Snow days!

{January 18th-20th}

I love snow days! We had three glorious days off work where we did nothing but the following: wake up, eat pancakes, watch a movie, go tubing, come back, take hot shower, nap, walk to the store, get treats, come back, watch another movie, sleep, repeat. It was pure heaven. I'm secretly already looking forward to next winter, hoping the same thing happens! Granted we were some of the lucky ones who didn't loose our power so I probably would be singing a different tune if that were the case.

We found some great hills right by our house.

Fun times.

Holy ice! After all the snow it rained...and then if froze. There was an inch thick of ice covering EVERYTHING.

Poor trees. Our neighbors fell into our yard. Luckily it was just a little guy and didn't do any damage.

Death by icicles!

When we finally ventured out after being in our little bubble for three days, this is what we saw. Trees all over the roads.
 It's amazing what a little snow and ice can do!

Leavenworth

{January 14th}

Erichs sister called us on a Friday night and told us they were camping up near Leavenworth and we should come up and meet them. Not ones to pass up a fun weekend, we said sure! (despite the fact that it was suppose to start snowing like a banshee.) We got everything ready and headed up that next morning. It was raining when we started our drive. No biggie, we can handle a little rain. We stopped at the Costco near Bothell on the way up to grab a case of water and some gas and by the time we walked out it was snowing like crazy! We continued over to Highway 2 and it was still coming down really hard. At one point we looked at each other like, should we really try to do this??! We weren't sure how it was going to look through Stevens Pass. Well we decided to find out how Miss Pickle would handle the snow so we kept going. This is what it looked like on the way up..

Yeah...no bueno. We were surprised we made it up the pass without having to put chains on! We weren't even in an all wheel drive vehicle. And there were tons of cars pulled over to the side of the road putting theirs on. We were really proud of the Pickle for getting us up there safely. There was only one little instance where the traffic started to slow down too much and we almost came to a full stop. The car slid around for a bit trying to get going again but we made it! On the other side of the pass there was a lot of snow but the roads were a little more clear. We pulled into where Bethany and Scott were camping and then we all jumped into their big truck and headed into downtown Leavenworth for the ice festival!

I love this little town! It was the first time I had been during winter and it was just too cute all decorated for Christmas. So cozy! We had fun walking through all the little shops. And I met a new friend. There were a bunch of huskies in town for the sled pulling races. A lot of them were pretty nuts and would try to jump all over you but this one was so sweet and calm, I wanted to take her home!

These are some of the activities they had going on. Some kind of race (I can't remember what it was called), ice sculptures, snow sculptures, snow ball toss, and the sled pulling contest for the huskies. 

We went to the t-shirt shop and I found the perfect one for Erich!

The hat store and the taffy shop. Sooo many different kinds of taffy! We went along and picked one of each that looked good. Which probably wasn't the best plan because they all looked good and our bag ended up full!

I saw this Thomas Kinkade painting and I'm kind of obsessed.  

Mad Dog hot sauce. Scott was the only one brave enough to try it and he quickly was regretting that decision! His face got bright red and he started sweating and couldn't even talk. And he only tried a teeny tiny drip. Haha, good times. For us anyway..

Nothing quite like Leavenworth at night during the holidays! I think this is definitely going to become a tradition to come up here every winter. So many fun things to do!

Camping/Snowshoeing

{January 15th}

The is the property we camped at. Bethany and Scott were in their big trailer but we got the cozy little cabin that had been built into the garage. It had a wood burning stove that kept us sooo warm. That next morning we got up to eat breakfast, play in the snow, and then headed off to go snowshoeing.

The start of our trek. We hiked along the road outside our camp for a bit until we hit the trail.

He's cute.

Winter Wonderland.

On our way back to the cabin.

It was a fun little quickie trip. We're glad we made it there and back alive. On our drive home we ended up getting stuck for 2 hours at a dead stop because of an accident. We were just sitting there waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Can't really complain about that too much though, I mean, we could have been the ones that were in the accident! I'll take the waiting. All in all it was a fun trip. We always have a good time on our camping trips with Scott and Bethany. Looking forward to many more.

Slacker! ... and other news

Wow, I don't know what's come over me. I have had ZERO motivation to blog lately. Such a slacker. I need to get back on track. We've already done a lot of fun things this year that need to be documented and it's only going to get better! It's a pretty big year for us. Erich turns the big 3-0, I turn the big 2-5 (yikes! Half way to 50 people! Weiiiird!), Erich GRADUATES! Hallelujah!! He's done with his final semester and will be walking and officially graduated on June 16th. Soooo beyond excited about that and so so proud of him. He has worked really hard being in school full time and working full time, all while being a full time husband and still doing fun things with me. He rocks. The rest of the year for us is going to be filled with...NO HOMEWORK, lots of trips to visit family, lots of time with friends, lots of fun vacations, and lots and lots of adventures!...Starting with our trip to MEXICO in May! A little graduation present for the husband. He deserves it. And since I'm his wife, I get rewarded too. Saweeeet! I like this whole marriage thing. Any who, that's kind of what's been going on around these parts. I'm going to get my booty back on here tonight...ish to get caught up. :)