Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Our tribute to all things green, celebrated this year with the Olivers. 

Next Stop Ellensburg!

Our friends, the Reynolds, just moved back to Washington after being in Turkey for three years.  Since we were already on the other side of the mountains, we figured it would be a perfect time to see them again. Ellensburg is only about an hour from Leavenworth and it was a beautiful drive through Blewitt Pass.

As we got closer, Angi texted us directions to their house.  Brad thought she was just kidding about the dead badger. But she wasn't! (Although we later determined it was really a skunk.)

It was so great to see the Reynolds again!  They're always up for an adventure and taught us two new games:  The Flour Game, and Sock Wrestling!  I didn't get any pictures of Sock Wrestling, but it was pretty crazy.  Basically two people face off, then each person removes a sock and they wrestle, trying to be the first to take off the other person's remaining sock. We had some intense matches: Ryan vs. Angi, Kylie vs. Brad, Ben vs. Jillian, Thys vs. Ryan, Me vs. Brad.  I was laughing so hard during my round that I only lasted about a minute before Brad had my sock off.  

Here's the flour game, which is a little more tame:

You start with a tower of flour with a coin on top.  Each person slices off a sliver of the tower, trying not to collapse the tower.

You go around and around, each person taking of slices, until finally someone makes the tower crash. That person has to dig out the coin with their teeth!

Of course it was Kylie who made it collapse! 

(She's also the one Ryan dared to eat a fish eyeball one of the last times we saw them, and then proceeded to throw it up into his hands!)

 

After the flour game, we made pizzas. 

No, we didn't use the same flour...

And of course we had to have a game of Settlers of Catan.  The Reynolds are the ones who introduced us to Settlers many, many years ago!  

Now that all the kids are old enough to play, we had to have two separate games.  Angi, Jake, Ben and I played one game, and everyone else played the other.  

Good times!  We made promises to see each other sooner than three years!  

Mid-Winter Break and a trip to Leavenworth

The kids had a one week mid-winter break from school and we decided to go somewhere instead of sitting around at home. During Christmas break we wanted to go sledding, but our favorite sledding hill (Hyak at Snoqualmie) was closed due to lack of snow.  By February, and mid-winter break, there was finally snow. The Olivers invited us to join them at the Sleeping Lady Resort in Leavenworth, where there was lots of snow! We stayed for one night, then went sledding at Lake Wenatchee the next day.

The resort is a few minutes outside of downtown Leavenworth, tucked up against mountains and surrounded by trees.

The kids didn't want to wait until the next day to go sledding, so they built their own sledding hill right next to our rooms.

Yes, that is a very steep drop-off!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Resort had a big recreation room with a pool table, ping-pong, and children's puppet theater, so after sledding we hung out in there for a while before we went out to eat pizza at Rudloof's.  That was about as Bavarian as we could convince the kids to go!

After filling ourselves with pizza, we went back to the resort and played games (including a few intense rounds of Werewolf, in which Kylie unintentionally called Elisa a "stupid werewolf", and several crazy games of Spoons) in the Oliver's room until it was time for bed.  

After a leisurely morning, we set out to find Lake Wenatchee State Park, where we heard there was a good sledding hill. When we got there, the kids were under-impressed by the size of the hill, but they were all good sports and made the best of it.  

It was definitely more fun if everyone went together!

We decided Charles looked like a Storm Trooper!

 

 

Lake Wenatchee is beautiful in the winter and has several miles of groomed cross country skiing trails.  I would love to go back and try skiing. 

 

After sledding for a few hours, we ate a picnic lunch of whatever food and snacks we had in the car.  Yes, you can call carrots and Teddy Grahams lunch!  The Olivers headed back home and we went on to Ellensburg to see our friends the Reynolds.

Green Mountain Hike

We've had a string of gorgeous, but very cold, winter days.  I've been wanting to take the family on a hike, so when Saturday promised to be sunny, I decided we'd go to Green Mountain.  We invited another family who has an adventurous streak.  They have four kids, plus two of the mom's half-brothers, who are the age of her two oldest kids (13 and 10) were visiting so they joined us as well.  At the last minute, Brad and Jillian decided not to go.  They definitely missed out!

Kylie leading the way, with Ben and Jeffrey following.

John, Jeffrey, Kylie, Aaron, Alan, and Ben, about 1/2 way up.  

We ended up ahead of the rest of the group, who had the two younger kids.

At the top!  That's Seattle and the Cascade mountains in the distance, with Puget Sound, Bainbridge Island, Silverdale and Bremerton in between.

Ben and I at the top. 

We ate our lunch and waited for the rest of the group to arrive.  Kylie was anxious to head back down (she was slightly under-dressed for the cold weather), so she went on ahead.  

Somehow I ended up with all but one of the kids on the way back down.  The mom and dad of the other family was behind with the youngest girl, and Kylie was way ahead.  We went down a different way so we could see the view of the Olympics.

Everything went well until about 1/2 a mile from the end, when we had to decide which way to turn to join the main trail.  I chose the wrong way, and after about 15 minutes, realized we weren't in the right place.  I had a map, and thought I knew how to get us back, but I was with six young boys who were a little freaked out about not being where we were supposed to be.  Eventually we came to the main road, fortunately only about 1/4 mile up the road from the trail head.  I think we ended up hiking about six miles instead of five.  I'm glad we went, but next time I will choose the left instead of the right!