Christmas 2011

2011 was another year checked off for the Groscost clan



A precursory intro…. We do not “blog” and do not even know what that means.  However, the kids have revolted and will not be part of the assembly line of folding letters, stuffing envelopes, sticking on address labels and affixing stamps.   So we’ve officially gone green with this electronic holiday letter.  We offset that earth-friendly effort by tripling our plastic bag use in anticipation of the upcoming mandate.

At Molbak's

It’s amazing how much has changed since last publishing:  One year ago the Packers were headed to the Super Bowl, the economy was in the tank and Obama was winning over the conservatives.   For us, 2011 represented a year of reflection and introspection, in which we took a step back and paused to carefully evaluate what’s really important in life.  Then decided our staples are still top priority - eating out, vacationing with friends and beer (not necessarily in priority order), overspending and burning the candle at all three ends.

The Groscost Children:

Ruth graduated from training wheels this summer.  She certainly is on her own her pace with development milestones – no sense of urgency whatsoever.  As an adult she could be the next Colbie Caillat or live on a tropical beach, painting beads to make money to buy her next Corona and surfboard.  Agendas and deadlines don’t appear useful to her at this point.  However, should there be a career position in one-upping your older brother, she would excel. 

 

Si’s retired from four seasons of flag football but you’d think he spent the last ten years in the NFL to hear him talk.  Ruth gave up gymnastics in order to spend more time painting her nails.  Both kids seem to have taken an interest in art and music. Dad couldn’t be more proud.  Si lost a front tooth the old fashioned way - taking a tether ball to the face at school.  He proved it wasn’t an accident by losing another one the very next day the same way.  

The kids don’t get a regular allowance, they earn their pay through “special situation” chores like the annual housefly harvest (catch and release with a bug-vac, paid per insect).  It’s a little like herring season in the Bering Sea – in development and process. 

Ever wonder what activities your kids REALLY do enjoy and what they are doing just because they’re held captive. . . . Yep, neither do we.  But we did conduct a survey to see what they had to say about it.  They each made a top ten list ranking of what they like to do, which their folks conveniently retain and use against them for our benefit.



Now that both kids are in Opstad Elementary we’re reaping the financial rewards of public schooling and the kids will suffer the reality of it.  Of course, those proceeds flooded our savings account and we have no idea what do with it. 

Rattlesnake Lake with Ruth's
hiking hat

We broke out of the bouncy house birthday party routine with Si this year.  We had a group sleepover with his six of his best (most destructive) friends.  The furnishings and finish work in the family room tell the story of the good times (lack of supervision) the boys enjoyed.  We were awakened at 2:30 A.M. for an upset tummy.  After taking Ignatius (name changed per HIPAA compliance) home, we found two sinks half-filled with stomach contents.  That kid got the MVP considering all of the discharge target possibilities between the bed and the bathroom.  Evidently, pizza, candy, bowling, popcorn, wrestling and ice cream aren’t a good combo for all 8-year olds. 

Si has been reading labels for sport these days.  He wanted to

Ruth's first day of Kindergarten

know why everything was made in China.  We told him each country has to do it once and it’s their turn.  He did find a toy that wasn’t made in China, but we assured him at least the label was, and it was probably assembled there as well.  The kids are getting a steady diet of play dates. We prefer to host so that we lure the family secrets from their kids.  The reverse has been semi-damaging to our renowned reputation.

The latest cultural fashion is to provide kids with a “menu” at mealtimes.  Apparently, we parents these days have been lured into believing that our kids would starve in protest rather than ingest the so-called food we put before them.  We hereby declare bullshit and are prepared to counter this trend with one-option of regular (aka nutritious) food to any kids who dine with us.

The Groscost Adults:

In a financial restructuring move, we liquidated the equity in our rental house to buy GET credits for the kids’ college.  We’re not convinced this is the more secure investment option.  We’ll know in 15 years (or pessimistically, sooner) if the G holds up.

North Bend hosted its first Warrior Dash.  We left our tennis shoes in the muck with 30,000 others to eat a smoked turkey leg and earn our fuzzy horns.  It’s a natural fit for our area – a river valley marsh with mud, fire, alcohol and hillbillies.  This event doubled as Tracey’s entire triathlon training program.   She did show her Danskin support by signing up for it, then revising the “swim and swig” club to the “swig and swig again” club.  There’s always next year.

Curt received his first dental crown after he broke a tooth while flossing – is there a better example of life’s sweet irony?  While this isn’t typical holiday letter fare, it is a noteworthy source of pride considering the price of gold these days.  All the work it takes on Gold Rush and look what you can get from 90 minutes in the dental office.

Tracey saw an aerial view of her hair and realized she had reached the point that she needed to step it up from self-administered “semi-permanent” hair dye.   So we are working the cost of “professional” hair color into the budget.  (yep, you got it.  It’s bad here.)

Sadie relaxing

The "dog" situation:

Sadie retired her larynx (and the vital organs supporting it) in July.  Upon reducing her physical being to a pint of ash, we celebrated by “reinvesting” to bring our canine fleet back up to full strength.   Apparently, somewhere along the line, we decided that life was too simple, inexpensive and easy to manage.  We rehomed (contemporary term for rescued) two dogs that bear a quirky resemblance to the last pair.

Copper and Olive relaxing. 
Notice a theme?

Copper is a ridge-less, Rhodesian Ridgeback. Consensus is that he looks like Marmaduke . . . and behaves the same come to think of it.  He’s a handsome devil and just like the humans, the lookers have their issues below the surface.  Olive (the other Reindeer)… Picked up on the side of the highway from the wrong side of the tracks in Prosser, WA (think of the setting for No Country for Old Men).  Her DNA test revealed she’s mainly a lab/shepherd mix with some terrier, beagle and a trace (.045%) basset hound which must be how she got her short legs.  So we’ve got two dogs who are not what they claim to be - must be witness protection program graduates.

We forgot what it was like to own young dogs.  They turned what we used to call a lawn into a series of troughs and berms.  You could say we have a motocross course . . . with an irrigation system.  Sure, just confine them to a dog run.  But then they just “store” their energy for when we get home.  It’s no secret that daily exercise for your dog curbs their problem, but we’ve decided that’s not our strength.

Life in North Bend:

Curt coached Si’s soccer team this fall.  He was the obvious choice – no soccer skills and a short fuse.   Clearly this was a baseball geared group.  10 straight weeks of continually assuring them that soccer is an all-weather sport.  The season highlight was the final game ending at halftime due to high winds and torrential rain.  No one even brought it up.

Si’s crowning achievement in second grade was a “My Community Project” where the student details an integral part of local living with which they are intimately familiar.  Si chose the North Bend Bar and Grill because “we visit 3 times a week and they have great nochos”.  We advised him 12 times a month is NOT three times a week and nachos is with an A.  We should get a year free meals for that publicity. . . . after we clear the CPS investigation.

Life outside of North Bend:

We took our first (of a projected total of one) family trips to

Matterhorn at Disneyland

Disneyland.  Ours are probably the only kids to spend five days at the park and never see, hear of, or ask about Mickey Mouse.   We sacrificed innocent meaningful art for commercialized adrenaline jolting fun generators. We could have saved thousands of dollars and achieved the same result by bungee jumping blind-folded from the trees in our yard. The visibility is better for sure.



We did a few weekend vacations

Friends and Family at Mt. Hood

this year.  We kicked 2011 off with a winter Chelan trip with friends for the Fire and Ice Festival.  While we did see both fire and ice, we also had a healthy dose of sledding, swimming, gambling, football and Spanish coffees.  We headed south to Mt. Hood for some skiing (and hot tubbing in the freezing weather).  Later in the year, we camped at Sequest Park near Mt St Helens.  Though we’ve tried to put their minds at ease, the kids are obsessed with the next looming eruption. Spent a few nights at the Lighthouse Keeper’s Inn at Cape Disappointment and the kids made sand angels at Washington’s own slice of Hawaii – Waikiki Beach. 


Camped with the dogs at Moran State park on Orcas -

Kids, Olive and Sadie

these days a tent is not suitable confinement for a puppy.  Turns out there is an advantage to the moldy, old oil-soaked canvas tent your parents inherited. In August, we re-engineered the Chelan “rent a 5,000 sqft house with a pool on the lake with 25 of our closest friends” vacation to become the “rent an RV hook up site at Blue Lake ‘Resort”, share it with a tent with 10 kids, next to a 1970 trailer home with plywood ADA ramp where the remaining six adults sleep with the main entertainment is watching the fly strip” vacation.    A good time was had by some.  Sign of the times.

2011 was good to us - there are so many things to enjoy in life that we often take for granted.  Everyone is healthy, happy and wiser than the year before.  We hope that 2012 is good to you, your family and your friends, and that we get to see you sometime during the year.  Best wishes this holiday!