December 12 will be our 10 month in Washington! Still crazy to me! We are now in the dark gloomy months that Washington is famous for. I’ve heard November is one of the worst months and we have survived it! It honestly wasn’t as bad I was expecting either. We definitely got a lot of rain and overcast days. November was also chilly, but not super cold.
December has started off rainy and overcast as well. This week has been quite cold, but I think that it will get back to the normal temperatures soon. We’ve also been on the look out for snow! Sadly we haven’t gotten any at our house yet, but it did snow downtown while Chris was at work! I am hoping later this week we may actually get some snow! If not here, then we will drive about an hour away to play in the snow later this year!
We also survived our first Thanksgiving away from family. It was hard being away from family, but it was nice to just have my small group!
Since the weather hasn’t been great for playing outside we decided to join the local YMCA. We’ve been swimming, and Ryan and Chris have enjoyed rock climbing at the rock wall! Ryan has started swimming a bit by himself. He LOVES his mask now. (We got it for him for Mexico, but he wouldn’t use it there.) Lillian just likes floating around with her floaty.
Ryan is doing so good at rock climbing at the wall. He wasn’t afraid at all and went right to the top. Hes been going several days a week and is getting quite good at it! Since he is getting more into it we did buy him his own shoes, harness, and helmet. Ideally we’d really love to start going out on real rocks this summer. I think Chris will start taking him to a real rock gym so he can get better! Ryan is really loving it and asks every day to go. He has also started climbing up our walls, on us, and basically anything he can climb.
We also have started our house remodel. Basically we have just taken out our kitchen and finalizing our plans….it’s been interesting not having a kitchen, but we had to start sometime. I am hoping once we get everything figured out we can get things done quickly!
Chris was also able to take the kids to work with him this month. They had a huge engineering day for kids planned out. Lillian was sad at first when she wasn’t in Ryan’s group, but got over it quickly! They had a blast. They ate breakfast at Chris’ desk, then went to their classes. They played games and read stories and made crafts. Ryan played a coding game for kids and LOVED it. They had lunch together and then went up with their groups to present what they did in front of everyone. Both kids had a blast and even Chris had fun!
We are still loving Washington, just hoping to survive the winter!

The school library sent home a letter asking what languages were spoken at home because they wanted to get books for all families. I put that Chris speaks Thai so the good were able to check out Thai books for Chris to read to them. Its been a lot of fun for the kids to hear Chris speaking a different language, talking about Thailand, and having Chris do something with the kids that only he can do!

Roller Skating! The kids had a lot of fun!

Engineering Day at Zillow. The kids LOVED having time with Chris

Chris checking out Chris’ work station

kids checking out Chris’ view

We were wrapping presents for Chris’ birthday and the kids thought it would be funny to wrap up Ryan as a present. We sure surprised Daddy!

Lillian was terrified for Ryan to rock climb. She gave him a huge hug and told him not to fall!