For my birthday last July my parents gave me a gift certificate to Salish Lodge for their Country Breakfast. For those of you who haven't heard of Salish Lodge, this place is awesome(although this is actually the first time I've been there and have never stayed over night). Anyway, Nick and I finally found a Saturday to go there. The breakfast was awesome and there was way too much food. The country breakfast is a four course breakfast that includes juice, 3 types of bread, fresh fruit with dip, a stack of pancakes and then the main course: four eggs(any way you like them), herbed hash browns, bacon and sausage. We also ordered the chocolate pot which is hot chocolate that they make for you table side. The coolest thing about this restaurant is that it sits on top of Snoqualmie Falls. There is a path you can walk around on that goes to an observatory deck with an awesome view. Here's some pics of our day:
So Nick and I have been married for over two months now and since we had to combine two apartments into one, our place kind of looks like a storage unit right now. Boxes of stuff everywhere cause there is no place for it to go. Nick's mom is coming to visit for Christmas so we needed to clean out the office so we can set up the air mattress. Therefore, the giant 6 foot love sack had to go elsewhere. So we finally had to do something about the dining area that was packed with most of our stuff(the majority of which is wedding gifts(thank you to all of you who provided those - we love them)) So after a hard days work we repacked everything in that area and we were able to put the lovesack in there. This also accomplished the major task of clearing off the table. By the end of today we actually had a kitchen table again, and we ate "family dinner" around it for the first time since we got married. No more TV trays every night! Although I'm sure we will still definitely use them, even after the nativity set quits using two of them as a stand. Anyway, here is our newly cleaned table. Notice all the boxes to the right and the giant lovesack held in its place by the far side of the table. We decided to crockpot it tonight, so we ate a roast with potatoes and carrots. Yum, one of my favorites.
So Nick and I braved the treacherous roads to go visit my brother and Sis-in law in Edmonds to give my niece her first snow experience. We made it safely. They had bought her a cute little snow outfit earlier today. No sleds could be found though so we had to improvise. So my brother brought out a laundry basket and some rope and we pulled her up and down the street. She loved it. Check her out in these videos, I think the second one is the best:
Then we made a snowman. The snow wasn't the greatest for this. It wouldn't pack very well because it was so dry. and actually the bottom ball is a giant pumpkin they had in the yard that was covered in snow.
One of my favorite things to do every year at Christmas is to set up the nativity set. Last year I really wanted to get a nice nativity set that I could use throughout my life. I used the whole long term use thing as a rationalization for me to splurge a little and get the set I really wanted. I don't know how many of you know the "Willow Tree" line, but they are absolutely fabulous. They have all sorts of figurines, not just the nativity. You can check them out here and the story of how they came to be. So the other day for Family Home Evening, Nick and I decided to put up the Nativity set while reading the Christmas story from the Bible. So I got to go to my storage unit and find all my Christmas stuff. Of course I planned ahead and put it all in the back corner at the bottom. *eye roll* So, it took me a while to find it all but I eventually did.
As mention in my previous post, not much room in our little apartments right now. So, I made a makeshift area for our nativity set. This consisted of two wood TV trays and a Christmas colored sheet.
As Nick read the story from the Bible(he has a great story telling voice I might add) I pulled each piece from its box and began to put together the Nativity.
Isn't it a great set? I just love it. I hope you all get to enjoy putting up your nativity sets as well, and may they remind you throughout this holiday season the real reason we celebrate Christmas - the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Nick and I went and got our Christmas tree the other day. We found the perfect one almost instantly. I really love the shape. We got it Friday night but didn't have time to decorate til the next day. Here it is after we got it in the house and in the stand.
We got this cute precious moments ornament to commemorate our first Christmas together as a family. Its hard to read but it says on it "Our first Christmas together".
We also got this photo frame ornament so we could put a wedding picture in it. We want to start the tradition of getting a new ornament each year that symbolizes something important that happened that year.
I love having a Christmas tree in the house. And even though we dont have much room in our apartment right now after having to put stuff from two apartments into one, I shuffled things around a bit and made sure we had room. We couldn't go our first Christmas without a real tree now could we?
We found this mushroom growing on the lawn of our apartment complex near our covered spot where Lisa parks her car.
Lisa thought maybe if she ate it she could become Super Lisa, growing to twice her size and gaining the ability to smash bricks with her bare hand (but only while jumping upward).
No, seriously though, this looks like Amanita muscaria, a mushroom regarded not only as somewhat toxic, but hallucinogenic. Looks like it's gone now; I wonder if somebody ate it....
Actually, now that I think about it, it does look like that mushroom the bear cub eats in the 1988 movie L'Ours. I remember seeing this movie as a kid, though it was billed in English as The Bear. As is generally the case with about anything you can think of, somebody was good enough to post a clip of this to YouTube:
So Nick's mom gave us this awesome Kitchenaid stand mixer for our wedding. It's one of the huge nice ones. 6qts, 575 watts. Yeah, pretty sweet. Anyway, we busted it out the other day to try it out. Our first attempt - mashed potatoes. This thing had those potatoes smooth and creamy in no time and they were delish. Two thumbs up from me. We tried it out on cookie dough last night too. Nick said it was amazing. Here's a pic of our new toy in action:
