Chelan Winterfest

 We just returned from a super fun trip to Lake Chelan for their winterfest celebration.  We started the weekend in Leavenworth for some sledding and a delicious brat.  I just love Leavenworth in the winter.  The lights are beautiful and the town looks magical.

 This year we rented a house instead of staying in our usual hotel.  It was great.  We will definitely be renting again next year.  We had 3 families staying there and there was plenty of space for us all, and a hot tub to boot!  The kids loved the hot tub.  Us parents may have enjoyed it too.  😉

 It had just snowed a couple of days before we arrived so the snow was still fresh and white and beautiful.  It was a perfect day for the winterfest activities.  We rode a horse and carriage around town, went down the ice slide (many, many times), checked out the ice carvings, and ate some good food.

 The kids played so well together.  Lance even hosted a "craft corner" where he helped them make little airplanes and helicopters out of wood.

 We stopped at one of our favorite wineries (Wapato Point Cellars) for some wine tasting.  They have a playground outside so the kids like it too!  They even had s'mores, hot cocoa and cider for the kids as well.  Score!

 Mandy and Jon gave us a bottle of their famous limoncello for Christmas so we opened it and cheers'd with the beautiful snow in the background.  It was delicious!

 The last night we went cosmic bowling.  I'm not gonna lie, I absolutely love bowling, especially when there is dance music and cocktails involved.  And I won... even better!

 We went up to Echo Valley one day for some snow tubing and skiing.  The kids went skiing for the first time and absolutely loved it.  It took them a little while to get the hang of it, but by the end of the day they were taking the rope tow and skiing down by themselves.  Rylee was pretty cautious, but Carson was a daredevil as usual.  He rode all the rope tows (3 of them) to the top of the mountain and skied down with Lance.  He is hooked.  The next morning he woke up and immediately asked if we could go skiing!  Lance and I even got to ski a little bit (my first time since Rylee was born).  It felt great!  Now to keep the skills up...

We didn't want to weekend to end quite yet so we all made a quick pit stop in Rosalyn at Heritage Distilling Co.

Cheers to great friends and a fantastic weekend full of fun memories!

Happy New Year!

 Lance and the kids spent New Years at Jon and Mandy's annual New Years Eve party.  It was a small turnout this year, but fun to see family and celebrate.

We had a crazy New Year.  The day before New Years Eve, Coulee somehow fell in the backyard and hurt her back.  It was very scary.  We heard a loud yelp and then saw her dragging her back legs, unable to move them.  She was in so much pain.  Lance immediately picked her up and took her to the vet.  That day was a blur.  The vet wasn't quite sure what was going on but recommended she stay the night at the hospital for pain meds, steroids and rest.  We went to visit her the next day and she was completely out of it, on so many medications she couldn't even keep her tongue in her mouth.  The vet still wasn't sure what was wrong or if she would improve, but told us we could bring her home to rest.  We had no idea what to expect and were quite nervous.  She could barely move!  So we brought her home and she slept most of the day.  We had to help her outside to use the bathroom and give her meds every few hours.  I stayed home with her on New Years Eve to make sure she would be ok.  The following day to our surprise she improved quite a bit and actually started walking on her own (off balance and stiff but still walking)!  Since then she has pretty much returned to normal, thank goodness!  We're assuming she just sprained her back pretty badly and just needed time to recover.  She is getting to be an old lady!  We are so thankful she recovered and we are able to have more time with her.  We will definitely cherish the time we DO have with her.

Merry Christmas!

This is Carson watching his message from Santa to find out if he is on the nice list.  It was a close call!

 In addition to milk and cookies Rylee left a picture for Elf and Santa.  😊

 They must have made the nice list.  Santa came and brought lots of gifts and stocking stuffers!

He also brought more snow!  That was even better than presents... a white Christmas!  The kids went outside immediately after opening their stockings and played most of the morning.

 Grandma, Grandpa and Jon and Mandy came over later in the morning and we had brunch and opened gifts.  This was the best Christmas for me.  The kids are at the perfect age where they really enjoyed Christmas and were SO excited with every gift they opened.  It was so much fun to watch them.

 We ended the evening celebrating Papa's birthday and playing cards.

Absolute best Christmas ever.  💓

Christmas Eve 2017

 I got lucky this year to have someone trade shifts with me last minute so I could have Christmas Eve off.  Mandy and Jon hosted, and the night was magical.  We even had snow!  The kids had a blast playing with all the cousins and the adults had a great time socializing!  

Carson loves that Uncle Jon and Aunt Mandy have so many nephews.

 The whole crew.

 The annual white elephant gift exchange was fun as always.  And the saran wrap ball game was hilarious to watch.  The guys got so into it!

Rylee got a hula hoop from Kathy and Greg so of course we had to have a hula hoop contest!

Merry Christmas All!