Ray finished his Ph.D. in August, so we decided to fly to Madison and watch him wear his robe and shake the Dean's hand at the Kohl Center. There he is with Dhavan and Rosanne, who also finished in the summer. Hawk is in the background there with his last Ph.D. student, Jeong Yeob Han.
But it was not an uneventful trip. First, we had so much snow in Seattle that when we landed at Boeing Field, there were no cabs and Liam couldn't risk driving to come get us. We were able to get a limo with chains to take us to Fremont, where we spent the night. The next morning, our cab did not show and Liam did take us to the airport, slowly and carefully. When we got there, on the Friday before Christmas at 5 a.m., the airport was so crowded that we knew we'd be lucky to get through security in time for our plane. But no way could we check bags, so Dhavan's bottle of wine got donated to the airport. Chicago weather was no different, we were in two blizzards and barely able to fly out to Seattle on our way home. And things were not better in Seattle, Sheila and the girls could not get down her hill in Bellingham so they had Christmas there. Note the adorable Christmas tree they found in Sheila's woods...
Haley and Liam watched the weather and shot up to the island in a short window, but didn't dare drive all the way down our steep road. Instead, they used Hawk's mother's tobaggon to get their stuff downhill, and then spent several hours joyriding down the drive. It wasn't that cold by the time we got there, here are Haley and Mac enjoying the deck in the snow.
Liam lights up on the deck on a beautiful, chilly afternoon.
Liam and Suzy enjoying their favorite afternoon/evening activity.
Sunset on Christmas.
Christmas morning. I'm pretty sure it was oatmeal.
Opening presents.