Thirteen Eagles

In case you were wondering, bald eagles are very abundant in NW Washington State.

Now we have a lot of eagles at the Orlando landfill too, but I guess you can't count that. I guess technically (technically) that the landfill is not their natural habitat. It's gotta make you wonder. Maybe a little? We really have a lot here. Like over 30 in that one given area.

Anyway.

If you drive East from my parent's house (headed up to Mt. Baker), you will drive around the area where they are? Breed? Eat. I think. Eat sounds right.

They are near the river (the un-named river) where there are fish for them to eat. Right?

Well, we found them!

Beautiful!

We counted thirteen bald eagles on this trip. We saw others on different days, but this day there were 13. Pretty amazing actually. They're just hanging out. Looking for fish. Chillin'.

We also found two wineries.

Ha.

Winery #1. Challenger Ridge.

Mom, Darin, and Dad.

Cold grapes. But in the sunshine.

Happy Mother and Darin.

For some reason I love this picture.

Grapes. Told you they were happy.
It's the sunshine.

Winery #2. Carpenter Creek.

We went in the second one kind of quickly. We were getting pretty hungry. And the sun was out and annoying the heck out of Darin and I.

* Side note - the sun in the Pacific Northwest during the winter doesn't go high in the sky like it does in Orlando. It stays in the mid-sky, at that annoying level when you're driving when you can't get it out of your eyes. And it gives you a headache. And it still is continuously there. So we complained and went home. I guess that was not the thing to do in a place where they don't get as much sunshine as we do.

Back to the story. We had a great time driving around. Dru stayed home and read this book. Like the whole book. Impressive.

But we got to explore. And drink wine. And we found this incredible bread bakery. And had a great day. And saw thirteen eagles.

XMas 2009

Christmas was Christmas.

Fun. Exciting. Silly.

Opening presents. Gathering wrapping paper.

Putting bows on Cricket.

Eating breakfast.

That evening, my parents had their good friends/neighbors Bill and Sherrie (and MIL Bea) over for dinner also. We enjoying sharing our holidays with friends especially because we there were even more people to talk to and celebrate with during this special time of year.

She let me do this once.
And then she moved.
She's mean.

Bea and Sherrie. With the ham. We love ham.
Ham was great.

Princess Cricket under the lace.

We had an excellent dinner. And an excellent breakfast. And had excellent company.

Christmas day went by fast, but we still had a long time to enjoy Seattle and experience new things.

Christmas Eve in Seattle

Let's talk about Christmas Eve 2009. We flew from Orlando to Seattle this day - last year we had to because of scary Seattle weather, and this year we chose to because of price.

So why not?

We thankfully switched our flights early (we were supposed to go into the MN, but there was a blizzard warning and we switched to Atlanta) and got to Seattle thirty minutes early.

I still can't figure out how you can get somewhere early while flying, if I ever figure that out I will definitely post about it.

Anyway, Dru and I had planned a dinner surprise - going to Bonefish Grill! Traditionally when we were growing up we'd go to this one Chinese restaurant by Jewel (the old one) in CL. Every year we'd go there. But Darin can't really eat Chinese (too fatty/greasy). So we switched things up a little bit.

Bang bang shrimp and a happy hour martini.

Del and Darin. After hours in a plane. But with drinks.

After a nice dinner of eating too much, we headed home. It was Christmas Eve and presents were to be opened. That was our first tradition. We always open one present on Christmas Eve and it's always pajamas. When we were little, my brother, sister, and I would all get some sort of matching pjs. Thankfully my mother stopped that a couple of years ago (though I was actually looking forward to get matching pjs with Darin.)

We had to find our presents under the tree:

Darin was sneaky.

Hurray for presents!

Opening. And not taking our time.

Unfortunately (for you, I promise), I didn't not take pictures of us in our newly acquired pajamas. Though we were cute.

Cricket with her present from Jake.
She had to open one too!

And the last tradition of the evening, making a plate for Santa. We do it every year. It's fun. It's a tradition. Sometimes we get a little bit more into it (snazzy shot contraptions for Santa to drink), some times we do an obscene design (it only happened once with a poorly placed banana), and sometimes we put gross food out (like brussel sprouts, yak).

This year was nice and sweet.

"May your days be merry and bright!"

Christmas Eve Eve

Before we left for Christmas vacation in Seattle, we had one more celebration with Darin's family. It was a more traditional get together - nice sit down dinner and opening of presents.

One of their favorite simple meals was Boston Market's family feast. You get tons of food with this - an amazing array of food. And you get to pick it out!

The spread.

Darin carving the chicken.

Goestov's plate. He always mixed his food together.
It's a fun family thing he does!

After dinner, we all sat together to open presents by the pretty tree. It was very festive!

Quite nice, if I don't say so myself.

Opening our stockings, with care.

Lady was part of the festivities as well!

How great was this? She's one happy dog.

Darin with some new ahh golf balls.

Carol with an ornament I got her!

We had a great time opening presents with the family - how nice was it to spend the holidays with all of the family from all around Florida! Next it's onto Seattle!

Tropicana and Football

After dinner in Tampa with the family (on the 19th), Darin and I headed to St. Pete to join some friends for the UCF Bowl game. They were playing Rutgers in the Tropicana Bowl. I think. Not sure sure, but I'm probably right.

We went down to Tropicana Field (where this team played) - very strange to play football in an indoor baseball stadium. But we had a lot of fun.

The boys, gitty.

Brad and I. We were drinking, okay?

Inside. We were on the third base line. And in the end zone.
I decided I don't like end zone seats.

We left early, I know shame on us, because UCF was down and we had a long drive home. On the way out of the stadium we took the best obscene/fantastic picture that I think we have ever taken.

Pretty fantastic, aye?

And though UCF lost, we had a great time in tiny seats in the air conditioned area drinking beer and eating tasty pretzels.

Tampa X-Mas

This year for Christmas instead of going to Darin's parent's house, we all traveled to Tampa to be with the Tampa crowd. DJ worked very hard this season and deserved to have us come to her! Plus it's always fun to visit them and see what great stuff they serve us to eat!

We got there in the afternoon and talked and talked...

and I took very random pictures:

Me with beer. Why'd I take this? It's not very festive.

B. staring into space. Again, why?

And then a crazy picture of S.
He's definitely letting his personality shine through more and more!

Darin being grumpy because he sat at the adult table.
Ha.

Green jello stuff that was fantastic.
We also had spaghetti lasagna? Spaghetti pie?
It was good.

Dinner was very good. I am now thinking how the picture of the green stuff looks and how I should make it for myself to eat. But then I would probably eat all of it and then never want to eat it again (though I have to admit, that's never really stopped me before). Maybe next week?

After dinner, we got together and opened some quick presents! The kids were trying to figure out what everything was by checking all of the packages out. It was very entertaining! (And I totally pictured Darin doing it as a small child as well, though I think he, Diana, and Kevin were a lot sneakier.)

Peeking.

The best picture of the evening.
Understand why we thought it was funny?

And that was that. It's always fun to do different things during the holidays. Maybe next year we can go swimming. Sounds great to me!

A Visit Up North for a Special Birthday

On the weekend of December 12th, Jake and I traveled up to South Carolina to visit with everyone - KC (and Lilly and Macy too) had driven down from Canada for the holidays (and a much needed break and writing spell) and we just had to visit! Plus, it was Margie's birthday and the holiday parties!

I have been going to their house since I went to Clemson (2004) to help fix things up, make drinks, and talk to a whole bunch of people during the holiday parties. They have a neighborhood party on Saturday and then a church party on Sunday.

But first we had to celebrate Margie's birthday! She got a whole bunch of cool stuff - we got her a beautiful pin from here and Bob got her a Kindel! Also wanted to mention that it was my Grandpa's birthday too (though he passed away awhile ago, I'll always remember). He was born on 12/12/11. Isn't that cool? And I think it's very cool to think that 12/12/11 will be coming up again in a couple of years... amazing, really.

Anyway...

Opening up her pin, with dogs watching.

What were they doing?

Jake getting some love from Bob.
He was bonding because there were only two males in the house.

KC and her Liliput.

Back off from my Bob, little dog.

In the afternoon on Saturday, we prepared for the parties. Lots and lots of food. I mean lots. And most of it was some type of cheese. And veggies too, I guess. And ham. And cocktail weenies. And meatballs. Num.

Food!

The neighbors. And the food!

We decided there were over sixty people at the first party, and just about twenty at the second. Isn't that amazing?! It was a great way to spend the weekend I must say.

Looking forward to next year already!