my turkey! Somehow I ended up with carving duties too. The dissection continues...

Yesterday (aka Saturday), I took the kids to visit my friend Laura, in town from California staying with her parents. She and her husband Aaron have an 8 month old baby boy, Evan, who I got to meet for the first time. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures but he's a cutie!

We also went over to Jose and Gloria's last night to celebrate my sister-in-law Sara's birthday.

They brought their new toy, the Wii, which is a BLAST! Here's Siena boxing (with Daddy providing proper punching instructions)...I'm not sure that a boxing Siena is a good thing but whatever...

The group last night at the b-day party, minus Joel who was taking the picture.

And Sara's new DISCO jacket!!! Stayin' alive...Stayin' alive...ah ha ha ha Stayin' alive...

There was also a rip-roaring dominoes game going on last night, where Jr and I almost mounted a come back of amazing proportions. Alas, we came up just short...

And for those (cousin Craig) commenting that video is needed on the blog...here you go! Here's Mason competing in his first ever Wii boxing match! Muhammed Ali, watch out!