Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas to one and all! We began our with homemade pancakes, bacon and real maple syrup. Then, it was time to open gifts around the tree. Anni loved her talking globe. Alex is excited about his Lord of the Rings computer game. Ari is jazzed by her new collection of reading material. David like his new red sweater, and my fav is the psychedelic orange socks (thanks Lisa!). We had lots of cozy warm gifts this year. Perfect!

Our Christmas dinner was baked ham with herbal glaze, spuds with sour cream and chives, broccolini, and champagne or sparkling apple cider. Dessert was Dundee cake with custard. Delish. After dinner, we went for a ride around our town to see all the Christmas lights. Wow! Some folks had serious wattage!

Yesterday, we had a quiet Christmas Eve. We made red (tomato sauce ) and green (pesto) pizzas for dinner with German pepper cookies and mincemeat pies for dessert.

On Thursday, we celebrated Feliz Navidad by making lots and lots of tamales; spicy red pork, mild green chili chicken, and vegetarian with corn, black beans, and orange squash. We had lots of sauces to complement and served them all up with guac, chips, and a pan of oven chili rellenos. Yum!

What's this smiley girl been up to?

Art Attack! Here's Anni's bulletin board.

Bah Humcat! I think I'll sleep through all this fuss. Jingle away dog!

Happy Nana's Day

Anni proving that kids love the packaging the most! We all stayed up for the solstice lunar eclipse on Monday/Tuesday. It was cool to see a red moon!

Barkley all dressed up in his holiday bandanna.

We traveled to Northeastern Europe for our Yuletide dinner this year. We had parsnip and sweet potato pancakes with chive sour cream, cheese, potato, and onion peroshkis, ham roll-ups, lingonberry brown bread, and gingerbread cookies. Yum!

The CSA farm box arrived today. this one featured baby spinach, carrots, broccolini, avocados, apples, oranges, lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, parsnips, bokchoy, tangelos, potatoes, and a pomegranate.

Every December 22nd, we hold our annual Nana's Tea in honor of my British grandmother. This year we invited our friend Lisa over to share in the grand chaos of making lots of goodies. We made sausage rolls, curried egg sandwiches, watercress and tomato sandwiches, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, a vegetable herb cracker spread, a prawn green onion spread, a British cheese plate, jam tarts, current scones, butter biscuits dipped in bittersweet chocolate, and a Dundee cake, all served up with a big Brown Betty full of tea and a toast of champagne. It was fun. (Anni ate her weight in sausage rolls!)

Happy, Merry, Joyous Everything!

Our holiday celebrations are in full swing. Our friend Lisa came over on Friday for our annual making of the holiday cards. Glitter and glue ensued. We also had a lovely Northern Italian dinner of Eggplant Parmesan, salad, Alfredo noodles, and cranberry-lemon cake, all chased down with an excellent Merlot.

This weekend, Ari and I went to a fundraiser for Ghana school children that one of Lisa's coworker collect monies for. It was down in the Georgetown neighborhood, part of southern King County that we rarely get to. We found an excellent local bakery with the world's best chocolate croissants! Ari discovered a used bookstore, that gal could find a bookstore on the moon!

This morning, I went paint shopping with Lisa. I suggested color combinations. She bought the paint. It was fun. Later, we mixed up three batches of cookie doughs; sugar, gingerbread, and pfeffernusse (German white pepper) cookies. Tomorrow, we roll them out, bake, and decorate!

Just a reminder, tomorrow a total lunar eclipse, solstice, and yule all collide around the midnight hour, a magical time!

Darn good show!

This afternoon, the entire band of funny farmers went to see a play in Seattle called Red Rider Came Calling (based on the book by Berkeley Breathed) put on by the fine folks at Book-It Theatre, our favorite thespians. It was absolutely awesome! Hysterical!

We traveled to France for dinner tonight. No, not really, but dinner was on the French side. We had Chasseur chicken with oven roasted carrots while Edith Piaf sang on the music system.

Then we continued our holiday decorating. The theme of our tree (and most of our upstairs decorating) is Northern Forest, lots of pine cones, snowflakes, berries, birds, critters, mushrooms, bearded gnomes, and reindeer. We finished up the tree tonight!

Yule Tidings

Yesterday, we hung the garlands. Then I discovered I'm allergic to the cypress. My arms are covered in lovely red welts!

Today we lit the garlands. I wore gloves!

And we put lots and lots of lights on our tree. We got a big Wow! from Anni.

In other news, we waxed English today after visiting our local British Pantry. Dinner was prawn cocktails followed by sausage rolls with mustard, chips with curry catsup, and peas. Our sweet was apple blackberries mini pies with warm custard. Delish!

Birthday Celebrations and more!

Hmm, what's that sticking out of that paper?

Let me at it. I'll find out!

A Sock Monkey! I love monkeys! This is the best birthday ever. I also love my new cupcake oven (already baked up a batch of chocolate ones, complete with sprinkles) and my tabletop soccer set.

Did I mention that I really love my Sock Monkey? Here we are at Red Robin for my birthday lunch!

A bunch of folk sang Happy Birthday and then gave me balloons and an ice cream sundae. Okay, I love the monkey, but it's not getting any ice cream! Mom took me shopping to spend my birthday money. Thanks Nana and Auntie Doreen and Uncle Mel. I got a book, stickers, a new wallet, pajamas, a fuzzy hat, and more. Birthdays so ROCK!

Alexander also had a birthday over the past couple of weeks. Being a teenage boy, he declined to be interviewed about it, preferring to bury his nose in a) a book, b) a video game, c) the computer, or d) all of the preceding.

The farm box arriveth. This one had lettuce (salad for lunch tomorrow), eggplant (curried rounds on Saturday), spinach (used in the pesto tonight!),avocados, oranges, carrots, sunchokes, cucumber, mushrooms, tomatoes, tangelos, pomegranate, Meyer lemons, and apples.

And now that all the birthdays are done, we went out for our holiday tree, garlands, holly, and mistletoe today. Tomorrow, we start the decorating! (Hear David groan!)

Holiday Happenings

Whew! This weekend has been a busy one. On Friday, we took the traffic bound bus into Seattle for the annual Figgy Pudding Caroling Contest where groups of carols compete for coins to donate to charity. Our favorite groups were the one from Allrecipe.com, who sang food related songs, and a local brewery, whose members were especially energetic. Then we headed over to the Elephant and Castle (Brit. pub) for grub.

On Saturday, we did some holiday shopping during the afternoon, and then met up with friends Lisa and Elizabeth for the Redmond Lights and River Walk. Folks walk along the river trail (where we often walk in the daylight) at night past groups of musicians and carolers. Hot chocolate, holiday food samples, and coupon deals are handed out by local merchants. A good time and cold noses are had by all.

Today, the lady's writing group had a holiday gathering at our newest member's home. Much food and cheer abounded. Now, we all need a week to recover from our busy weekend.

Good cheer!

Fun and more fun

Yesterday, we all had a special treat. We,along with good friend of the fam Lisa, went to see the brand new musical based on The Christmas Story (movie) at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle. It was spectacularly good! And the theatre was ornately gorgeous with beautiful Asian paintings and carvings. We had a wonderful time riding the bus into Seattle (Anni's favorite part), having lunch at Rockbottom brewery (Alex's favorite part), seeing the show (my fav), getting coffee (Ari's favorite) and a cookie (David's fav) before heading home.

And just because we could all could use some more fun, it's time to play everyone's favorite game....
What's in Anni's Purse Today?

Here is Anni's new owly purse. It's not much bigger than a paperback novel. What was inside today?

(See below)

A holiday bell, a teapot lid, a dog and its bowl, a rooster, a goat, a mouse, a rabbit and a cow, a person, a doll, a fairy, a princess, and a penny, 2 piggies, 2 sheep, 2 cats, 2 cars, and 2 prehistoric beasties, 3 horses, 3 building blocks, and 7 trees! I really looked for the partridge in a pear tree, but I think she might be saving that for later in the season.

Good Cheer!

Thanksgiving in the Great Northwest

Snow Day? Online programs don't have snow days. I'm so bummmmed!

Snow days? Every day's a fun day for me. Wheeeeeee!

Snow Day! Eek, my feet are cold! Back to the nesting boxes. Cluck, cluck!

It snowed again on Thanksgiving morning.

The cars got another good covering.Wednesday's farm box: satsumas, pears, pomegranate, apples, potatoes, green beans, broccoli, carrots, kale, celery, parsnips, and salad mix.
Thanksgiving dinner at the funny farm.

Wild organic rice with mushrooms, shallots, and herbs.

Wild sockeye salmon in a soy ginger butter sauce.

Fresh young asparagus with lemon butter.
Anni eagerly awaiting the arrival of the next course. Could it be...

Dessert; fresh pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. Dinner was delish! Then we all needed a nap!

Our favorite post Thanksgiving events began today with the lighting of the Kirkland City Christmas tree down town, followed by our traditional homemade soup and bread supper. This year it was spicy pumpkin soup with cornbread. Yum!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

"What's this cold white stuff? My tail is cold! And so are my paws! Woof!"

The green house. Plants inside are thinking (yes, you know they can), "It's cold, and who turned out the sun?"

The chicken coop. Henrietta, Claudette, and Waltzing Matilda are thinking, "Cold, cluck, cold! I need to go lay an egg. Race you to the nesting box."

The garden under a blanket of white.

The last of the garden veggies we harvested the evening BEFORE it snowed; carrots, celery, chives, and squash.

Final Adventures in BC

A long time ago in BC...
Okay, well not that long ago, I spent a lovely Sunday morning at the BC museum. This shaggy woolly mammoth was on display.

Just for my mycology loving girl (Ari), a display of mushrooms,

shaggy mushrooms

and flattened mushrooms.

And then the moose was on the loose, eek!

Followed by a big brown bear, yikes!

And the most fearsome of all, a wolverine, gulp!

This little fire belly frog swam up to say hello.

The bearded dragon was just hanging out.

Adult owl.

Cute fuzzy baby owl.

Canadian native (aboriginal) man in full regalia.

Mask

Eagle mask

Transformation mask.

Deer hide drum. (I made one of these while living in Alaska. I still need to paint a design on mine!)

Zounds! Is that Edward Cullen captured in a totem pole?

Entrance to Totem Pole Park.

How many animals can you recognize?

Eagle and beaver.

A trio of totems.

More animals to identify.

Beaver.

The latest addition to the park.

Last view of the totem poles.

My final day in Victoria was full of packing, book shopping, and tea drinking. I arrived home relaxed and full of writing inspiration.