Holidays 2025

When I left off in my last post I had just recently injured my ankle and we had gotten two new cats in the house!

Unfortunately a few weeks into November as I was just starting to feel like I was healing enough from the ankle injury that I didn't think about it all the time, I got a rash on my ribcage. I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to something so I tried some benadryl cream and gave it a few days. Then a few more areas of rash appeared further up my ribcage going towards my back so I went into the urgent care. Diagnos SHINGLES! What the what? I guess in my mind 44 year old women didn't get shingles. I really thought it was an older person thing (sorry!). After talking with some friends and coworkers I saw that it wasn't super uncommon to get it at my age, however, most people said it was brought on by stress or big illnesses. I mentioned my ankle but it didn't quite seem to make sense.

Then less than a week later a co-worker of mine who does my choir with me and sees the same rotation of students that I do came down with shingles too! Her doctor suggested that it was more likely that a student came to school with chickenpox and activated our shingles, since the likelihood of the two of us independently getting shingles within a week of each other was a pretty wild coincidence. So.. thanks a lot chickenpox kid. I did have one student come up to me, itchy and covered in red bumps asking if she could go to the nurse, to which I immediately said yes! :::eyeroll:::

You guys, SHINGLES is insane. You can't treat the rash. You treat the virus to help stop it from replicating and hope it doesn't cause permanent nerve damage. That pain plus the ankle = a very not happy Laura right in the middle of the busy December performance season. It wasn't until Christmas break that I started feeling human again. Even now (in february as I type this) I still get flare ups of nerve pain during times of stress or exhaustion. Yay.

But the holiday rush moves on and we made music and memories despite the illnesses! (dan got a pretty terrible something or other too and we were miserable together)

Even though we had just been in Boise for Kristina's Halloween party, we made the journey back to Boise for Thanksgiving. I swear there's always something plaguing me when I'm in boise. For Halloween I was freshly injured and for Thanksgiving I was freshly shingled!  Still always good to spend time with family and have a little break from routine.

The day after we got back from Boise we went and cut down our Christmas tree and at least got it displayed before it got decorated. It was either that our it would be a week or two before we even had a tree up due to the performance season beginning!

Dan had several performances with the Army Band, and I'm always so pleased when our schedules work out so that I can come to watch them!

My choir and 5th grade band both had performances in December that went really well!

SOGO did their annual HOHO in which Alex performed and I led a percussion ensemble. Alex was recognized as a Senior for his last HOHO and he proudly yelled out 'that's my mom' to the whole audience when I got up to conduct <3

I did take a random day off in the middle of the December crazy because I just was getting so run down from the SHINGLES and I knew I had a lot more to go. I felt I needed a recuperation day, so Alex and I made cookies! (this is better than last year when we never had time to do them and ended up doing them in January after Christmas!)

I expected our kitten to do a lot worse with the Christmas decorations. She has done worse with other things since, but Christmas-wise, she did well. I guess we can accept this really cute picture under the tree!

Cade came back in town! Here's the Whole Fam Damily at church the Sunday before Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we held our annual Christmas games. This year Dan and I created some Amazing Race activities and whoever finished got first prize and bragging rights (since second prize was the same as first). They had to complete a puzzle, find a tiny marked piece of pasta amongst a whole lotta pasta, and then recreate a configuration of playing cards where the example was in the garage in the dark and then they had to duplicate it upstairs on the kitchen table. Alex won and they were both good sports about the torture, lol. 

Christmas morning is always a joy just spending time together, watching each other open the things we took time putting together. And of course, cinnamon rolls.

Stockings and Treats

Alex gifted Dan a quarter arcade. It's a fully function 1/4 size arcade of one of his favorite childhood games, Bubble Bobble

Alex finally got an NES for Christmas. Here he is playing his favorite game, Mike Tyson's Punch Out

Dan gifted me SIX of these Unidragon wooden puzzles, with a full on scavenger hunt in the house to find each one. We've been puzzling ever since. Here's the first one :)

Instead of traveling this year during the holidays we decided to gift ourselves some escape rooms. It's one of our favorite activities so we managed 4 different rooms over a few days down near Portland. Proud to say we escaped all of them and only needed a hint in the first room because we didn't think you were allowed to touch the artwork on the walls, but that's where half the clues were! (most escape rooms we've done strongly remind you not to remove anything from the walls...)

One of Dan's gifts to me, and really the whole family, was a glass blowing class. Here's each of us in action! We got do decide what we wanted to make from a selection of items, and had say in the coloring and style as well. It was a REALLY fun evening and I highly recommend giving it a try.

We got dinner afterwards at Insert Coin, our local retro video game arcade and restaurant. The boys spent A LOT of time with this one:

Here's how our glass items turned out!!

It was a busy holiday season, but thankfully all the injury and sickness was over and done by the time we were wanting to enjoy our holiday break. 

Oh, and guess what other awesome thing started to happen over the holidays? Lace, the mama cat finally started coming around. It only took 2 months, but she now roams freely through the house and sits in our laps, plays with the kitten and doesn't scare us half to death anymore! We are actively working on finding a low-cost spay option since they are both in heat a lot and drive us crazy with their meowing and whatnot. We'll get there, one day at a time :)

Fall 2025

 Since finishing an amazing summer, we've had a very busy and memorable few months. 

There have been concerts:

Alex's Choir Concert

Dan's Halloween set at the PX for Trunk or Treat

Cade sang with the Cleveland Chamber Choir among his many concerts

There's been a lot of this video game played by all us! In fact, we even went to PAX-west, a table top and video game convention, with a few of Alex's friends!

The long awaited sequel of Hollow Knight! 7 years in the making.

Alex has been wanting a Virtual Boy for some time and he finally found a great deal!

There have been birthdays!

Laura

I got a treadmill for those cold, rainy Washington days that I still want to walk!

Sopapillas for my B-day treat!

Awesome sand table my family got for me. Pick your design and watch it come to life!

Dan

For his birthday we went to a Sausage Festival that is held only one day a year in Verboort, Oregon. Buy their specially made sausage in bulk, and enjoy an all you can eat family style dinner. It was a true, rainy PNW kind of day, but we met up with some friends and had a great day!

Stopped by the beautiful 'Old Scotch Church' near Verboort

And why not Top Golf! 

Alex made Dan all of the 3D printed designs on top of this case, but for his birthday was the silver one- a beloved character from SilkSong

And holidays!

Laura's pumpkin!

Dan's pumpkin!

Alex's Pumpkin!

We also drove out to Boise to partake in Brett and Kristina's annual Halloween Extravaganza. They put together a whole house immersive escape room experience. It was amazing. They provided us with a clue booklet and all through the house were things to figure out and discover. At the end was an alien in the attic. SO glad we made the trip out there!

Our pinata costumes! Hit us and see what happens!

And its spaceship crashed into our charcuterie board, lol

Battalion Trunk-or-Treat

Outings to the Bonsai Museum and Rhododendron Garden

Until I went to this museum I don't think I realized that just about any type of tree can be a bonsai. It's all in the way it is planted and shaped that makes it a bonsai. Certain types certainly fare better, but the wide variety of types of trees at this museum blew my mind. Don't mind some of the double pictures. I like view of them by themselves, and then with a person in them to show size perspective!

Looks like a forest...

...but it's the size of a bonsai!

Weeping willows are some of my favorite trees- never seen a bonsai version until now

Look at those roots! The white is dead, but purposely included

Carefully potted in what is meant to look like a dinosaur egg

Bamboo!

I loved the life cycle of these plants. Watch how they change over the next 4 pictures.

Near the gardens was this old abandoned, moss covered building. Very apocalyptic feeling!

Injuries:

Yup. I did the thing. We were out for a walk one evening when I rolled my ankle, fell really hard and landed on the opposite knee. It hurt, a lot. I stood up and moved to the side of the road and told Dan I'd have to sit for a second to regroup. I also felt really sick and dizzy. The next thing I knew I was having some dreams. I woke up and realized, wait, why am I dreaming? Wasn't I on a walk. That's when Dan said I had passed out. He was trying to keep me awake but I was too sleepy. I passed out a second time. That's when Dan started having a hard time finding my pulse so he had the neighbor nearby call 911. Man they came in full force. Dan said there was 2 ambulances and a fire truck. I think I remember about 8 EMTs around us. Long story short, it was vasovagal syncope. A pain response that caused me to pass out. After a full workup at the ER to rule out any other reasons for passing out, it was determined that it was just badly sprained and I could go home.

I spent a few days on crutches, 2 weeks in a boot, and it's been another 2 weeks of having a lighter ankle brace. I am just now starting to do walks outside again, and the pain is not gone. I definitely rolled it good and it will take awhile before I feel 100%, darn it. I was going so strong on my health goals, but I'm determined to keep fit!

Firsts:

First Day back to School!

First Time playing cocktail hour at a charity event! That was stressful!

First time teaching beginning band! That's been stressful too!

And Changes:

Sadly, in late August, our sweet kitty Apollo, who had been an indoor/outdoor cat, never came home. He had never missed a meal from his automatic feeder until he missed all of them. :(    We did a lot of searching and flyer posting and reaching out to shelter and vets. 

The house suddenly felt VERY empty with Cade back to school, Apollo missing, and Carson still very much in our hearts after passing away in February. After nearly 2 months without Apollo, Jorie's parents were fostering a mother and her kittens they had rescued. All of the kittens had been placed except for one and its mother.  Say hello to Lace (the mom) and Hornet (the kitten). Yes, those names are from SilkSong... we're a little obsessed right now!   

Lace and Hornet are very well taken care of, though they've had their struggles in the beginning here. Lace is very reluctant to join the family. She was also sick with some worms and getting her to the vet and getting medicine was quite an ordeal. Hopefully through time and love she will warm up to us. 

Hornet was losing her hair and had some ear and eye issues, but she is doing much better now. She has already grown a lot, and she has her psycho moments as well as some incredibly fun and cute moments. 

Welcome to the family kitties, we will take good care of you!

That's a lot that happened in the past few months! We're headed full steam into the holidays. Bring it on!