Walking

The most yummy basket of fresh breakfast goodies ever, I think! The scones were homemade and right out of the oven.

Uninvited breakfast guest.


A uninterrupted morning stroll with friends. Hard to come by lately.




Where the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean met. Pretty powerful.

It seems we've been going at breakneck speed lately. Since September I felt like we've been sprinting in a marathon (if that even makes sense). I figured after Christmas it would slow way down. While it has slowed down some, we've made it to about a jogging pace where I think we'll be staying for a while. So this past weekend when we got away for 3 days it was awesome to just walk. The location was perfect, the weather was superb (the SUN came out!) and the company couldn't be beat. Ahhh..... By Sunday night our pace had picked back up but it was so worth it to have a little time away to refuel.

A little more winter, please

I was so excited last week when they were predicting this HUGE winter storm. The Michigan girl in me couldn't WAIT! But it wasn't meant to be.  It lasted a short while and is gone.  Still holding out for at least one more to hit this winter.

New Year, New 365

It's a new year and that means I'm starting on my third year of taking a photo-a-day.  My "book" for last year has to be finished up yet but it has most of the photos in, ready to go.  There are a few weeks that are pretty empty however, and waiting for me to find something else to put in their place.  I'll be sure to share some pics when it's done and printed.  Now for this year, here's a look at our lives over the last week using my photo-of-the-day.

I usually make cinnamon rolls or cinnamon coffee cake for breakfast on birthday mornings. However, this year we were at Whistler on the L, T and J's birthday so New Years day we made them and actually ended up enjoying them as an afternoon snack.

Eric and Kevin headed out the door on Sunday to the Seahawks game. The Hawks WON!!! And they WON AGAIN today. There's one pretty excited Seahawk fan in our house right now.

Uncle Dave came over for dinner on his birthday and we continued our tradition on having "the cake", too! Yummmmm!

Love this story that Lucas has above his bed.

Who else is purging?!?! I know there's a few of you out there for sure! Our laundry room/storage room was a disaster! I was so sick of it, I emptied everything out of it and am reorganizing it. It's looking waaaay better!

Holly's been downloading music and hanging out in her room listening to songs on my old iPod.

Sometime homework is really, really hard and books seem really, really loooooong.

For my birthday, Eric gave the girls and I tickets to the Wizard of OZ at the Mt. Baker Theatre. It was such a great show and we had a GREAT time!

iPod photos are better than no photos at all, right?

A sweet scene on a Saturday morning. Ahhhh.....
Here's to another year of trying to get a photo each day!

Birthdays, Christmas, and more Christmas

I was going to try to give a quick rundown of the last couple weeks but I've realized I wasn't very brief so bear with me...photo overload ahead! We were excited to celebrate Christmas this year with most of my family, we were missing 5, though.



We celebrated L, T and J's birthdays at La Fiamma. I think Uncle Lou is really reconsidering grabbing a bite.

The next day was literally spent making cakes allllll dayyyyyy looooonggg. I think I had way to many distractions in my kitchen I couldn't make a cake to save my life. Could hardly get a boxed mix to turn out let alone the frosting to go on the cake. Yes, I really truly did make 8 cakes that day....4 from scratch, 4 from a box. Still didn't turn out.

These two wonderful girls even frosted for me but did end up getting just a little frustrated as well. Oh well!


Tyler and Lucas jumped the gun on the candle blowing so they felt the need to help Joey out with his.

Then it was off to Whistler for some winter fun!

This CA girl was happy to find some snow!

The tubing park was pretty fun!





It will take time, Buddy, but I promise you'll get it!

Bulls Eye!

Never a shortage of yummy food!

or someone to play with

or someone to entertain you!

He loves me, I know he does. Some day he will smile for me. :)

These are hilarious!  I think Dadwas really trying to decide if we got him a lens for his camera or what.


Silence and Lego building....ahhhhh.

Should we bother to ask? Eric tends to have issues with basketball hoops anyways. :)


More yummy food! Dave's delicious prime rib!


Cindy's yummy pie! She even made apple carmel just for Eric.

Sad

Not so sad?

We did manage to Skype with our missing 5 by the end of the day...hurray!

And we didn't have to say good bye to everyone...Grandpa and Grandma and Brett stayed a few extra days. It was a great visit and went by way to quickly.
Soon after most of our guests had left, we headed out to the next party. Grandma VH made the kids these cool little "books" recapping some highlights from the year.










I don't think Grandpa's trading in his electric guitar anytime soon for a Paper Jamz, although, they are really cool!