Driving South from Whistler

What fun to visit our friends on Whidbey Island on the way home from Whistler!

Travel-Whistler

We were invited to Whistler to "nanny" my three year old nephew (we call him "C") so my sister and her husband could ski. Since I don't snow ski, when would WE ever go to Whistler in the winter (for free)!?

Of course, we are fortunate to live only four hours from Whistler, British Columbia! The entire family had to get passports, which was a little bit of an adventure and education in itself. At the last minute, my husband could not come with us due to a mandatory meeting. So I took the kids and we had an AWESOME time!

We stayed in a nice hotel with our room right next door to C, it was so fun! The highlight of the trip was not the pool, but turned out to be the Peak 2 Peak gondola that is suspended between Whistler and Blackcomb. Well, then there was Cows Ice Cream, that was pretty awesome, too!

Christmas Gathering

Our friends invited us to their home for a Christmas gathering. This year we made peppermint hot cocoa to give as gifts...oh, and bacon salt for the bacon lover!

Travel-Gray's Harbor Lighthouse-NOT

In our effort to visit a lighthouse, we took a weekend trip to Gray's Harbor...but the lighthouse was closed. And the only way we knew THAT was because I called. Though when we set out, I thought it was a well planned trip, it turned out that everything was a lot longer distance away than I expected. Not all was lost, we had a terrific time and visited a few more state parks!

Christmas Decor

What fun we had having Gramma over after Thanksgiving! We decorated the tree, Gramma and Sarah and I strung popcorn and cranberries (thanks Gramma!) and the guys made sure all the lights were lit (thank you!) on the tree after taking it out of the box. Gramma made her delicious Parker House Roll recipe in person for me! What a great time!

Thanksgiving 2013 with Friends

Usually we spend Thanksgiving with my family, but no one was available this year! So I set to work making my own turkey dinner. At the last minute, it turned out that our sweet friends were able to come over and spend the afternoon and evening with us! Which was brave of them because this was my first Thanksgiving dinner! We took a nice walk at dusk and totally enjoyed being thankful together!

Travel-Birthday Partay

My husband turned the big FIVE-OH this year. To celebrate, we took him to a cabin. One of his favorite activities is role playing games and thus we did! And made cookies. And hiked down to the creek. And visited the Ape Caves at Mt St Helens. What a fantastic birthday weekend!

New Video Game Shelf

I've been thinking about Daniel a lot lately.

The main things he talks about are comic books and video games, mainly certain characters, like Sonic the Hedgehog. Even though he only plays video games on Fridays, he is very interested in the characters and of course, the action. He reads game guides various publications on the games and different systems.

So I've been thinking how I can validate his interests and express my interest in these things that I see as non-productive at this point.

To the right of the TV was a chair with a cardboard box and various tubs with games and controllers tossed inside. The Lord prompted me to plan some kind of shelving (for ME), he doesn't really care about how they are organized. This is what we put together.