Leavenworth, WA part two

Part of the reason I made the trek to Carl and Sia's wedding was because Tramaine was a groomsman. Otherwise I'm not sure I would have gone! The weather was TERRIBLEb getting there! We ended up going over 2 passes to get there and there were some really sticky situations along out 7.5 hr drive. I had to post this picture because it shows typical Tramaine. He's using a macheti to chip the ice off of his car in SHORTS! It's 14 degrees outside by the way!

A sign with my name on it...only cool to me.

After the wedding we went out downtown to hang out with everyone from the wedding. Once that place closed down (at like midnight) we walked around in the huge snowflakes. They were so pretty. I felt like Lucy in Charlie Brown Christmas because I could catch them on my tongue. And, even though she says December flakes aren't very good, I really liked them!

While everyone in the wedding was taking pictures and getting ready I went and shopped downtown. Lots of cars and people and Bavarian-ness going on down there!

A picture with no snowflakes in it! Surprising! I am the queen of holding the camera away from me at just the perfect distance. As you can see from the bundling it was COLD! I forgot my winter jacket (DUMB!) so I bought my first Northface fleecey thing and wore it under my warm winter vests. It was the best. I loved the visit to Leavenworth and had the drive over not been so terrible I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more. The whole time we were there the drive home was on the back of our minds. Needless to say we took a different route home which only required going over one pass and that was soooo much better. Plus all the snow on the westside of Oregon and Washington was pretty much gone so that made the driving conditions a lot better.

Leavenworth, WA part one

The treacherous trip to Leavenworth, WA started the day after Christmas. A college friend, Carl was marrying the love of his life so of course I had to be there to witness it all! It snowed about 8 or 9 inches the first night we were there. The plants and trees are ready for this kind of snow. We drove through an orchard and there wasn't a single branch or twig on the ground...you do that here and you see more orchard on the ground than you do on the remaining trees!

I've flipped this image but apparently it didn't stick when I went to put it on my blog. This is taken in the Leavenworth town square. It took a few tries to take the pictures because snowflakes kept getting in the way...they were HUGE! Some were as big as a golf ball!

A few of us Patton folks made it to the wedding. I met Sipprell's husband...who we have all thought was a figment of her imagination until now! Sia looked beautiful and Carl looked nervous but then was able to relax and have a great time once the ceremony was over!

There is a city ordinance in Leavenworth that everything has to look a certain way...so even my precious Starbucks (which we went to EVERYDAY we were there!) was Bavarian-ed. The girl at the front desk was wearing a traditional Bavarian dress. It was all very festive.

When we first got into town this is what we saw. Lots of snow coming down and a beautifully lit downtown area. You can't see it in this picture but off to the left there are about 40-50 kids sledding down this little hill. No wonder it was named America's Christmas Town a few years back!

Snow Days Pictures...jumping on the blog bandwagon with these!

This is what happens when you get too much snow! My friend Tramaine lost the HUGE pine tree in his front yard. Luckily no one was hurt and he didn't do any other damage to anything around it...besides losing his entire front yard for the time being!

This is one of the reasons he lost his tree...check out all that snow! There was more later too!

This is downtown McMinnville two days before Christmas. The last day I "shopped" downtown. Beautiful!

The beautiful downtown tree COVERED in snow, Christmas lights, and ornaments. I love that picture!

This was taken on the 1st day we got snow. Sugar was FASCINATED with the snow flakes. He was running around trying to chase down all the snow flakes. It lost it's novelty by the 3rd day but it was fun while it lasted! You can see the bread I've left out on my windowsill for the birds, it took them a few days to find it but once they did, it was GONE!

My Seeeestor!

Yesterday my seeeeestor and I went out to breakfast at Crescent Cafe...her first but not mine :-). We enjoyed a delicious meal and had a great time together. You can't tell by the picture but outside it was dumping huge snowflakes that were very pretty. We walked around downtown for a while (a very routine thing for my sister) and did some Christmas shopping (supporting the local economy). All and all it was a lot of fun and I hope we get to do it again soon.

4 snow days have left me with a lot of downtime but I'm still left with a lot of projects because I have been soooo lazy! :) I love this time of year. I get giddy every time I see the snow. I won't drive in it (had a bad episode having to get towed up west 2nd)...but I LOVE IT!

BRING IT ON SNOWFLAKES! Give me the whole week off! I dare you!

Baking Day 2008

This is a typical Sugar antics. He was watching Lynden ever so closely as she was playing the magnets on my fridge...she was making a crossword puzzle I believe. Sugar loves to play gargoyle while I work in the kitchen...today he chose to "gargoyle" Lynden. Close enough to keep an eye on her but far enough away that she couldn't touch him. Witty little guy.
This was the first kind of cookie I made...Sugar. And as you can see by the counter tops I am not the world's cleanest baker. I am still cleaning white dust off of every surface in my kitchen.
Erica took this great picture of my tree! I absolutely love it! Too bad it doesn't look like that anymore since the next day I came home to it on the ground and all the ornaments everywhere. Glad it's a planted tree so I not only got to pick up all the ornaments but half the dirt that was in my carpet as well!
Erica and I exchanged gifts today since we both knew we'd have the time. I'm pointing to the letters on this cute little sled ornament that they got me because Lynden wanted to keep it for herself. I was trying to point out that it was my name on the sled so I would need to keep it on my tree. I don't think she got the point.
This was right before our lunch break and we are both on our 3rd type of cookie that we made that day. Judging by all these pictures make up would have been a great idea but I guess that's hindsite. Oh well, it was great fun. I was exhausted at the end of the day but the cookies turned out really good and so far I know that I'll be doing gingerbread cookies for sure next year...those have been a hit!

Dryers and Weighers

Saturday was a fun day of baking cookies with my good friend Erica. We got a little delirious after a while but that only made it that much more fun. Erica is my friend who loves traditions and our cookie making is one of them. Her daughter Lynden is usually a part of the festivities in some way, this year she was busy keeping Sugar and Honey occupied (really they were running from her but she thought it was fun). This year we made 8 different types of cookies: spritz, sugar, gingerbread, rice krispy yummies (that's the name I gave them), white chocolate cranberry, lemon melt-aways, peanut butter blossoms, and peanut butter chocolate cups. It didn't seem like a lot until we were all done and realized how many cookies we had to decorate and frost!
Erica makes the same kind each year and I think this year she really perfected the recipes! I try to make some the same and some different. I've never made gingerbread men before so that was one of my new ones. Erica has made sugar cookies in the past but I haven't so that was a "new" one for me. The other two I make each year. That stinkin' cookie press gives me grief each year I use it. I TOTALLY love it when it works but it takes me forever to figure out how it goes together because I only use it once a year.
We started the cookies at around 8:30 and I had to stop to get ready for work at 3:45. We took a small but very necessary break at around 1:00 when Tramaine brought us lunch (thank you Tramaine!) and then it was back to work. I did get a new stove which served us very well, I only over cooked one batch of Spritz cookies but otherwise everything came out fabulous. Two funny conversations occured during our delirious baking:

Me: how much is 6oz?
Erica: like 3/4 a cup, do you not have a weigher?
Me: (giving Erica that huh? look) You mean a scale?
Erica: (laughing hysterically) Yeah, or weigher...same thing.
Me: Yeah, same thing (laughing hysterically)

I ended up using a cup because it was for my rice krispy yummies so the more chocolate and butterscotch the better!

2nd conversation:
Me: I need to move these cookies off the dryer
Erica: (just looked at me and laughed)
Me: (catching what I just said) Yeah, cuz when you take cookies out of the oven they need to DRY first. Sheesh, that one will go on the blog for sure.

All in all, it was a great day spent with one of my best friends. I have been so busy this fall that we haven't really hung out all that often. In fact, she's even been dreaming that we aren't friends anymore. How horrible is that?! She said the twist of the knife in her dream was when I said I didn't want to coach tennis with her anymore. So, I am going to set the record straight right now. Erica, I will always want to coach tennis with you. You are my buffer, and I know I couldn't have coached all 19 of those girls last year without you! On another note, Erica took a bunch of pictures and when I get them from her I will post them. I am still trying to get her to BLOG but she just won't...yet. I will turn her over to the dark side of blogging before too long!

Photobooth Fun...part two

"Auntie Anna, you look like a boy"- Taylor (my niece)

I was thinking this in my head...glad I'm not the only one who noticed. Darn that photobooth. But, I had to post it.

My niece and nephew became pretty good at this after a while...Taylor likes this one because her hair is "so long!"
CJ again with those scary "Precious Moments" eyes. Paige's mouth...never seen it so big. Taylor and I look like we just smelled what came out of CJ's @$$ earlier.

Franken-CJ.

Paige said she looks like a character from The Incredibles. At this moment we are both laughing so hard tears are streaming down our face...I think she is still holding Zac at this point who is sound asleep. Good times.

Fun with Photobooth...part one

When we were done decorating my mom's tree today I had my laptop out and my family and I had a great time playing with Photobooth...here are some of the results. Needless to say that I was CRYING from laughter. I can't use Picassa on a Mac so I will have to do at least 2 posts to get all the pictures included. Zac is tired during this whole thing he didn't even BUDGE when we took his picture. We couldn't distort his face though...it's just too cute!

CJ with his "Precious Moments" eyes...hilarious.

My brother even joined in the fun.

You can't quite see the tears streaming down my face in this one...but my sister and I had fun with it.

"Bulge" doesn't do much for my "big tongue" phenomenon. :)