Posts Tagged cloustons

On our way to Seattle trying not to catch anything else! Did you know that the airport Menchies Frozen Yogurt just got Dole Whip 2 days ago?!? The sign says Dole Pineapple Sorbet but it is creamy just like at the Tiki Room!

We were picked up at the airport in style with a furry welcome! Made it to Grandma’s house and unloaded all the luggage and presents before dinner!

Merry Christmas from Diagon Alley in Ballard! Impressive amount of work in just a driveway and a constant line of people! We did our best Azkaban escapee faces, took advantage of the mistletoe at the “moving bricks” entrance, inspected the construction behind the scenes, spotted a holiday R2-D2 near a spare dragon, and even peeked through the window into his garage shop in back and spotted some new details in progress. Congrats to them for having creative fun and raising so much money for a good cause! #diagonalleyproject

It’s snowing just in time for a white Christmas! 😃No need to dream anymore! ❄️🎄🎁⛄️

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! Lutefisk, lefse, pickled beets & Swedish meatballs for our Christmas Eve dinner, all while snow continued to fall and a couple snowballs were thrown, then fun opening all our presents, including some challenging puzzle boxes for Glen that required group effort! 😉

Merry Christmas! Do you wanna build a snowman?!? Our Olaf-Zilla is 8ft tall! I hadn’t built a snowman since I was 9, but Glen was on a mission to go big! Thanks to Diane for taking photos, thinking of the sweet potato nose, and mason jar rings & cut out leaves for eyes!

Our 8ft tall Olaf-Zilla is already leaning so some last photos before he melts away! Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas Day!

Great to see my Peterson cousins today and the big brothers were all smiles! Thanks to Kathleen & Brian for hosting at their new house only one week after moving in! A bit of stress when we couldn’t get the van up the hill in the snow, so they drove us up in shifts…whew!

Singalong carols around the piano like the old Clouston Christmases! Of course we had to sing White Christmas this year with all the snow still on the ground!

Glen inspected the last pieces of Olaf-Zilla, we packed the RV, and said goodbye to Grandma out the back door for another snazzy ride to the airport as Gary & Diane keep driving to California! The Spaceneedle was peeking through the melting snowdrops on the window, but Mt Rainier was out today!

Home again! We got lucky with an open seat in our row, and Southwest has smartly moved the magazines to the top of the seat and plenty of knee room even for my long legs! When we disembarked, Glen immediately headed the opposite direction from baggage claim with a sneaky grin…it took me half the walk to figure out he was headed for some Dole Whip to go before we left the airport…hahaha! Even though there was no lid that fit, that giant container is now safely in our freezer. Both kitties are fine but Obsidian somehow lost both his normal collar AND his Christmas collar!

A 2 hour airport delay means shepherd’s pie & bangers & mash meals at the SJC airport Britannia Arms with a teal margarita, sticky toffee pudding, and a friendly Lab from Germany, then finally in the air with a pretty pink moonrise over the clouds. Safely in Seattle now for Grandma’s 103rd birthday party tomorrow!

Happy 103rd Birthday to Grandma! Another great house party with mimosas plus bakery quiche & several cakes all courtesy of of cousin Stephen! Loved the toddler birthday card modified with an extra century, the Scrabble tiles card, and the world record plaque for most buckets of weeds…haha!

We visited Grandma at rehab today so I played piano for a small audience in the lobby and Mom sang with me for a couple songs.

Fun afternoon with my Peterson cousins!

We should have brought the giant birthday balloons to rehab yesterday in the van…haha!Southwest SeaTac’s Halloween decorations are still up with a cute Seattle skyline painted on a real pumpkin, and both our San Jose and Sacramento flights are at the same gate…haha! Goodbye to Seattle but we will see Grandma again for Christmas!

I haven’t created a Christmas photo the past couple years since I thought everyone knew what my year was like due to Facebook and my blogs, plus I couldn’t get decent photos of all three kitties and myself. However even though we are already well past New Years, this year I have major updates to announce, so let’s get started…

Grandma has had a harder year healthwise, so I surprised her in March for a quick weekend to cheer her up in the hospital before she could return home. Her travel is now restricted due to congestive heart failure, so we didn’t do a big trip this summer like our Hawaii cruise in 2014 and the Canadian Rockies in 2015, but I did visit her in July for a few days. She was well enough to thoroughly enjoy her 102nd birthday in November with a party that kept growing larger as she invited more people! We spent Christmas at her house, like the majority of my entire lifetime of Christmases, and we are all thankful she still has all her personality even if her body is “finally starting to wear out” as she put it.

My big trip this year was in June when Glen & I took an ambitious road trip around Spain, seeing 26 Spanish castles in 10 days, even staying overnight in 9 castles! I’m sure you won’t be surprised that I took a TON of photos, over 3300 in fact! You can see select photos and read about the whole trip in the Travels section on britta.com if you like.

After celebrating 16 years working for Equinix, still thankful it pays for my house and other things I enjoy, summer was more fun working on Halloween projects between hosting my annual 4th of July fireworks party and three Cinema Brittahytta backyard movie nights, then by the end of August, Glen and I were officially dating! We first met 9 years ago when he attended my Halloween party with mutual friends, and our friendship has grown closer the past 5 years after he volunteered to help with my Halloween projects, so it is wonderful to have such a strong relationship before adding romance.

My big annual Halloween party went well as the Webmistress hosted a Victorian Halloween at Castle Brittahytta, with a new spider food menu and a front show with original music and over 10,000 spiders crawling over the castle walls and gravestones as the Waltz of the Spiders, but sadly our November was rough, starting with Glen catching an awful flu before we left Grandma’s birthday in Seattle. Thankfully I stayed well to take care of him, but he was miserable for a couple weeks and was only barely well enough to feel human again when I found out my beloved “dog in a cat’s body” Onyx was in end-stage chronic kidney failure at only 9 years old. I gave Onyx one last night of love, then Glen held me as I held Onyx as he left his pain behind. The next day we flew to San Antonio as scheduled to meet some of Glen’s family for a Simon Thanksgiving at Bret’s house, with Frank and Lisa also visiting, and to see my highschool friends Amanda & Anne, which was a really great trip…remember the Alamo! We had turkey #2 as a Peterson Thanksgiving on Friday in Roseville with my parents Diane & Gary and brother Erik, getting my fresh Christmas tree and fresh apple cider at Apple Hill the next day according to tradition…a whirlwind week but grateful we could visit both our families!

Glen & I both caught colds to start December, but thankfully by my Holiday Happy Hour party on the 11th, we were both healthy again, ready to host our friends for Christmas at the Castle while wearing the new red & green tartan dress I made for our fancy Christmas photo, and ready to take on the rest of the holiday season and 2017…starting with an East Asia cruise in February!

We hope everyone enjoyed a happy holiday season, and may you have a fabulous 2017!

– Britta, Glen, Ebony & Obsidian from Brittahytta in Santa Clara, California