We begin a quick trip to Portland to spend two days with the family of Angela’s brother, Johnny, and his wife, Zenni. They’ve come up from L.A. to see Portland for the first time. We do the usual things, including a visit to the OMSI science museum and Powell’s City of Books. We also stop by the very popular Voodoo Donuts shop, but quickly conclude the donuts are way too sweet and/or weird.
On our last morning in Portland, we stop by the Forestry Museum. (We have someone take a group photo in the museum’s lobby.) Lunch is at Boxer Ramen, which most of our group decides is too spicy.
Before getting back on the road, we walk around the corner to Blue Star Donuts. We all agree it’s better than the better-known Voodoo Donuts. Blue Star’s chocolate ganache donut is messy but fantastic.
Bree discovers the video game “Ilomilo”, which features two cute friends — one red, one blue — that have to solve puzzles so they can reunite each day.
Bree was introduced to this game in a roundabout way. Anya had had the chance to play with a marimba in Portland, and had picked out the tune from Ilomilo called, “Me and My Paper Plane”. This got the song stuck in Jan and Anya’s head, so on the ride back to Seattle, we listened to the game’s cute, quirky soundtrack. Bree liked it, so asked to play the game when we got home. Jan dug out an old Windows tablet that could play the game, and now Bree and Anya are happily playing it.
Anya, Bree, and Liya are nice enough to still let us get a photo of them with Santa.
Merry Christmas!
Liya spent a lot of time making pretty custom wrappings and cards for her gifts.
Jan thought it would be interesting to try one of the new Amazon Alexa devices in our kitchen. Among other things, we can talk to the device to have it add stuff to our Cozi shopping list.
Bree thinks this is great, and spends a lot of time asking Alexa to put random stuff on our shopping list, like “Two tons of creamed corn”. Jan has to keep countermanding instructions to Alexa.
Bree also likes using Alexa to set a timer. She tends to shout at it. When boiling macaroni for mac and cheese, she shouts at Alexa: “ALEXA! SET A TIMER FOR 10 MINUTES!”
First day of skiing the 2017/2018 winter season. Angela was so tired in her last run, all the girls laid down mid-slope waiting for her. She refused to get out of bed the next day.
After five months of trying, Jan and Anya finally manage to complete an entire month’s worth of New York Times daily crossword puzzles in a row. They get help from the internet, of course, but try to look up answers on sites like Wikipedia rather than using crossword puzzle hint sites.