Christmas Music

I love Christmas music. Last year I went crazy putting holds on tons of Christmas CD's at the library. To my disappoint, it was hard to find good classic Christmas music. Most of the music had extra beats, funky melodies, or songs I'd never heard of before. But just yesterday Caleb found the Martina McBride White Christmas CD on amazon (no surprise). This CD is great!! It has classic Christmas songs sung traditionally. And we were able to buy the whole CD in MP3 form so we could listen to it right away and not have to wait for it to be shipped or pay for shipping. The internet is great, isn't it?! That said, I still prefer the Celine Dion version of O Holy Night, but the rest of her "these are the special times" CD is just OK. And the Jewel Christmas CD is better than most, but still lacking compared to Martina.

Thanksgiving

Yay Thanksgiving! I love stuffing, mashed potatoes and turkey. Last year Caleb enjoyed our thanksgiving left overs so much we went out and bought a 28lb turkey to make just for the two of us. In retrospect, I would recommend buying a smaller turkey for two people, but we did have left over for quite some time. This year, I think we might just make another apple pie. We should have no problem finishing that in a reasonable amount of time.

Check out the apple pie we made. The picture doesn't do it justice!

So this year for Thanksgiving we went over to Dave & Bonnie's house. Yes, we were at a real house this year! We had a great time catching up with them and hanging out. My favorite dish (of course) is stuffing. I used Dad's special recipe, which includes bacon, and is always really yummy. Caleb's favorite dish was the cranberry sauce. Dave & Bonnie (I'm guessing Bonnie) always make the best homemade cranberry sauce. You can check out Lauren's blog if you want the recipe. (Luckily Dave & Bonnie also brined their turkey so we won't get a kicking from Lauren :-D) After we ate our gigantic meal, we went for a walk to a play ground. Unfortunately it gets dark so stinkin early, we didn't have much time to play. When we got back we ate the tasty apple pie, which was everyone's favorite dessert. The rest of the even was spent chatting and being entertained by Hannah. She was loaded with energy and was very amusing to watch. On a whole, I would say our Thanksgiving was a grand success.

The Rest of my Time

My next 3 days in Seattle were also tons of fun, but less eventful (this is probably a good thing). On Monday we made our traditional trip to Costco and then had lunch with Kim. It was a relatively nice day so we were able to eat outside. The road that use to be infront of the Starbucks Headquarters has been converted into a pedestrian walk, where there are tons of tables to sit at...and during the summer they have different bands that will perform during lunch time. On this day, we were the only people eating outside.

On Tuesday Hannah and I hung out with Celeste, my sister-in-law. We had a great time chit-chatting and catching up. The only bummer was as I reached my car to leave, I had left my lights on, and I had to call my parents to come and rescue me. This, of course, brought back wonderful memories from high school, where this was almost a weekly occurance (not calling my parents to rescue me, but leaving the lights on). It got so bad that my parents actually bought me a pair of 6 ft long jumper cables for Christmas. So if you ever need any help jump starting your car, I have plenty of experience. Anyhow, Hannah and I had fun with Celeste, and so it was kinda fun being stuck there for an extra 45 minutes.

On Wed, Hannah and I got together with Jeanette & Hannah, our Austrailian friends from Boston who now live in Seattle. We had a great time seeing the two little Hannah's interact (they are exactly one month apart). They had great fun with the toy phone and chasing each other around in circles...and of course eating. Jeanette had made some tasty cookies and fruit. We enjoyed both the healthy sugar and the unhealthy sugar. Here are some pictures. We were able to get the two girls together and somehow managed to have them (sort of) sit still for the 5 seconds it takes to get a picture.

Here's a self timer of the 4 of us

Well, that was our Seattle trip. We are looking forward to returning in mid-December and seeing everyone soon!

Bridal Shower

Another highlight of my trip to Seattle was hosting a bridal for my best friend Melissa, who is getting married on New Years Eve. It was an awesome shower (in my humble opinion). Everything came together perfectly. My mom & I hosted a brunch (most of the food was made by my dad, master chef) and we played some fun games and opened presents. It was great to see & catch up with a bunch of my high school friends. Here are some pictures of us hanging out:

Here's a most of the group picture (we didn't think of taking a group pictures until some had already left)

Here we are with Mt Rainier in the background. Melissa, Kendra, Diana, Elaine, & Amanda. Mt. Rainier is inbetween my head & Diana's. You can see the mountain better in the picture below

So Hannah napped for most of the shower. I couldn't have planned it better if I wanted to. Anyhow, she woke up during the last game. This is how I found her when I went down to get her.

She managed to unsnap her pants and then she attempted to pull them over her head and got stuck. Isn't she cute?

Why I love Seattle

Seattle is gorgeous! Saturday morning when we woke up (the second time) the sun was shinning and Mt Rainier was out (FYI: I know that mountains are stationary and that it is the clouds to come out and disappear, but that's the expression in Seattle, "Oh look, the mountain is out today"). The mountain was so clear we (Hannah and I) could even see it from the basement window. Then while we were driving over to my sister's house, we had a clear view of the Cascade mountains. The silhouette of the mountains behind the colorful trees was beautiful (not like I"m biased or anything).


At my sisters, we spent the morning playing in leaves and catching up. Then Kim and Ben took us to the salmon fish hatchery that is near their house. Check out some pictures that Ben took:

Here's a picture of a salmon going over the last step of the fish ladder.

You can see this fish had alittle bit more clearance. :-D

Salmon always go back to where they were hatched to lay their eggs, and then die. So at the end of the fish ladder there were too big hatchery tanks. Here's a fish jumping in the tank.

While Kim & Ben were watching the fish jump, Kim saw one actually jump out of the tank. They ran over and threw the fish back into the tank. Here are some action shots of my brother-in-law Ben, the fish hero!

Here's Hannah, Kim and myself.

After the fish hatchery we went up to the New Castle Golf Course to get a view of the Seattle skyline. We arrived just as the sun was setting. Here's Hannah and I in front of the sunset. Aren't the clouds incredible?!

Pictures obviously don't do the real thing justice, but here's Hannah in front of the Seattle skyline. You can also see a silhouette of the Olympic Mountains behind. (FYI: Seattle has 2 mountain ranges, the Olympics and the Cascades. On a clear day like Saturday, you can see both. And yes, they are REAL mountains!)

Can you find Hannah?

After New Castle, my parents came over for dinner and then we sat by their wood burning fire place (it seems likes these are disappearing) and hung out. It was a great day!!

Plane Flight

So Hannah and I flew to Seattle on Friday night. We left Boston at 6:00pm and arrived in Seattle at 9:15 (12:15 EST). Here are some highs (+) and lows (-) from the flight:

+We had a whole row to ourselves (3 seats)
+ Hannah's ears were fine for take-off and the landing
+ The Dog Whisperer was on TV and that kept Hannah entertained for about 30 minutes
- Everone around had to listen to Hannah say "doggy, doggy, doggy" everytime a dog came on the screen (which was quite often during the show)
- Hannah had 3 poopy diapers in just 4 hours.
+ I am now an expert at changing diaper in the plane bathrooms. :-D
+ Hannah fell asleep for part of the flight
- Hannah didn't fall asleep until 10pm (EST) (she normally goes to bed at 7:30), and she only slept for 2 hours
- I didn't get any sleep b/c Hannah was taking up the prime sleeping seats (the window and middle seats)
+ Hannah didn't cry much
+ Hannah self entertained for most of the time
- Hannah woke up at 4:00am the next morning
+ Hannah fell back asleep from 5:30-7:30am (probably because I was laying in bed and no fun to play with)
- Hannah fell asleep in my bed horizontally leaving me with a body width of room to sleep and little feet in my ribs...but I suppose if she had fallen asleep with her head at the pillow end of the bed then I would have been worried that she would roll off.

I'll write more soon with what I'm actually doing here. But let me reassure you that I am having tons of fun!