Waiting

The "to-do before my family shows up" list is almost entirely crossed off. I know it's silly to post a photo of my list, but at least I am not posting a photo of my fridge this time! Some of the things on the list were more like early spring cleaning. Things that needed to be done anyways, so why not use the motivation of visitors to make yourself get the job done? The DVD just popped out of the computer which means my camera memory card is now ready to be filled. One last item on the list needs to be crossed off, anyone want to fill in for me and take my Sunday School class?! :)

Busy

allposters.com

I took a week off from posting and just thought I would stop by here to make it official that I am taking more time off- at least another week and a half. My reason? My family is coming to visit!!! Mom, Dad, Hosh, Jolly and Kitten as well as my Social Sister are coming. My brother and his new wife have to stay home and work hard (we will miss you!)

There has been nothing to blog about for the past 7 days (as we haven't been up to much and we've been shrouded in fog) but there will be TOO MUCH to blog about for the next little while, and I will be too busy to even think about blogging. You should see my kitchen right now, it is quite frightful and not at all like the photo above. If I had the energy, I would definitely post a photo for you all to see, but I don't, so I won't. I am preparing food ahead of time to have on hand when everyone is here. I made breakfast casseroles and popped those in the freezer yesterday. Today I cooked up a huge pot of chili (just the meat and beans was 4.5 lbs.) I made two large pans of meatballs to be later mixed with my mom's sweet and sour sauce and served over rice. I made and froze brown rice so my rice maker would be free to make white rice last minute. The Mr. likes brown and I like white! There are ingredients for desserts spread all over the counter (gluten free of course- peanut butter balls and peanut butter cookies.) I poached seven chicken breasts, shredded them and froze them for chicken enchiladas. (To poach, cover all chicken with water, heat to boiling, boil two minutes, cover, remove from heat and let sit 20 minutes, drain, slice or shred as needed.) I don't think we'll starve when my family is visiting!

We have a three bedroom house, so everyone gets to stay here. The more the merrier I say! I think the most people that have ever stayed overnight at our house is 14. Seven will be easy compared to that! At least the washer and dryer won't have to work so hard in order to supply everyone with clean towels. :)

Well, see you after the break! 

Powder Day at Mt. Baker

On the last Tuesday of December we went snowboarding with two friends at Mt. Baker. The drive up to Baker is so pretty and I end up taking a lot of blurry photos, but I end up liking a few of them anyways. It's like a fairytale!

My "first tracks." The snow was perfect! My first few runs down the hill for the day were powder runs the entire way.

View from the White Salmon lodge.

L to R: Alex, The Mr. and Dave.

Me!

Alex was seriously stuck! The Mr. ended up getting very stuck as well and I met the two of them at the bottom of the hill quite a bit later! I had stayed in an area that was a little harder packed.

Mt. Baker

Dave snapping some photos of the view.

The Mr. in blue and Alex ahead. The view is incredible!

The view in front of us as we went up #6 chair.

The view behind us.

Look at that turquioise strip of sky with the lower layer of clouds below it. It was a cloud sandwich!

You can see the glacier just to the left of the center of this photo.

Petra at Seven Months

The tippy top of the "terrible puppy days" graph has been reached I think and hopefully we are on our way to having a mature, calm, relaxed, obedient, good-natured, well-trained baby family member dog.

Or not...

Actually it's true, she is growing up. She weighs so much I can barely lift her and she is so muscular. She loves walks, chasing things, coming inside to lay on the blanket and chew her raw hide bone, doing tricks for treats and she loves meeting new people. She loves other dogs so much that all of her training goes out the window when she sees them, but it is so much fun to see her romp and play with another of her own kind. Sometimes when we meet other dogs on our walks she is lucky enough that the other dog owner will offer to let the two dogs have off leash time together.

"Can I have another bone please? This one is getting a little nasty and all the good parts are gone!"

"Look, I can float!"

I can't believe how big she is now compared to the back seat of the car. Compare it to the photo below which was taken at the beginning of August!


Now she is big enough that she can jump over our fence in the back yard. You can see in the video below that she is now tied up via a run. She can run back and forth the width of our house and get almost as far as the fence so she still gets plenty of exercise. I am glad the set up we got is very strong and spring loaded. You will see why when you watch the video!

"I've almost... got... that... blade of grass! Got it!"
I love the part when she realizes that the blade of grass is still stuck to her mouth!

"If you haven't noticed, it's snowing. Can I please come inside?"

"What if I sit here until there is an inch of snow on my ears. Then can I come inside?"

"WHY do you do this to me?"

Thanks for the fancy neck scarf Doc!

"I'm not so sure about this!"

This was her first snow.

Snow Day

This was the state of our truck on Lord's Day morning in Kirkland. We had stayed the night at Mom J's and had decided to brave her hill to go to meeting. There was a much smaller crowd at the meeting room but we had a very nice time.

Bri all dolled up.

The Nuggets were there with their parents as well. Doc now works a bit in the Seattle area as well as his vet practice in their home town.

We went out for lunch at one of the only open restaurants in Kirkland- Burger King! We stayed there for quite a while enjoying the company of a few families that joined us and then we went to Sallad and Grace's for the rest of the day as gospel meeting that night was canceled. As you can see in this photo, Bri is quite the crawler now.

It snowed and snowed and snowed!

Sallad made snow ice cream and it was so yummy!

It was a lot creamier than I thought it was going to be. The cream partially melts the snow and the snow partially freezes the cream and you end up with ice cream!

Sallad's Snow Ice Cream

1 c. Half & Half
1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
dash of salt
5 c. of fresh, clean snow

Combine all ingredients and enjoy!!

The next day we set out on a mission to pick up our dear friend LeAnne. Her flight out of Sea-Tac airport was canceled, which made it impossible for her to make her connection. She had to stay home from a cruise! So many people were helping her try and catch a different flight but the airlines were all booked up because of all the cancellations. We picked her up at a friends house and took her for coffee and shopping. Don't those things always help when you are feeling down?!

Right beside Starbucks was a yarn shop that shares the name of a friend!

"Will it ever stop?"
"GROUNDED: Cancellations, delays leave weary travelers stuck at Sea-Tac."
LeAnne is on the phone with the airline in this photo.

"Jon Crawford hits a jump on his way down Queen Anne Avenue North as the snow continues to fall on Sunday." (I don't know this guy.) On Saturday evening The Mr. had done a lot of sledding down the road that leads to L&P's house. They live at the top of a 1/2 mile long hill! On Lord's Day evening we saw snowmobiles as well as a snowboarder being pulled behind a truck. It was pretty uncommon weather for the area and since many roads were impassible, they were being used for recreation instead!

Seattle Center

The second day of our Seattle Trip we got to spend time with LeAnne, Sallad, Grace and Bri. It was so much fun to get dressed up all warm and visit Seattle Center, look at the Space needle and see a 3-D Imax with L&P and the 4 J kids. We saw "Santa vs. the Snowman"which was quite silly, but fun at the same time. I'm a kid at heart.

Bri's nose got a little cold (isn't it the cutest ever?!) but she was cozy and warm all bundled up in her stroller. I think she looks a little shocked in this photo, maybe because we had just come in from the cold outside.

Bri with her mommy Grace.

Part of the electric train display. This is so neat, it's huge and they let kids run the train from that orange booth in the back.

The Space Needle

United States Science Pavilion

They are also referred to as the Seattle Science Center Arches and were built by Minoru Yamasaki who is best known for designing the twin towers of the World Trade Center. He built these for the Seattle World's Fair in 1962.

The Science Fiction Museum entrance in the crazy multicolored building. It was designed by Frank Gehry and is also home to Seattle's Rock Museum. Neither of them interest me, but the building is so weird that it is worth mentioning.