We just finished up several days of Christmas celebrations with our family. Having recently moved into our new (and bigger) home, we volunteered to host the festivities. On Christmas eve we had hors douvres, played a gift exchange game, and were visited by Santa. On Christmas day we opened the remainder of our gifts, went for a walk, and prepared a delicious feast. Lindsey and I really enjoyed having all our family together.
Lindsey, Jonathan, Commodus, and Baby


Both our families


Commodus being his usual cute self


Santa


My Dad could probably pass for Santa


My little sister, Ashleigh


Lindsey and our adorable niece Nicole

Lindsey, Commodus, and I spent the last 70 hours without electricity after a doozie of a windstorm blew through on Thursday evening. The whole weekend wasn’t too bad, but we’re hoping it doesn’t happen again soon. While the power outage was a major inconvenience it did bring our neighborhood closer together.
Several of the neighbors had generators, which they were kind enough to share. Since we had a fancy espresso machine and Starbucks was without power, we were able to team up with the generator-couples. (I heard there was at least one Starbucks open in Bellevue, but the line started out in the parking lot.)


We have natural gas for our stove, fireplace, and hot water. Many of our neighbors had electric stoves and no fireplaces, so we were very fortunate. Commodus doesn’t like the cold much, but found a comfortable spot in front of the fire.


We also dressed Commodus up a little bit, which I’m sure he appreciated 😉