Thanksgiving was spent with my side of the family this year. There are 22 grandkids so there are always plenty of cousins to play with when we get together. It was quite a drastic turn around for us because we got home from sunny, summer-like Florida a week before Thanksgiving. The timing was kind of weird but I'm always ready for some turkey and mashed potatoes. We hung out and played games and headed home the next day so we could get our Christmas tree!
We went to the spot we've gotten our tree for the last three years but the trees were massive and there weren't many left to chose from. We'll have to find a new place next year. We planned on going smaller than last year, and we thought we did, until we tried to haul it up the hill and onto the top of our car. It was a monster. I don't know how Paul ever got us home safely because it was very difficult to see out the front windshield. We got lost of looks and points and laughs on the highway heading home. It does look pretty ridiculous on the car, but lots of fun!
This is how it looks staged in the living room. Usually Paul will squat and push the tree up with his back while I have a 2x4 I use to push it at the top. This time around the tree was too darn heavy and tall that neither one of us could push it far enough up to get it to stand. We ended up calling in reinforcements to help. Oh the shame! I think the tree was around 20 feet. We had to cut the top off because it was scraping our vaulted ceiling.
One evening not long after we put the tree up, Mason and I watched it slide down the wall where, thankfully, it stopped on its own. Drew was sitting on the couch at the time and would have been crushed if it hadn't stopped. Scary! So, along with bolting the stand into the floor as per normal, Paul also put eye hooks on the wall and strung car tie-downs from the wall to around the tree. As stable as it was after that, it still scared me that we might lose it. If it fell again it would have been chopped into fire wood and no more Christmas tree! We will definitely go smaller in 2016! I think.
Also during the season, Drew had her first band concert! Hot Cross Buns . . . It was awesome! Bree was just about as excited as Drew was!
Christmas morning was at home, like usual. The night before we did our Christmas program and had 2 piano accompaniments (Mason and Darcy, who started lessons in the fall) and a clarinet to add a little flavor to our off-key singing. The Ericksons are not blessed with singing talent. We had some excited kids, as usual. 6 am comes early. I hope they sleep in a little later as teen-agers but I'm not counting on it. Bree got a Lego Cinderella Castle set to remind her of Disney World. Darcy got her Little Live Pets stuff which she had been coveting for months. They worked for about an hour and haven't been played with since. Shopkins don't do anything but they are all the rage at our house right now so she was thrilled to add to her collection. Mason got a huge new Nerf gun to shoot his sisters with, and an OSU football jersey. Drew was hard to shop for. She ended up with lots of new books and a Chudley Cannons t-shirt that only a true Harry Potter fan could appreciate. I got Paul a drone with a camera on it and its pretty fun to have a bird's-eye view of our property.
Later that day we went to Paul's sister Carmen's house for more Christmas fun. There are also 22 cousins on this side so lots of kids to play with wherever we end up for the holidays. We had a fun ornament exchange and a delicious dinner. Always a good time at Aunt Carmen's!
New Year's Eve we spent at my sister Candace's new place in Dallas, OR. Its never been my favorite holiday and this year was no different. After filling up on a bunch of junk, I proceeded to throw it all up and was sick all night and the next day. Luckily no one else got sick. I guess I took one for the team. We had lots of fun with cousins again. Mason had his first taste of our old family recipe for slush. It has orange juice concentrate, bananas, sugar, and lemonade all mixed together and frozen. Then you scoop out some of it and mix it with 7-up in your cup. Its good but it pretty much eats away your moth if you drink too much. Good stuff!
So 2015 came to an end and I will say it was a pretty darn good year. We had so many fun adventures and different kinds of entertainment to experience. We truly were blessed this year. And as a follow up on the whole identity theft fiasco, the bank returned the money stolen out of our checking account. Even though it was not the most pleasant of experiences to fight through, there was no lasting harm done. Knock on wood.
Basketball was tons of fun this year! I coached Darcy's 1/2 team which was made up of both boys and girls so there would be lots of teams to play. I thought it might cause problems with passing the ball to the girls but I never had to address the issue with my team. They were great. Fun kids to work with. We ended the season with as many wins as losses, but who's counting? Drew was my manager/assistant coach so she kept track for me. Darcy had so much fun that she told me after the season that she never wants to stop playing basketball. That's my girl! She played tenacious defense and made more than one little person mad at her. Oh well! She's getting tall for her age so she was able to get in there and battle with just about everyone. Next year she gets to play on the full court with regulation basketball and hoop heights. She is totally ready. I love to watch Darcy play and I'm thankful I was able to be her coach again this season. Paul and Bree were awesome again getting everyone where they needed to be for the games. At times we would have to split up to watch games in different gyms at the same time but we managed.
Mason was mostly a post player this year but was actually the point guard in one game. I LOVE to watch him play. He is such a smart player on defense. He just gets where he is supposed to be on the court and its fun to watch him. His team only won 1 game all season and it happened to be on the last day. It also happened to be his break-out game. He scored 12 of his team's 16 points! I even got to see that game! It was a tough season, always losing, but man I admired his attitude. He went out there and worked hard every single game, no matter the score. I totally admire his work ethic and attitude. I don't think basketball is his favorite sport but he is pretty good and I hope he gives it a chance. 
Drew played her last season of Rec ball. Sigh! Next year she will be in middle school and traveling to games. She had a great season too! Her team only lost 1 game. I stopped keeping track of her points after the first game. I couldn't count that high! She is the point guard and faster than most girls out there so she had countless lay-ins because she actually knows how to shoot them right and use the backboard. Go Drew! I was not involved in coaching her this year, which was weird, but she had a good coach and learned quite a bit this year. Her good friend who is very tall played on the same team so it was fun to watch Drew feed her underneath for lay-in after lay-in. They were an unstoppable duo! They will be fun to watch in the future. Drew plans to play basketball at Oregon State. We'll see. I'd like to say it gets easier with her on a travel team next year but Bree will be able to play so that means trying to juggle 4 kids' game and practice schedules. Only for basketball!
