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!