Happy Valentine's Day!

One thing I love about being back in the states is all the holiday candy. On the other hand, I do miss a lot of the holiday treats we had in Switzerland. Such a dilemma!

Home Sweet Home

It was an unusually clear day on Sunday when we flew out of Portland, OR on our way back to Colorado. There were four peaks visible which we think (but are not certain) are: Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, and Adams.

Well, I'm not so sure about the sweet part of the title, as we were all pretty sad to leave the Pacific Northwest, but it is nice to be back in our own space after two weeks of travelling. We spent Christmas day and the week before with my whole family at my older sister's house near Portland. The day after Christmas we headed up to Washington where we rented a house in West Seattle for the week and got to visit with Pat's family in Tacoma and our friends in Seattle. There were of course a few bumps (we may or may not have brought some sort of 24 hour stomach bug with us to Portland), but overall it was a really great trip.

It's been kind of crazy since we got back with trying to get the house organized again (Christmas stuff is still up and it's driving me crazy!), a bunch of appointments on Monday, and then me having minor dental surgery yesterday. I now have a shiny new front tooth to replace the one I ran into a parking meter with when I was eight years old. I never thought I'd say this, but, please--no. more. ice cream.

Anyway, so for now here are a few very random iPhone photos. Will hopefully be getting to the others this week!

Niamh & her new cousin Ila

Disgruntled Ila B.

Christmas tree at the Pittock Mansion

Another Christmas scene at the Pittock Mansion

To Seattle!!!

Muriel at the Museum of Flight

While in Seattle Muriel attached herself to our friend Jay



Waiting to get into the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Pacific Science Center

Merry Christmas!

Ready for Santa!

Gingerbread "Festivity"

Our gingerbread projects, on two different days, didn't start out "festive", but I'm afraid ended that way when Rowan had complete meltdowns because they both didn't go exactly how he had imagined. The house didn't look just like the picture on the box, and we didn't have any candy for the gingerbread people, as they had had when he decorated his gingerbread man at school.

I was only able to keep my temper for the second meltdown by documenting this tragic face (taken post rolling on the floor, kicking and screaming).

It was too late in the afternoon for good light in this photo, but I still had fun playing with the tree bokeh.

Rowan's Holiday School Program-2010

A few weeks ago Rowan's school had their holiday program. He was a little nervous beforehand, but did really great. I found it interesting that the school did not have a Halloween party since not everyone celebrates Halloween, but that they did sing some religious songs for the holiday program. Maybe they figure that since there was a Hanukkah song in with all the others it was okay?

Morning in San Francisco

The morning before Thanksgiving we spent a little bit of time in San Francisco. Not too long, because we were worried about afternoon traffic getting out of town, and we were also all a little grumpy from not going to bed until (at least) midnight the night before. We made a quick-ish stop at the Ferry Building where we got donuts (egg free!), chocolate, bread, and cheese. After that we went to the Golden Gate Bridge for a quick walk before heading to Santa Rosa.

the bay bridge

Ro outside the Ferry Building

Niamh's first donut ever! Complete with four-year-old attitude.

I wanted a picture of all three kids together in front of The Bridge, but that wasn't in the cards.

12.6.10

St. Nicholas visited our house last night, leaving the kids a few treats,

three new figures for the nativity scene,

and three new Christmas books. This year Muriel received Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree, Niamh received The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, and Rowan received Christmas Day in the Morning.

We ended the morning with Italian peppermint hot chocolate and a sad, sad attempt at making eggless St. Nicholas bread. I thought that a sweet dough like what is used for cinnamon rolls would be a good substitute for what the bakeries in Morges make. Cook's Illustrated has a recipe for quick cinnamon buns that don't have eggs. It sounded perfect! The recipe though did not have yeast, which made it more like a biscuit dough, which is very hard to shape into little St. Nicholas men. So next year I will try again, this time with a yeast dough!

12.1.10

Happy first day of December!

Back Home!

Golden Gate Bridge

Goat Rock Beach, CA

Half Moon Bay, CA

We returned Sunday afternoon from our Thanksgiving weekend visiting Pat's family in California. There were a few bumps, such as the kids not going getting to bed until midnight (CO time) on Tuesday night due to airplane issues and me getting another round of strep throat. I'm also pretty sure Niamh was feverish for a few days. In spite of all that it was a pretty good trip. Most of the photos I took are all still on my camera; these are from my iPhone. We are slowly, slowly getting back to normal here, so hopefully I can get some more pictures up this week.

Halloween 2010

We had a great Halloween and the kids are super sad this morning that it is all over. There was a visit from the Great Pumpkin, deliciously spooky stories, haunting music, time spent with friends, roasted pumpkin seeds, eyeball soup, mummy dogs, costumes, and trick-or-treating, which of course ended with a lot of candy. Muriel was a little scared at the beginning of the night when everyone started getting into their costumes, but warmed up once she got into the spirit of trick-or-treating. My only regret is that in all the chaos I did not get a photo of Pat, John, and Jennifer dressed up in their costumes (Darth Vader, and two characters from Mario Kart). I did not have a costume, but have big plans for next year. As do the children. They are already dreaming of next Halloween!