BLUPERS blog

Coming up in 2009

A few trips for Steve to Dubai, Thailand and Malaysia

We will a

Nathan will be going on the 8th grade DC/NYC trip

Our first trip to Israel including dad

Dad has setup a Pancreatic Research Walk through Lustgarten Foundation in memory of Mom.  We'll be walking with him on February 8th and I setup a site if you want to sponsor me:  Phoenix Pancreatic Cancer Walk In Memory of Dody Norban 

Sorry for the long winded catch-up entry but hopefully I can get back to at least monthly entries moving forward.

Finally, I've been trying to keep things updated on Facebook too so you can look me up there for daiy entries as well!

On the 26th we left for our Luper family local winter vacation!  Steve planned an amazingly fun filled trip.  Here's our itinerary with notes...

Great Wolf Lodge - we spent a fun filled 24 hour period at GWL playing in the indoor water park, arcade and even included an amazing brownie/ice cream dessert that I'm still dreaming about.   Nate and Jessi even met some new friends from Portland.

Eugene - we stopped in Eugene on the way up to Willamette Pass, and met up with the Kermisch's to see their new baby, new house and have dinner.  It was great catching up with them again and Noah is so cute and such a great baby.

Willamette Pass - We stayed at a great place called Willamette Pass Inn and Chalet's and aside from the terrifying trip up the mountain to get there our stay was wonderful.   We got up and went skiing and yeah! Finally got Jessi on skis and she's a natural born skiier.  Her instructor kept pointing her out to his other students, saying "I taught her to ski this morning", it was really funny.

Portland – We did some touristy stuff and some having fun with the family stuff in Portland.  The touristy stuff was: Pittock Mansion, Oregon Jewish Museum, Bob’s Red Mill, “Do Jump”, Glowing Green’s golf and going to Made in Oregon store and Finnegans.  The fun family stuff was swimming at the hotel, playing Bustola (dice game like Farkle) and watching “Mama Mia”.

Tacoma - First Night Tacoma was a fun evening but definitely different than First Night Columbus or First Night Spokane.  We really had a nice evening but Jessi was pretty beat by 11:30p so we watched the NYE countdown in the hotel room together and then everyone went to sleep.  It was a nice way to start out 2009 together.

December was definitely an interesting month starting off with Nathan competing for the 3rd year in a row with his school Robotics team in the First Lego League Robotics competition. 

Somehow with everything else going on we were still able to fit in taking the kids to see Beauty & the Beast at Village Theatre.  Jessi was sooo excited to stay after the show and get autographs from the actors and actresses.

We also took them to the show 7 Brides for 7 Brothers at the 5th Ave Theatre which was a very fun show and the kids really enjoyed it!

Hannukkah parties were abundant this year with one with our friends the Puterman's, one with our friends the Tarlowe's and the one at the synagogue (re-schedued of course due to the snow storms)!

Just before the kids were supposed to start winter break our area got hit with several snow storms in a row, cancelling school for the last 3 days before holiday break for the kids.  The first day off we've declared a"Threat of snow day" since we didn't even get a flake here but some areas in the Seattle Metro area got up to 10" of snow.  The next day after whining all morning of still not getting any snow, we finally started seeing some snow but only got about 1-2".  Again other areas got slammed while we waited patiently until finally…yeahhhh, we got snow!!  Nathan measured almost 6" out on the patio furniture.  The kids had a blast, sledding, building a snow fort and running around playing with friends.   Why is it that when it's 70 and sunny I can't get the kids out of the house but when it's snowy and cold and blowy I can't get them to come back in from the cold! :)

See next entry for December vacation 2008

Steve headed to Dubai for a trade show.  It served to be an interesting experience to setup a show where some of the people setting up the booth spoke Thai and some spoke Hindy but couldn't find one person who spoke both!  He got  to do some sight seeing there too and more pics up on his FB.

Jessi & I went to Phoenix to spend some time with Dad after his surgery.   We had a nice visit together and Jessi was a big help in getting things in the condo setup so he could reach what he needed over the next few months while he was supposed to recover.   We went to the pool everyday and Jessi noted, "if this is a swimming pool, how come I'm the only one who is swimming!" :)  

Our friends the Tarlowe's came over to watch the OSU vs Michigan game.  They both played pretty poorly but at least we got to watch with friends!

For a birthday present for Jessi, Aunt Michele got Jessi and I voice lessons together with a great voice teacher.  We learned a lot of neat stuff about how to sing the correct way!  Jessi's going to continue the lessons and it will be a great compliment to her theatre classes.

That brings us to Thanksgiving which we had our non-traditional Annual Luper Thanksgiving Open House.   This year we rented out the Blakely Hall party house up the hill in the highlands for the brunch and it was great to have so much space for everyone to relax, hang out and enjoy the day.   We had about 50ish people join us for the brunch and about 20 for dinner.  The weather was amazingly beautiful for Thanksgiving in Seattle and the kids even got to play in the park.  It was a fun filled day of family, friends, fun and food!  We were very thankful to have such a nice celebration.

Thanksgiving weekend included the Seattle Kids Marathon which Jessi had run 25 miles with her school prior to that day and a crew of about 40 students from her school and their families finished the  last 1.2 miles together with thousands of others.