Holidays in Washington State

It's been a long time between updates, so here's a set of photos showing what we've done over the last few months.

Ocean Shores

Alex has a driver's learning permit, so she got some good experience as we headed out to the coast. Tasha considers legroom to be very important.

Lots of Evergreens in the Olympic National Forest

Ocean Shores resembles what I imagine "the end of the earth" might look like.

Cold day in the middle of summer!

The girls and I rented this contraption to use on the sand. Not nearly as much fun as it looks, particularly as we couldn't convince Rupert to pull.

View from our hotel room, which was behind the dunes.

Ruby Beach. Not a postcard, but deserves to be!

The driftwood along the Pacific Coast beaches always reminds me of bleached whale bones.

Brackish pond we encountered.

Leavenworth

Leavenworth is a small town in the Cascade mountains that the railway bypassed in the 1930s. It suffered a slow decline until the 1960s, when it reinvented itself as a Bavarian-themed village. Today it's a thriving tourist destination with strict ordinances to keep the town looking.... well, see for yourself!

Downtown Leavenworth

Despite the glaring sun, Tasha really wanted to give this giant bear a hug... because she'd seen the photos of the last time we took her to Leavenworth:

Scary bear!

Alex bought this hat for a friend.

Heidi and I in the park square.

We stopped at Lake Wenatchee... might come back here for a camping trip.

Silverwood

Silverwood is a theme/water park in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

This tinkertoy contraption would fill up the bucket approximately every three minutes. 30 seconds before it tipped over, a bell would start to ring, signalling the kids to take cover!

Alex, Tasha, and Alex's friend Sloane.

Halloween

Pumpkin carving time

Nearly finished!

Our front door on Oct 31st. I thought of dressing up like a scarecrow and frightening the kids, but that could be dangerous.

Dessert: Braaaaaaiiins!

Even Rupert got dressed up.

Thanksgiving

My own stuffing recipe: day-old french bread, bacon, dried cranberries, apple, celery, broth, brown sugar, butter, chicken stock, red wine, and spices.

22lbs ready to go....

...5 hours later. This bird was so big that I was able to cut enough meat to feed 7 people without ever hitting bone.

We had an unexpected storm in November that dropped a few inches of snow and ice.