2013 Christmas in Seattle

We've done all sorts of fun things this holiday season around home including visiting a camel and reindeer at Swanson's nursery with friends, a fun trip to the mountains to cut our Christmas tree, the "Snowflake Lane" spectacular light/snow/music and dance show in the streets of Bellevue, an unplanned visit to Santa at Macy's (who would have guessed Santa would be at Macy's?) and ride on the holiday carousel at Westlake Center. We visited the Christmas Ship on Lake Washington and caroling around a bonfire at the Mt. Baker rowing club. We even made holiday tamale's in time for dinner on our Seattle Christmas Eve! Click the polar bear to see all 22 pictures.

2013 Thanksgiving in Eugene

Granny and Papa hosted us for Thanksgiving and we had a wonderful time. Merrick's Aunt Judy Richmond came too which was wonderful.  We hadn't seen her for a couple of years.  After dinner, we went over to Uncle Marc and Aunt Pat's house for dessert and Tiger Lily got to see more family, including Great-Grandma Harsch.  Since we are going to Colorado for Christmas, we celebrated Christmas with Merrick's side of the family while we were there.

Granny and Papa's house is about 3 miles away from a wonderful hazelnut orchard which has been turned into a park called the Doris Ranch.  We had a lot of fun there kicking through the leaves and playing on an old tractor. There is another hazelnut orchard a couple streets away that neighbors have access to which is right on the McKenzie river and fun to visit too. Perfect walk after a big Thanksgiving dinner! Click the picture to see all 30 photos from the trip.

Halloween 2013

We had about a full week of Halloween activities this year.  We did costumed Halloween fun run for people and dogs, visited the pumpkin patch at Remlinger farms with Tiger Lily's class at We Are the World daycare.  They also hosted a fun party. Who knew there were so many 3 foot tall superheros in Seattle?  Later in the week we met up with Tiger Lily's friend Rosie at the Zoo Halloween event which included visitors in costume and pumpkins for the animals!  We went with our friend down the street to a Halloween party hosted by the businesses and condos at the Hiawatha lofts. Thanks guys!
(click the photo below to see all 15 pictures)

Leavenworth Oktoberfest Marathon

Time for our fall trip to Leavenworth! The city has thoughtfully scheduled the first weekend of their Oktoberfest celebration and annual marathon to coincide with Merrick's birthday, so we just had to visit.  Merrick's parents came up to cheer him on in the marathon and have some fun with Tiger Lily and Beth.

We stayed at a charming cabin about 10 miles outside of Leavenworth up the Chumstick Highway where we were visited by wild turkeys one morning!

We also visited Smallwood Harvest Farm, which is a combination fruit stand/petting zoo and just about every kind of little kid diversion you could imagine. Click the picture below to see all the pictures from the weekend (41).

Aunt Louisa, Uncle Mike, Meema and Granddad visit Seattle

Aunt Louisa, Uncle Mike, Meema and Granddad came to Seattle in September to attend a close friend's wedding.  We got to spend about a week together, share a very moving wedding ceremony and go crazy on the dance floor together! Congratulations Steve and Clare! Unfortunately, we didn't have our photo act together and didn't get any pictures at the wedding, or of Meema and Granddad this trip, but we did get some good ones of Uncle Mike and Aunt Louisa (7 pictures)

End of August Trip to Eugene

Tiger Lily's daycare closed for teacher training the last week of July, so we took the opportunity to visit family in Eugene.  We had fun visiting Granny and Papa, Ginny and Hannah and their dogs, Lacey and Tilly! Granny and Papa have all sorts of good things growing in their yard, including a plum tree!

2013 4th of July in Eugene

We had a great time again in Eugene for the 4th of July weekend.  Aunt Judy, Travis and his fiance Morgan, and Janey joined our merry group for the Butte to Butte this year for even more fun! Hooray for Granny Janny who decided to do it again this year at the last minute and finished strong! And another spectacular family BBQ at the Burgess house.  Thanks so much Mike and Shannon, Marc and Pat! Click the picture below to see 61 photos from the trip.

Tiger Lily and Granny Janny on the Pizza Parlour Merry Go Round