For many years Christmas morning was about getting up early with the children and opening presents, making overnight cinnamon rolls, and going to a relative's house for Christmas dinner.
Now the two who enjoyed the cinnamon rolls the most are gluten free, the children are all over 21, the relatives have moved away, and the person who wakes us up early on Christmas spent it with her fiance's family this year.
We got up at a leisurely pace, opened our presents, I made a big (late) breakfast, and then I ripped the dashboard of the van apart.
I bought an auxiliary port to connect my iPod to the car stereo in 2013 and toyed with the idea of paying someone to install it. I decided for Christmas to do it myself (after watching a video on dismantling the dashboard on YouTube).
As usual, the hardest part was removing the clipped-in bezels without breaking them. Once that was done, it went pretty smoothly despite the photos of general destruction.
Gaping holes.
A huge mess.
Finished.
The 3.5 mm jack and the power switch in the re-purposed ashtray.
It's been a while and life has been very busy. Here we go with some updates.
When last we left off, I was getting ready for the holiday sale.
On Friday 12/11/15:
Getting set up for the sale.
I finally figured out where to put the hydra light --in the ceiling.
I went to Sears to get some staples for hanging the drop cloths in the garage and found a bunch of bag worm cocoons in the junipers outside the store. Quite a few of them.
Bag worm cocoons.
A huge hillside of them.
On Saturday 12/12/2015:
The sale was good, especially for a holiday sale in 75 degree weather.
Kim's banner.
Our snacks for the sale (and sunscreen).
Saturday night:
Karen's company Christmas party.
Me and Karen.
Sunday 12/13/2015:
Taking down the sale.
Saturday 12/19/2015:
Monday 12/21/2015:
I found some TINY mushrooms growing out of the maple tree out back. I also found some brown lacewing larvae that cover their backs with moss and lichen. Cool stuff.
I used my clip-on macro lens for my phone which has a really short focus length so bear with me on this.
These are really tiny.
I like the barnacle-yness of the lichen.
Zooming out to show the scale.
REALLY tiny.
12/25/2015:
Our Christmas was pretty quiet. Meredith came home for more than a week and it was nice having a full house again for a while.
Meredith with Binkley and his Christmas bone.
Stephanie throwing wrapping paper at me.
Overnight cinnamon rolls.
12/31/2015:
The day after Christmas we went to Pennsylvania to visit family for the holidays. We had a great time for the week.
On New Year's Eve, my brother Dave took me to his favorite Thai restaurant where they decorate the plates with various sauces. The woman there really does beautiful work.
Tofu in mango sauce with a beautiful design.
A closer look. I love the addition of the swirl with all those geometrics.
For dessert we had the dream bomba which is chocolate covered peanut butter ice cream with a caramel center --and an umbrella.
