Sledding

There are ups and downs to sledding in Ellensburg. One up is there is usually snow on the ground so it's always a possibility. The downside is that there aren't really any hills close by. This is easily solved with a little rope and Poppie's tractor.

On Tuesday, Soph and Ceci tried out the snow and loved every minute of it.

Starbuck also enjoyed herself as you can see...

No, This Isn’t A Typo…

I was having a flashback when we were filling the tank a couple of days ago. I think I was just out of high school the last time I paid this much for gas. It wasn’t quite this cheap but the 30¢ discount at Safeway made it amazing.

Oh, Christmas Tree

This weekend, we decorated our tree and house for Christmas. Since our new house has vaulted ceilings, we decided to get the biggest tree we could find. This was a bit of a problem for Colby's back and our garage.

Colby showing the tree who's boss around these parts.

With such a big tree, we had room to hang most of our ornaments. Many hadn't seen the light of day in years on our "apartment size" trees.

The finished masterpiece.

An 80's looking picture of the tree. Kim wanted tinsel but I used my veto rights.

Holly, Brian, and Tanner brought back this nice Mickey Christmas throw and it looks wonderful on our couch. Notice the decorations in the background. The whole house is now very festive.

I also braved the ladder to get the lights up on the outside of the house. Luckily I did it Saturday because today was very wet out.

Saturday night, Holly and Brian had us over for a Bunco party. On our way, we passed a house in Issaquah that had won a prestigious prize (the leg lamp). It looked to be French and I'm sure it was FRAGILE.

A Day Of Thanks

Thanksgiving this year was at our house. It was so nice to have all the sides of our family together. We didn't take as many pictures as we would have hoped.



Our turkey took a nice long apple brine bath in preparation for the big day. Now that we know everyone survived, we can share this photo.



Kim doing the traditional turkey dance. The big bird wasn't too light on it's feet weighing in at a hefty 24 pounds. By the way, those aren't feathers on the bird, it's the pine from the brine.

Thanks Mom O for this great aerial picture of the festivities.

Like, A Totally Rad Birthday

So we have some catching up to do...

So back in November, Kim's friend Michelle had her thirtieth birthday. Coincidentally, so did her two brothers...they're triplets.

The party was an '80's themed party where many of us dressed up. It was held at a small theater and we voted on which movie we were going to watch. The princess bride won over Gremlins and Goonies (our votes). It was really fun to see it back on the big screen.

Green noodles

I have stumbled upon the very best food website. This week for Dinner, every Sunday the blog is updated with Jane's menu of the week. I have been trying out some of the recipes she does and so far all have been wonderful! I was quite proud of how the "Green Noodles" turned out I even made Colby get the camera out!

Here is the recipe:

Number 3, aka Green Noodles
- Spinach Fettuccine, 8 or 9 oz package
- 1 boneless/skinless chicken breast, cubed
- ~3/4 of a package of mushrooms, chopped
- ~2.5 oz prosciutto, chopped
- Pesto cream sauce
- Feta cheese, to taste
Saute chicken & mushrooms in a bit of olive oil. Add prosciutto once chicken is cooked and heat through. Cook pasta as directed on the package (I use fresh pasta). Drain.
Make a cream sauce with pesto mixed in…or buy the Garlic & Herb pasta mix (Knorr makes it, and one of the other brands makes it as well…don’t buy the pesto pasta mix, it’s not quite the right flavor). Follow as directed on the package, but use about 1/3 more milk…so if it calls for 1 1/2 cups milk, use 2 cups.

Mix everything together…pasta, chicken mixture & sauce. Add crumbled or cubed feta cheese at the end so it doesn’t melt away…but mix it in. Put in as little or as much as you like.
Makes enough for about 4 people.

Out for a drive

Colby and I took a drive out to Black Diamond in search of the famous Bakery. We now understand why it is famous!

We decided to try a loaf of the cinnamon raisin bread as well as some old fashion sour dough.

We also had to get one of the world famous apple cinnamon rolls!

We plan to visit the bakery when ever we have guest in town!

Our neighbors in the Northwest

These are a couple of "characters" that we have been passing on the way home from work every day. The first is a scarecrow that is trying to hitch hike his way out of Issaquah with his little friend on his shoulder. He has been there since late September but hasn't yet found any takers.



This next guy popped up only a week or two ago. Apparently he is keeping watch over this field and protecting it from invaders.

You can see to the right the remnants of one of his foes who was not lucky enough to have armour.

We hope everyone had a great Halloween and I will try to get a picture of Kim's costume on here soon. She can't tell me it's too embarrassing of an outfit since I had to wear it for four years ;o)

Whoa there Big Boy!

I guess I am becoming a travel nerd of sorts. I saw this jet as I was waiting for a flight at LAX last week and just had to stop and take a picture. This is the newest plane for Qantas Airlines out of Australia, the A-380. I had actually looked at the stats after a recent contest on the Alaska Air site. The plane is 238 feet long, 79 feet tall and the wing area is 4 1/2 times the square footage of our house!

It has 4 different classes inside - economy, economy plus, business, and first. All but the economy are first-class size seats and all come with power ports, USB, Internet access, and your own travel kit. I guess you need those types of things on a 10-20 hour flight with 450 people on board.



To give you some perspective, that little plane next to it is what I normally fly on - a 737!!

Unique New York

I thought I would give you a look at one of the more interesting buildings I have been to. Our warehouse in Queens was built on a site in which some old buildings couldn't be torn down. You can kind of tell by the picture that the buildings were basically combined together , with a covered walkway in one instance, to create the space we needed. It makes for some very interesting architecture and nice pictures.

Also, the site is directly on the water overlooking Manhattan. There is only a small walking trail separating the parking lot from the water.

When I finished my work at the building, it was after dark and I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to take some nice nighttime shots

Boo Who??

Last night Colby and I were booed! YEAH!! I opened the front door to turn off our spider web when I spied this on the porch!

This cute bag was fun of Halloween goodies for us!

To be booed is sort of like a chain letter but fun and I think everyone will participate. The Halloween letter tells us to make up two goodie bags for someone else in the neighborhood. Hopefully, everyone will get a fun Halloween decoration in the next week!


These are the two boo bags we made today to leave on two of our neighbor's porches for them to find.

I was trying to copy Martha's broom candy bags but they didn't photograph well :) We bought each one a sign, Halloween straws and bone candy.

Road trip!

This past weekend Uncle Donny, Aunt Wendy, Colby and I took a trip over the mountains to WSU!!!

We had quite an adventure! Here is Uncle Donny pumping gas in LaCrosse. Where is LaCrosse you may ask, well we don't quite know either! It seemed to pop up in the wheat field at the very moment we realized we were completely out of gas!

PeeWee Football was playing at the stadium. I think WSU will be recruiting from this team soon as we are on our 4th quarterback and the season is only half over...

The true reason for our visit was to spend time with cousin Erik and also my friend Corrie. Corrie was our personal tour guide! We went all over campus and ended up at the Art building so we could go down the graffiti staircase.

I even left my tag!

We headed out to Orchard road to pick pumpkins from the Agriculture department's orchard. Corrie was having a tough time deciding between the two. I even picked up a few and in a future post you will see them by the front door.

Saturday night we headed to The Coug for some light refreshments as we were all parched from our tour around campus.

Catching up with Corrie over some "apple juice" Keeping it PG for the fam :)

After light refreshments we headed to the bowling alley so Colby could show us all why he is the shizzle! Wendy gave him a good run for his money but in the end he pulled out the victory under immense pressure and avoided Coug'in it... His Eagleness showed through!

After the tough game we headed to My Office for some good ol' fashion fun!

Colby and I really enjoyed the trip!

We hope to visit again really soon!

The amazing view from Corrie's house. Corrie, Uncle Donny, and I reminiscing over our time at WSU