We're Still Alive...

I've decided that I'm a terrible blogger who is way too content to look at other people's creative posts but painfully negligent when it comes to my own. It's a new year though so maybe there is some hope that I can improve...I'm not crossing my fingers though :)

I know Christmas was ages ago but I have a bunch of Christmas photos that I wanted to share. We spent a marvelous Christmas/New Years break in Washington where we enjoyed spending time with lots of family and the beautiful weather. I tried to get my snow fix during those few weeks before we had to come back to Sunny Cali but unfortunately I've was hit with the snow blues when we first came back...at least it's been raining the past few weeks so it kind of feels like winter here. Oh well, it just makes me appreciate home even more. This the view from mom and dad's front yard after one of the many snow storms we had:

The temperatures were quite low for about a week (so low that the guys couldn't even go snow machining to their bitter disappointment) which is a wonderful excuse for lots of cozy time by the fire. Here is Jared taking his turn in hauling wood into the house. Isn't he cute???

Jared's dad was able to come up with us from California the week before Christmas to experience Leavenworth's famous Christmas Lighting festival and absolutely loved it. He loved the thousands of people all gathered together for the countdown to turn on the lights and thought that the town was the perfect place to get into the Christmas spirit. I have to admit that despite the fact that we were freezing and that I've seen the show tons of time it was really fun and beautiful. Sometimes I forget what a unique place I grew up in.

Here we found a fire to warm up by and some friendly tourist took our picture. I love the snowflakes caught in midair all around us :)

Of course I had to show Craig some of the fun shops on main street -one of which is the hat shop which has every hat you could imagine. Jared had a great time modeling various ones for the camera.

We even got to pose with Santa outside of the Danish Bakery

The highlight though was watching/listening to Arita perform with her trio at the Gazebo in the town centre. I felt so sorry for them because it was about 10 degrees outside and they were freezing!!! I don't know how they were even moving their fingers. They had already played for two hours earlier in the day and be this time were really ready to pack up and go home. They sounded wonderful though and were happy for the opportunity.