Merry Christams

Good times all around! Max and Gwen got adorable chairs from Grandmother Kanick (kids pottery barn). Max's is brown and Gwen's is pink with small flowers. Next to Max is Gwen's new doll, Chloe, in her matching chair.


Max and Gwen got an adorable kitchen from Santa. They both like to cook and wash the dishes!


Gwen got some cute clothes from her Anuties, pictured here is a velvet leopard print jacket with ears and zebra striped legging. (love it!)






And it snowed (not on Chistmas but shortly after)

Trains, Trains, Trains: Max Loves Trains

There are few things Max remembers from last year. He vaguely remembers Christmas and Birthday presents, he almost remembers seeing Uncle Geoff's magic show and he does remember cousins and the beach.

There is one thing he talks about often and remembers (I am sure he believes) with perfect clarity: the Santa Train.
He has been talking about it for months, at the first mention of Christmas. He asks when we are going and if the train is leaving soon.

Max loves trains

(Actually, on an ironic note Max is scared to death of trains. Even when this one whistled he almost started to cry. He has always been sensitive to loud noises; chainsaws, motorcycles an revving cars.)

On Sunday we went on the Santa train. He loved it. He glowed the whole time.

 

Incase only one is interested this is the Santa Train out of Chahalis (the Elbe one we did last year was all booked up)
Actually this one was wonderful for many reasons:
It was all I-5 driving instead of wiggly mountain roads
You stay on the one train in your space the whole time
The trip was 30 min (perfect for a 4 year old)
We all sang Christmas carols!

My Pretty Family

Here are many pictures of us at Salishan! Mostly the parties and Thanksgiving dinner so we look pretty nice.

Max ordered himself a Shirley temple (with the help of Yzma and Aunite)

Anutie Sasha and Uncly Geoff lookin' good

Yes that is an adorable flowered headband in Gwen's hair!

Facebook profile here we come!

Thanksgiving good times all around

I really wanted to get a Christmas card picture out of this session but the only way to get them both to hold still was with food.

We had a great time with everyone their and missed those of you who could not come!

Light it up

We returned from our annual Salishan trip last night. We had a blast, the 2nd annual Tokola 5K, magic games in the bar, room service, losing money at poker, a great way to start off the holiday season. More on this in a future post.

Back on the home front Sarah and I spent Tuesday getting the house ready for the holiday season. A few trips in the attic to retrieve our decoration boxes got us rolling, the low ceiling clearance also got me a sore back. Now that we were all set, Sarah had the indoor decorations. Max and Gwen had Kung Foo Panda playing on the TV. I was the lucky one outside in the rain testing the strands of lights, and replacing burnt out bulbs. About two viewings of Kung Foo Panda later the house was trimmed with lights, the fence had icicle stands spread across, and our two Japanese maples were wearing our new addition of LED globes hanging on their branches. Topping it off is our penguin Noel sign lighting up the deck.

Please understand the magnitude of this, the house is decorated and it is not even December yet!! Come on folks that is a big deal. Usually we are not at this point until mid-December, and under some sort of death threat from Sarah. I do believe this is a speed record, and the first house decorated among the Kanick clan household. That's right George, I beat ya this year=p

The First Movie of Christmas

Gwen woke up this morning at 6:30 (she usually wakes up about 8 am). Jeff did not even have to get up that early for work and considering his schedule it was more then slightly unfortunate.

Anyway by 8 am I decided the only thing to do was turn on the Polar Express! Christmas movie cheating I know.

Yoda lives!

This was Max's costume 2 years ago. We were invited to a Star Wars themed birthday so I had to bust it out.

Pumkin Patch

I was not actually there but the pictures are adorable!

Max's School Halloween

Max was a little nervous about the whole everyone in weird costume thing but overall enjoyed it!

One of the few pictures of Max actually wearing the checkered cap!

Max loved the cake walk. He did it so much he won twice!

They had a local farm bring animals: donkey, goats, pigs and a chicken.

Max trying to catch a pig.

Max lookin' pretty cute

Halloween!

I know everyone has been wondering what the Kanick/Bridges crew was for Haloween. Well here we are!

Mom and I were Sherwood Forest, Dad was Robin Hood and Jeff was Little John. For some reason Sonja did not want to be Maid Marion, no idea why!

Max was the Peddler from the book "Caps for Sale" and Gwen was the monkey (they steal the caps).

We did the traditional trip to Stabucks

 

Fircrest Trunk or Treat (notice the decked out van!)

Otter Crest: The Beach!

Truth be told the beach is one of my favorite

parts of "The Beach". There is so much to do!

Jeff packing up or down from the beach.

 

 

Max playing in the stream

Max playing in the tidepools

Max in trouble (thanks Uncle Geoff) for running off into the ocean by himself.

Hannah followed by everyone else on the way to the

Devil's Punch Bowl

A heron just chillin' on the rocks

Digging for competitive purposes

Ladder Golf, possibly the best beach game ever!

Sand Art by Geoff

Political statements by Jordan

(It says Vote 4 Troy Kelly)