A Festivus of Friends!

Last weekend was a very busy weekend, the last weekend before Christmas! I feel like this month has just flown! I wanted to get some festive activities in before Christmas. By doing so, I baked Christmas goodies, as seen in the previous post. I also went ice skating with Mica, Friday night in Moses Lake. It was a fun and interesting experience, to say the least. It was us and about 13 middle school/high school kids. They were all gangster pretty much. We made the most of it and laughed our way around the rink. Thank goodness Mica was with me! We always have a good time. I then left early Saturday morning for Spokane to stay with my other friend/college roommate Shanon and her hubby Kyle. We went downtown and ate at the Olive Garden (YUM) and then went to the Davenport to look at gingerbread houses and Christmas trees. It felt like old times again and I wish more of our Whitworth/Ephrata friends could have been around to share it with us. Thanks for letting me stay with you Shanon and Kyle. It was a great weekend!

Mica caught me tightening my skates.

Look at that form! Top that Sasha Cohen.

Mica bustin' a move.

The "skate guard" was nice enough to take our pic.

Picture by the big tree at the Davenport Hotel.
Shanon and I.

Merry Christmas to everyone and Happy New Year!

Christmas Goodies Day #1

Today Mom and I worked pretty much all day in the kitchen (I had to leave for a dentist appointment. No cavities!!! YEAH!) baking Christmas treats. We made Chex party mix, peanut butter balls and white chocolate covered pretzels. There's still more to be done, but we got lots accomplished. Dad put up the Christmas lights outside as well. Better late than never. We've had our indoor decor up for weeks, so I included some of those as well. One week until Christmas!!!

The white chocolate bark melting!

"When I dip, you dip, we dip"....actually it was me doing the dipping of the pretzels in the white chocolate. Check out the sweet apron!

Peanut butter balls.

The finished pretzels.

We use the porch as our "outdoor cooler." It does the job well.

Homemade chex party mix courtesy of Mom.

Some inside decorations.

Front of the house.

I love Christmas!

The Lion Sleeps Toniiiiiiiiiight!

About a month ago Mom, Kim, Kim's mother-in-law Carol, and I went to The Broadway musical, The Lion King. Let me tell you it was a sight for the eyes, and the ears. Mom treated all of us to the show, a night the Red Lion Hotel (go figure) and Carol treated us to dinner. Kim and I felt very spoiled. It was such a great time to get away for a weekend with the girls. I had never seen the musical of The Lion King before, but the soundtrack is one of my favorites out of all the Disney movies. I was literally in aw with a huge grin on my face the entire time. My jaw was sore afterward, I even sang along to a couple of tunes. The costumes were just spectacular and all the animals were played by people. It was so bright and colorful, I got goosebumps more than once. In the program I read that a lot of African culture influenced the costumes, dance, music etc. Plus one of the composers of the newly added songs was from South Africa (I traveled there Jan Term 2008). So it was cool how that related into it. Since we couldn't take any pictures of the actual show (due to copyright laws) here is the The Lion King in a nutshell via Youtube. I"m not sure why the video is SO BIG, sorry about that.

Me, Mom, Carol and Kim eating dinner at the hotel restaurant. I ordered salmon that was served on a plank of wood. The wood was still burning even.

Mom pulled out her camera at intermission. Right after one of the ushers yelled at a group of girls behind us, threatening to send them to jail for taking pictures. It's illegal we found out. Of course for my mom, there are no rules!

Sisters....sisters....

Resemblence maybe?

Thanks Fest '09

Yes, I'm a little behind on some of the bloggage. So I decided to post not one, but, wait for it....TWO posts. Thanksgiving and Halloween.

My parents hosted 20 family members at our house for Thanksgiving this year. Cousins, 2nd cousins, cousin-in-laws, aunts, grandmas, you name it. It was a full house with lots of energy. I missed Thanksgiving last year because I was in New Zealand, so I ate enough to make up for the last two years. Oh, and leftover turkey sandwiches too. It was great to be with family again. There are many things to be thankful for this year, I hope you had a blessed holiday:)

Babies are cute. But half-naked babies are even cuter. They love to be naked, I don't know what it is! Here is Haylee and Mitch. Cousins. Mitch is 3 months younger than Haylee, yet Mitch is bigger. By a few pounds. They were so cute and wiggly!

This was our entertainment Wednesday evening. The cameras and camcorders came out and we were smitten!

The annual turkey carver.

Nice spread.

The Family.

All of the 2nd cousins. I love Haylee falling over.

Dad and Chad cleaning up the kitchen.

Haylee: The marshmallow starfish.

Katie, Bryan and Mitch.
Little fam, lots of hair :)

Mitch has the biggest, most kissable cheeks!

More cheeks!

And he's out.

Halloween!

Halloween took place in Spokane at Kim's in-laws, Brad and Carol. We took Jack and Haylee trick or treat-ing. They made it to three houses! Jack was a farmer (after Little People's "Farmer Jed") and Haylee was a precious little flower. It was fun to get away for a weekend for some shopping and relaxing at Brad and Carol's. The kids had a blast, and the adults had fun too (Chad especially had fun because his Oregon Ducks won that night). Fall time is so much fun!

Haylee's cute smile.

Me and the farmer!

Grandpa Johnson really plays well. He's a kid at heart.

This is Brad (Grandpa) LaVine.
He was Obama for Halloween. The ears are just the right touch!

You'll be surprised to know that eye liner also serves as farmer freckles.

Haylee Jean the daisy. I think she was a little shocked at first.

The farmer and the flower.

First family picture since HJ's birth.

The neighbors loved Jack and Haylee's costumes.

This is Danny. He is Brad and Carol's Labradoodle, covered in curls.

Buckin' bales: who needs a guy?

Kim, Chad, Jack and Haylee came to visit a few weeks ago. We had a great and busy weekend! Chad and Kim brought Brad and Carol's trailer to haul some hay back to little Felecitee in Spokane. Well, Dad just had 3 hernia operations a few days before and Chad hurt his lower back playing basketball, leaving them both handicap to lift anything over 20 pounds (Haylee was the exception weighing only 13 lbs). So Kim and I got on Dad's old jackets, gloves and we tackled that hay! With many he-man grunts (notice Kim's expression in the 1st photo) we bucked 12 HEAVY bales into that trailer. While the guys sat on the heated screened-in porched and watched from afar, Kim and I conquered the rigorous job, and life, for that matter. We were pretty proud of ourselves. Jack was close by playing with the kittens asking many questions while we huffed and puffed our way to hay-bale buckin' victory. So this just goes to show, you can take the girls out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girls. Kim and Rachel, farm girls fo-life. :) Oh and mom helped as our photographer.

So as you can see in Kim's face, this was quite the job. The difficult part came from trying to walk the bales up the slipperly, steep gate of the trailer.

Looking at our accomplishments, fatigued.

"Farmer Jedd" and his cat "Mama"

Cute little farmer close-up.

So there you have it, a day in the life of workin' farm girls. After Kim and Chad left Sunday, I had the privilege of mowing the lawn and blowing out the water pipes with Dad. I guess living rent free does have it's disadvantages. Kidding ;)