Jingle Bell Run/Walk!

Handing out blankets, coats, food and water to the homeless....

The kids waiting for the car after checking out of the Westin

Arthritis Foundation cocoa party for kids with arthritis (and their families)

The Westin Hotel, Seattle

Ava and Hayley

Harrison at the finish line!

Harrison, Sophia and Gilbert

Jordan and Arlie

Signs worn on our back......

The Windermere part of our team....

Jeff and M-L

Arlie and Jeff

Doug and the kids

My cute kids!

Jordan and Arlie - all smiles!

Lori Trammell, Hannah the honoree, and Shelby Trammell

Hannah onstage with WARM 106.9 radio personalities (and her entourage!)

Hannah, her rheumatologist, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (and her son) and Santa!

Hannah cutting the ribbon for the Children's Run With the Elves 1K

Amy and Julius getting ready for the kids' run - go Jules! His first race!

Santa and Hannah waiting to cut the ribbon

Team Hannah!

Hannah, Hayley, Arlie, Jordan, Donnie

Jeff and M-L ready for the SeaGen holiday party!

Arlie and Jordan

Westlake Center tree

Hayley and her new fuschia Jessica McClintock dress!

Arlie and her new dress!

Hayley and her other new dress!

Hayley and Arlie - so grown up!

Arlie modeling a pretty dress!

Hayley in a little black dress

Hayley in an angel dress!

Harrison!

Arlie!

We had a busy and fun weekend! It started out on Friday evening with a packet pick up party at our house, with homemade Bailey's and treats. Saturday we volunteered to pass out packets and t-shirts at the last-change registration. THAT was a busy four hours! Nonstop people and moving really fast to get everyone their run numbers, pins, bells and t-shirts. We went home for a couple of hours and then headed down to Seattle to check into the Westin hotel. The kids loved staying downtown in a hotel. We went to eat at Westlake Center (kids chose sushi) and then got sidetracked by an amazing sale at Jessica McClintock where we bought three beautiful dresses (two for Hayley, one for Arlie) at incredible prices. Jeff and I had his company party that night at Seattle Art Museum, so we headed back to the hotel to get ready. The party was pretty boring so we only stayed a couple of hours and went back to get some sleep. We needed it - our wake up alarm came at 5:40 a.m. and we had to be at the JBR start at 7 a.m. We were late (of course) but in time to get Starbucks, meet some people, take a team photo and then head to the start line so Hannah could cut the ribbon for the Children's Run With The Elves 1K. After that, Hannah was interviewed onstage by a local radio station and introduced her siblings. Then, it was time for us to walk! We had about 32 people on our team, some running and some walking. We finished the course in just over an hour, then went to a kids' cocoa party sponsored by the Arthritis Foundation. The kids created calendar pages for an advocacy calendar and got a cute bear in return. We wrapped the day up by checking out of our room by noon and heading downtown to pass out sleeping bags, blankets, coats, shoes, and toiletries to the homeless. It was a LONG, exhausting but REALLY fun weekend!

Hannah's Media Tour Day!

Hannah and Mommy at Pacific Place
Hannah (in Jackie's seat of the Jackie and Bender show) and me in Jubal's seat at KISS 106.1 radio station

Hannah at her KISS 106.1 interview

Hannah and a Nutcracker at Pacific Place

Which one is the Nutcracker? HAHA!

Hannah at CBS radio.....KZOK, KJAQ, and AM 1090

Hannah and Lee Callahan at CBS radio after her interview

Hannah at her first radio interview!

Hannah and I spent Thursday on a "media tour" of sorts. She was invited, as one of this year's honorees for the Seattle Jingle Bell Run and Walk, to be interviewed by two radio stations. The first was for CBS radio with Lee Callahan. Her interview ran today on KZOK and it was great! The second interview was for KISS 106.1, which is Hannah's favorite radio station. She was so excited to sit in the same studio as her favorite radio personalities and interview with "your girl Nina". The interview, unfortunately, did not air this morning as promised (something funky with the radio station that kept playing their AM affiliate). Hopefully it will air another time later this week, but the whole experience was a lot of fun anyway. In between interviews Hannah and I did a little shopping at Pacific Place and got to see a lot of pretty holiday decorations downtown. We ended the day with an appointment at Children's. It was a long, but very fun day! I'm so proud of my Hannah for being an ambassador for the Arthritis Foundation and for telling her story so others can be inspired.

Saturday........in the park...........guess it was the Fourth of July........

Ok, it's Nov. 14, but just saying "Saturday" in my head brought up that song. I don't even know what the name of that song is......maybe it's "Saturday"?

Sooo.......I've been slacking on picture taking lately. I don't know why really, but Jeff sure has been giving the Nikon a workout taking pictures of various rusty parts of his truck to post on fordification.com. Sounds like a porn site, but no, it's a site for guys like him who have rusty heaps in their garages and don't know how to make them run. So, people with tag names like Bubba and Weiner spout advice about those various rusty parts and my husband reads them religiously, then takes off to Shucks or Napa where he spends more than he should on wires and plugs and rebuilt carburators. I know I just spelled that wrong. I don't care.

I spent this whole day in my pajamas up until 5 p.m. when I finally took a shower. I was on the computer most of the day, but I got a lot of stuff done, like sending out fundraising letters for the Jingle Bell Run, cleaning up my address book, checking my old email (360 some emails - all but two of them junk!), and, for some reason, cleaning the pantry. I found a lot of expired food which I promptly threw out, because Jeff would freak if he saw me doing it. Things like Hamburger Helper and Jello and even tea! I was advised to keep the tea, but I threw out the other stuff and I will have to mash it down into the trash so Jeff won't take it out of the trash and eat it. Seriously! Even though it has an expiration date, he thinks anything in a box or can is good indefinitely and so he will eat it. But remember that email about the expired pancake mix? Snopes said it was true, so why take a chance? Anyway, the pantry was getting seriously out of order. Jeff calls it entropy. I call it a mess.

I then showered and took Hayley with me to Target. I went for a few items and ended up spending a buttload of money - mostly on clothes for Hayley. She got a wool pea coat (on sale), five sweaters (clearance), jeans (sale), shoes (not on sale - and she said she "needed" black heels "just in case"), and a cute little bra. I bought way too many things for Christmas and the house and let's just say my credit card got a serious workout. Ugh. I don't even want to think about it. But we're so broke that it's gonna be a credit card Christmas no matter what. At least until the tax return arrives, which I hope will cover it!

I bought tickets to see "New Moon" with the girls next Thursday night/Friday morning. The showing is at 12:01 a.m. I have no idea how 1. I'm going to stay awake until the movie starts, 2. I'm going to stay awake during the movie and 3. I'm going to get up the next morning and go to work! I personally could have easily waited until the next day (or month, or year) to see it, but the girls HAVE to go to the midnight showing. They are each bringing a friend and I told them I would bend the rules and let the friends sleep over on a school night. But they ARE GOING TO SCHOOL the next day, no matter what. Last November, when Twilight came out, I bought the tickets online, only to have Hayley get sick and not want to go the night of the movie. She went to bed early instead and was sicker the next day. Then, the day after that she ended up in the ER with pneumonia and the flu! I'm hoping to not have a repeat of that this year.......

Jeff and Arlie went camping and clamming to Grayland this morning. I, being the wimpy winter camper that I am, opted out (it's COLD!) and voted to stay home by myself. It's such a rare luxury that I fully enjoy my time alone. But, alas, I suggested that Hayley and her friend should sleep over here since no one else was home and they jumped all over that, so now I'm not alone. Which is nice, I really don't like being alone overnight, although I've gotten used to it. I have a list a mile long of things I'd like to get done during this time, but of course, today was so lazy, I doubt tomorrow I can get it all done. But that's ok........it's nice just to have uninterrupted time to do mundane stuff like clean the pantry and bake cookies - which I did, even though I'm the only one home!

What's up this coming week? Well, I finally get my stitches out of my back on Monday. I had a mole removed then they had to go deeper because they found "suspicious cells" and so I ended up with a pretty big cut and stitches inside and out! It's been ok, but it itches like crazy and feels funny when I bend over - the stitches are right where my jeans hit, too, so I have to wear a tank top tucked in. I'll be glad to get them out (but not glad for the nasty scar it's going to leave!). So, Monday I have something scheduled at 9, 10:30, 11:30, 1:40, 3, 4 and 5. Should be an interesting day! Tuesday I get to have a girls' night out, which is rare and fun........Weds. media training for Hannah's Jingle Bell Run appearances, Thursday it's hair day with Marie and fun day with Amy and Friday watching Hannah in a choir performance (and trying to stay awake after the movie at midnight!).

Gotta get some sleep now........staying up till past midnight two nights in a row is tough.......I'm getting old!