Super Happy Holiday Fun Day!

When we were living in Chicago, we started an annual tradition that we named, "Super Happy Holiday Fun Day!" We take a day each holiday season to do as many festive things as we can. When we were in Chicago, we would go ice skating downtown, eat lunch next to the big Christmas tree in the Oak Room at Macy's, go holiday shopping, and deliver cookies to Luke's co-workers. This year, we drove up to Steven's pass to go snowshoeing and then spent the afternoon in Leavenworth and watched the tree lighting.

We headed up to the mountains early in the day and stopped at the Sultan Bakery for some delicious treats! Once we got to our hiking area, we strapped on the snowshoes and headed up the hill!

Of course, Luke, brought his sled (he loves his sled), and we had some fun with that... 

Watch out! Comin' through!

However, the sledding adventure was not without its casualties. I have a nice bruise on my side from a run-in with a small tree. Whoops!

Gaining speed!

And, then Luke started throwing snowballs at me. Are you surprised?

Our view. There's something so beautiful about trees blanketed in white...

After a fun-filled morning in the snow, we headed to Leavenworth where we grabbed a bite to eat and hung out for a while. Leavenworth is a little German-themed town in the mountains and at Christmastime, it's decked out with lights and holiday decorations. 

Welcome to Leavenworth!

At dusk, everyone gathered in the town square for the tree-lighting ceremony. It was so fun when they lit up the whole town at once.

After the tree-lighting, we headed back to Seattle. And we spent a majority of our two-hour car ride listening to the Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas album (which just happens to be Luke's favorite).

It was a successful super happy holiday fun day, indeed!

Christmas Card Out-Takes

After taking a brief one-year hiatus from our annual Christmas card, we're back! We made it up to Steven's Pass and took some pictures in the snow. Here's some photos that we used, and some out-takes too!

For some reason, I was doing all of the hard work!

Snow surfing?

Hello, everyone!

A man and his sled.

What's so funny?

Merry Christmas, everyone! We wish you a blessed holiday season!

Winter Wonderland

'Tis the season for Christmas, and snow, and candy canes galore! We've really taken advantage of the holiday season this year -- cutting down our own Christmas tree again, searching the city for Christmas lights, and enjoying this festive time of year. Here's some snapshots from a few of our adventures...

As you may remember, last year we cut down our own Christmas tree from the mountains. We weren't very well-prepared, and ended up sliding $20 under the ranger station's door to pay for our Christmas tree permit, since it wasn't open. Then I left Luke's hatchet at the top of the mountain. And to refresh your memory-- we had a very "special" looking Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But, we loved it anyways :) This year, we got our act together -- we bought a Christmas tree permit at REI, we stopped at the ranger station and got a map of where to search, and I did NOT leave anything on top of the mountain. Hooray! 

There she is! She may look sparse now, but just wait!

We brought her home, and with a little TLC, she turned out beautifully!

Like I mentioned, we've been very into the holiday spirit this year! We even went on a holiday "Ride the Ducks" tour with our friends Justin and Selena. It was a blast! We rode around downtown and looked at the lights while singing Christmas carols at the top of our lungs!

The tree at Westlake Center

We've also been on top of our Christmas shopping this year. Here's Luke on an early morning trip we took to Pike's Market to find some presents. 

We also went to the zoo lights display at the Woodland Park Zoo, which is actually right down the street from our house. It was awesome! However, it was a chilly evening -- in the teens, I think. It made me think of Minnesota :)

The best part of this night with our friends Josh and Bethany was that we spent about an hour in the kids pavilion where the zoo had set up a giant snowball fight with yarn snowballs. Bethany and I stood back and watched as Josh and Luke jumped right in, recruiting dozens of little kids to be on their teams and throw snowballs at the other. It was like their childhood dreams had come true!

Fall Fun

Since I'm SO behind on the blog posts, here's a little sampling of what we were up to this fall. It was beautiful in Seattle, and we sure stayed busy. Here's what we were up to...

We had picnics at Green Lake and enjoyed every drop of sunshine we could.

We took a day-trip to Leavenworth, a little German town up in the mountains.

We had a bounty of tomatoes from our tomato plant! We used them to make homemade marinara sauce, yum :)

Luke went to his first NFL game -- Seahawks vs. Jaguars

Luke turned 30 on October 12th and we had QUITE the birthday weekend for him! His best friend Travis flew in as a surprise for the weekend, and I got them a fishing trip on the Chehalis  River. They fished all day and came back with six silver salmon! 

The view from their trip down the river

Catch of the day!

That night, we had a surprise party for Luke with about 30 of our friends. It was a great weekend!

On October 19th, my best friend, Miyong got married in San Luis Obispo, California. We traveled down for the wedding and had a fabulous time celebrating.

Gettin' hitched!

I, for one, was very excited that we got to wear sparkly bridesmaid dresses!

Dancing the night away. I love you, Miyong -- you were such a beautiful bride!!

Also, the city of Seattle brought in dozens of goats to clean up the shrubbery under the I-5 bridge. Good idea, I guess?

We went to a pumpkin patch and completed the corn maze in record time! Our corn maze strategy mainly consists of me following Luke while he figures out where we are.

And we got the perfect pumpkin (which unfortunately, we never carved...)

We took a trip to Salem to visit Luke's sister and her family. Claire turned three, and we got her a bike for her birthday. Here she is, ready to ride!

And I, of course, got in lots of time hangin' with adorable AJ. 

We also got to go on our first snowshoe of the season in mid-November. We went up to Mt. Pilchuck and our jeep (lovingly referred to as "Libby the Liberty") did us proud! 

Look at all that snow!

I am queen of the mountain!

And that sums up our fall pretty well, I'd say :)

Five

I think I've reached a new level of tardiness with my blog posts! Life has been crazy lately, so I'll do my best to update you on some of our recent adventures!

Luke and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary on August 31st (whoops, that was three months ago!). It's hard to believe we've been married for that long. The time seems to fly by, but we've definitely kept busy! We took a little trip to the Bremerton area for our anniversary this year. It was fun to just get away and enjoy each other's company. We were able to score a hotel suite that overlooked the water, which was just perfect! Here's the view from our room.

We pretty much just spent the weekend exploring the area and relaxing. One really fun thing we were able to do is tour the USS Turner Joy. You can tour the retired Navy ship and it has everything set up realistically like it was when it was in use. Luke loved it -- and I thought it was pretty cool too :) 

There she blows!

Luke making a call from the captain's phone... looks like very important business.

Caitlin getting to work in the engine room.

Hold on, Luke!

Land ho!

Later that night we went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. And I got to wear my anniversary present from Luke -- beautiful new earrings!

I love being married to you Luke -- happy five years!!