Friday, December 27, 2013

Christmas and Boxing Day Sail.

Well we have made it through another year, Christmas was not as bad this year, I think the combination of grandparents cutting down on amount of presents (a little bit) and the kids are older we didn't have any melt downs or  too much crankiness. But we've decided as a family that we still go overboard and Christmas has been the same thing for thirty years so next year we have booked a ski chalet at Silver Star ski resort in Vernon, BC. Since I've spent the day trying to reorganize my house that has been completely demolished I think that would be nice.

Curtesy of Nanny and poppy the kids had daily treasure hunts leading up to christmas.


The elf made a grand final few days and he's gone again for another year.
Christmas Eve.


We looked for white hair spray or even white hair dye but couldn't find any anywhere so I whipped up a crochet beard.
The guys reading up on their remote control helicopters.
Blurry Santa Daddy pictures, I told the kids I would try to get some pictures of Daddy once he changed into Santa, but I said he moves so fast it might be hard.
All the gifts under the tree.
Vintage Polly pockets Ash.
Mac with his haul.
Finnys booty.
Ashy presents, they all made out like bandits, or pirates?
The boys got real bow and arrows, the garage is now a target range.
Christmas Day game of monopoly. 
Setting up Finns race track he asked for, 30 feet of electric track, I think everyone has fun with it.
Since we had the abundance of babysitters here, Mark and I took Boxing Day as an opportunity to get out sailing without three screaming kids. It was perfect, funny how everything goes flawlessly when you aren't all frazzled and strung out.
It was cold though.
Mark got new Helly Hansen gear while I froze.
The new GoPro we got from Nanny and Baba.
We had about 5 to 6 knots of wind and with both sails up clocked 9 knots. And this was our first time docking without any hiccups. We got some walkie talkies for Christmas so I could guide mark int form the bow, previously he couldn't hear me when I shouted back directions,  worked like a charm,
Now comes the clean up, the take down, the organizing, finding space for new stuff, sorting through old stuff, trying to make headway through a few fridges of food, New Years resolutions and losing the unwanted pounds the season has brought on. I am always glad when it's all over and things can get back to normal. 

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Bah Humbug.

Well I hate to say it, but Christmas has taken a depressing turn for me, it usually does, I haven't enjoyed a christmas truly since Mark and I got married. It sounds bad to say that since the kids came along Christmas ain't fun anymore. I love my kids and I work hard to give them a good Christmas, but I can't help but feel like Charlie Brown, constantly in search of that illusive Christmas spirit.
Our family Christmas's have always been elaborate, with way, way, way too many presents which is fine for one child, but now there are three kids under one roof and four couples buying for them, parents, two sets of grandparents and a pair of great grandparents. My children lack for NOTHING, absolutely nothing and I'm not always sure that is a good thing.
Of course it is good that they have all their needs met but every single want and whim catered to creates an attitude of carelessness and unappreciative, demanding kids are not appealing, or pleasant to be around.
Since the kids have been born Christmas mornings have been swamped with a ridiculous, over abundance of presents which honestly they can't even begin to play with, all of which after the grandparents have left for the holidays, Mark and I are the ones dealing with the 60 plus new toys, trying to find room for all of them and then inevitably end up being broken or missing pieces and get donated in time for the next gift onslaught brought on by Easter or Valentines day or birthdays.
I wish the kids could get one or two presents that they truly want and can appreciate and enjoy, they get so much that it's overwhelming and more disturbing is that this year they need nothing and are actually getting repeats of gifts that they got last year and have broken and/or lost since then, which is crazy to me, you mistreat, break your toys or lose them you don't just get another one. What does that teach? It doesn't matter how you treat your belongings because who cares? Someone will just get me another one? I can't stand it but nobody listens and how fun is it to argue with family over Christmas?
We've tried to get people to cut back and every year, they say they do but it's very hard to tell come Christmas morning.

So, December 1st rolls around and I dig out the Christmas CDs and the decorations and chop down the tree and I can usually fool myself into a happy mood for a week or two but it always fades. I'm finding it harder this year, I miss being home where it's crisp and cool, where snow is falling. This year being On Whidbey Island where it's grey, damp and cold, not cold enough too snow, but cold enough to make it miserable. My tree was a fiasco since minute one and now is dead, I have a dead dry, brown tree in my living room.

This year I anticipated the down swing and tried to add a giving aspect to the holidays with our 25 days of random acts of kindness, so that every day the kids would be reminded Christmas should be about giving, not receiving, as God gave his Son for us, but that has proven to be really, really discouraging and I'm sad to say on day 15 I have given up.
People really are awful and this experiment does drive home the lesson that God gave us the free gift of salvation and the world refused to accept it because I have felt that way with every thing we have done. The last straw was yesterday's act where we made stockings full of cat and dog toys and treats
and took one of our giant cookies to the WAIF animal shelter. Aislinn was so excited for this one, we
quickly trotted in the shelter office with her stockings and cookie and the workers there could not have been more rude and less appreciative. Now, I know we don't do this for appreciation, actually I really prefer the anonymous ones but these people dismissed Aislinn completely, looked at the stockings and were like, "we'll have to check with the manager to see what she wants us to do with these."
The whole situation was bad and with a little girl obviously deflated, I said, "well, Merry Christmas." And tried to leave but the woman said,
"well, you'll have to wait, I have to check and see if we need to write you a receipt." I told her not to bother but she said, "well we might have to." And went off into the back somewhere.
Seriously they made us feel like it was more of a hinderance to them. I was sick and disgusted and frankly I'm done. I'm all about trying to teach my kids about giving but the lesson that people are generally jerks, can wait to be learned until they are older.

So, with this very whiney and depressing post, I will try to forget the dead tree in my living room, the lack of snow outside, the impending Christmas morning of over anxious, over excited children which I will have to police, the after Christmas clean up, organizing and try to focus on time spent with family and forget the rest, because really that is all that matters, I sometimes wish we didn't have all this other stuff which just brings stress.

This blog is called Sailing SweetHaven and we haven't had a post about the boat in weeks it seems, which is just making everything worse, I can't stand the niggling feeling that this standstill will be never ending.

We are off to Leavenworth up in the mountains tomorrow, I am really hoping the few days away, in a Bavarian village all lit up for Christmas and actual snow and maybe finally get out skiing will help to alleviate these holiday blues.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Day 11

Elferino is still making his way around the house.

 Unfortunately last night he didn't move, I guess he really liked his syrup drink (oops).


Yesterday's act of kindness was taking hot chocolate and muffins to the guards who watch the base gate. Mac was. My helper yesterday as the other ones were off with the grandparents.


The guards were very surprised and pleased to have been thought of.





Last night we found out that my favourite radio program, Stuart McLean and the vinyl cafe was having their Christmas show up in Bellingham, an hour and a half drive from us. Above is the Mount Baker Theater where it was held. Everybody, Canadian or not should listen to Stuart. He's an expert writer and storyteller, we download his weekly podcasts but it was nice to see him live and hear all our favourite Dave and Morley Christmas stories. 



Sunday, December 8, 2013

Planned Act Of Kindness

Today's kindness was not random, the wives of the Canadian Detachment here at NAS Whidbey Island had a cookie exchange where we each made a couple dozen cookies and got together today to make up baskets to give to the single Canadians who are here alone over the holidays.


I was in charge of having all the kids make cards to go with them.





It was a nice idea and fun for everyone. Day 8 down, 17 more to go.

My grandparents, Nanny and Baba arrived last night after 8 days traveling from Nova Scotia. We,re all glad to see them and happy they could come out for Christmas. Mark is on an off oration now which normally means boat work but unfortunately we are still lacking funds and payday isn't for another week so we are STILL waiting to order the stove pipe to finish off skippy but we are ready to move on to the bathroom renovation. Whidbey has entered into a freeze, it's colder here than I thought it could get on this coast, most days are -7 Celsius, puddles are icy, the green grass is crunchy with frost, so currently I am thankful that we don't have any water lines in the boat right now, or we,d have freezing to worry about and broken lines. Hoping out get down there tomorrow at least to make sure all is well.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Carrying on.

Today was the day of the NOPF childrens Christmas party, so for all the families that work in Marks building. Mark had signed us up for it, he got a ride in to work with someone this morning so the kids and I could have the truck to attend. We spent the morning tidying up the house for the highly anticipated arrival of Nanny and Baba tonight then headed in town a bit early after lunch to do our daily random act of kindness before the party. Today we were supposed to leave a christmas egg hunt at a playground, I had it all made up with the plastic eggs and small bags of Halloween candy and a bucket for them to collect but the more I thought about it I didn't think this was a good idea (just to note I get my ideas from other people who have done this.) so we made a quick stop at the dollar store to come up with something else for that day.


Now something we have had to get used to here on Whidbey Islands that people take their dogs everywhere with them. Everyday we see tiny dogs in carts and strollers and sweaters and stuff, even in grocery stores. Seems crazy to us, back home there is no shirt, no shoes, no pets signs everywhere. I don't care, being an animal lover I think it's great... if your pets can handle it. 
Bugs me to no end, these old ladies that dress their tea cup snoodles or whatever they are, up in ridiculous sweaters and hats and then put them in a shopping cart and expect children not to rush up to them. Yesterday at walmart we had such an experience where my kids saw this cute little dog, rushed up squealing... I tell you the owner just about had a fit. She hollered and threw her arms around her dog protectively and told my kids not to do that. I grabbed the kids, tried to smile politely (although for me it was probably more like an icy glare) and walked off the other way, without telling her that she shouldn't be so stupid because, news flash, if her dog bites my kids, it'll be her paying the price, might not be worth losing your dog for the sake of taking it shopping with you...just saying.


Anyway, there is my rant... What was at talking about? Oh yes, so today at the dollar store, was a first for us, this woman stopped and asked the kids if they wanted to see her special Christmas friend (as if that didn't have warning bells flashing in my mind) but then she proceeded to pull a little rabbit in a tiny Santa hat out of her purse. Normal? Probably not, but she was friendly and the rabbit was cute and certainly a welcome change from snooty dogs (and their owners) and the Santa hat was a nice touch. She said his name was squirrel, at first I thought she was telling me it was a squirrel, now that would be weird. You just never know what people have in their handbags.

                                                       
After we freaked the poor Christmas rabbit out and he scurried back into his purse we continued our shopping, we thought it would be a good idea to make up a cupcake bucket to leave for someone. So we got some cake mix and icing and some christmas themed muffin cups and decorative toppers, put it in the bucket we had for our original egg hunt (we hate the egg candy) and before we left the parking lot we picked a car and left it on top. We saw they had a car seat in back so we thought it would be better to go to a family with kids.

Red bucket on the silver SUV.

We then proceeded on to the Christmas party, it was packed, I was not expecting so many people and kids jammed into such a small space. Neither myself nor the kids do well in loud crowded places. I found a Canadian wife I recognized and we staked our place amongst all these Americans at the kids colouring table and that's where we stayed. Finn came crying to me twice, once because some kids screamed at him and another time for a bonked head. Aislinn was crying and moping for the first half until finally her friend she knew showed up and then they were off playing.

The kids were very excited to see the man dressed up as Santa Claus, they knew he isn't real, Daddy is our Santa, but they were exited none the less! Especially when they each got a present.





How did Santa know?

Friday, December 6, 2013

Stop Counting, Just Doing.

December 5th, wow it seems like it should be so much later than that. Our random act of kindness for today was baggies of quarters for a load of laundry taped to the machines in the laundromat.
On our way into town for Tae Kwon Do we drove passed the two laundromat a in town and both her packed with people, I felt this deed needed to be done anonymously, can't help but feel awkward taping bags of coins to machines already in use and a bunch of people watching. so we continued on to pick up Mark from work and head up to the kids lessons but on the way there I saw one of the laundromat so was now cleared out, completely empty, we only had a few minutes before the kids class but we dashed in anyway, figured that might be our only chance for that day.






I'm finding I am struggling a bit with this activity of a daily act of kindness. Struggling with the fact that I'm afraid our efforts may come off as annoying or weird. Things I always think are nice and fun most people don't and in this perverted, screwed up world we live in I am even more unsure of how our efforts will be received. As we are going through this there are some activities we had planned to do that I am second guessing so I'm not sure what the outcome of the whole thing will be, we've already missed one day so it may turn into 20 days rather than 25 at this point. It really bugs me that it's so hard to do silly, simple, nice things for people, without being made to feel foolish.

After