Christmas in Ronald

And so the Christmas saga continues! After leaving Yakima on Christmas Eve, we headed for our "cabin," located in Ronald, just a few miles north of Roslyn, Cle Elum, and Hwy 90. Only rich Seattlites would call our digs a "cabin," because to me it seemed to resemble a very well-built new home. Let's just say I could comfortable move in to this cabin for life. Although they did go overboard with a plethora of whitetail deer accessories. Coincidentally, we did get a little dose of "roughing it" on our first night when we discovered there was no water running through the pipes. Though we searched for an hour to find some kind of shut on/off valve, it was cleverly disguised under the kitchen sink as a plastic white flat handle, and we had to told this by the owners (who I'm sure loved solving our crisis on Christmas Eve), but not before we boiled down newly fallen snow to make our spaghetti dinner. Ahh, snow pasta!

Speaking of deer accessories, yes, that's our beloved stocking tree. What better to serve as a place to hang our stockings than a unique standing lamp base made from replica antlers!

And needless to say, our children, particularly Wyatt, enjoyed his second day of stocking and present opening. Break out the pannetonni! Papa served up a great Christmas dinner, topped off by the boxed Italian dessert that we had wondered about for so many years. It was surprisingly buttery and yummy, especially with ice cream.Most of our time at the cabin was spent napping, reading, eating, sledding, and general frolicking in the snow.
Much to Wyatt's liking, we also watched a good deal of his hero, Davy Crockett. Here Wyatt and Papa catch some of the King of the Wild Frontier. In the foreground is a bowl full of plastic knights from Wyatt's stocking.

We did peel ourselves off the couches for a few outings. One afternoon we headed in to Ellensburg, specifically to enjoy breakfast at the Yellow Church Cafe. And later in the week Liz and Caleb enjoyed a night out at Mama Vallone's in Cle Elum, which served up tasty authentic Italian. If you ever pass though Cle Elum, we recommend it, along with the Cottage Cafe for a good greasy spoon breakfast, and the Pioneer Coffee Company for heavenly Mexican Mocha.

Here you see Jubilee enjoying the ride to Ellensburg.

And here are Liz's fabulous sisters, Geneva and Emily, who sacrificed a great deal of their winter vacation so that they could spend it...well, driving to places like Ellensburg.

Waiting for grub at the Yellow Church.

And when our time ran out at the cabin, we all traveled back to Monroe, where the Buerer's camped out on out small living room floor for two more nights. Here Geneva and Emily enjoy the last holiday cookie decorating of the season, making gingerbread "Vaders" a new tradition.

Thank you family for a great vacation!

Christmas in Yakima

Merry Christmas!

This Christmas our little family was blessed with the opportunity of spending time with both our Yakima family and our California family. First comes the photos from our visit with Caleb's family on the east side of the mountains. We were with them the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday before Christmas.

On Saturday the kids spent the afternoon at one of the happiest places on earth- PaSam and Granny's. While Wyatt and PaSam built a unique snowman...


...Granny just held and rocked Jubilee, which is her God-given right to do as much as she wants as a great-grandma.

Later that evening we went to Great-Grandma Rosetta's for a family party. Sadly, Rosetta's health has deteriorated and she had spent that weekend in the hospital. We dearly missed her.

Every time Wyatt opened a present that evening, he exclaimed, "Hey! It's a white box!" as if that were a gift in itself. You'll notice in the second photo here that Wyatt appears as a blur, which is a true representation of the way he looked as he opened presents over the next several days. Also in the second photo, to the right on the ground, is Liz's prized red Kitchen Aid toaster. Yes, that is really what Liz wanted for Christmas...a RED toaster. Yes, it makes her feel middle-aged to ask for a kitchen appliance for her big gift, but hey, she really wanted one.


Since we were going to be with the Buerers on Christmas day, we treated Christmas Eve as such with the Reeds, opening our stockings. Here's Wyatt (next to Meemaw's HUGE Christmas tree) anxiously awaiting the event. Note: if there is one thing to count on for Christmas, it's that Caleb's Mom will really take her Christmas tree seriously , and will find the biggest, most gorgeous, most back-breaking tree to fit in her high living room.

Wyatt's cousin Reilly joined us. Here she is looking like an angel in her too-cute dress...


...and here's our angel Jubilee, whom Granny could not keep her hands off of once again.


I especially like the way Reilly's feminine dress contrasts the huge plastic double-barreled shot gun that she is ogling. She was learning, along with Wyatt, how to properly use it I guess, one of two pretend firearms that Wyatt received , the other being a prized Davy Crockett "Old Betsy" rifle.
Liz thought Caleb deserved a "major award"- the replica leg lamp from "A Christmas Story" movie.

And finally, try as she might, Liz could not get a good picture of Jubilee in her Christmas clothes...
...though she did get this one from Wyatt through candy-bribery.

Shortly after, Liz's family arrived to caravan with us up to a cabin near Cle Elum. Tales of more adventures to come!

Fleefer babies

Back when Wyatt was 2, we used to watch this show in CBC (Canadian Broadcast Channel) called, "Nanalan." On Nanalan a sesame-street-like puppet girl has daily adventures at her grandmas. Some of these adventures include her stuffed toy fleefer, a bright yellow bird. When I went to a craft show and saw some fleefer-like booties, I could NOT pass them up. Come on, how can a baby get by without fleefer slippers. And I just had to pick a pair up for Grady too! So here they are, me and Jemena's fleefer babies showing off their fleefer wear.