Oh my gosh, it's been forever. Let's start with two Thursdays ago...
Since Fiona's first cold had blossomed into a week of fevers and a nasty cough, we figured we should look her over before heading off for a week on first a little island and then a remote valley without cell service. Her ears and chest checked out and, like usual, she was a trooper about the whole thing and, a little bit of radiation later, we headed up to Lopez for family (pre-)Christmas.
We had a little wait at the ferry terminal in Anacortes.
Friday morning we woke up to an island covered in perfect snowball snow and drove down to Mike and Tess' wedding church to take in the beauty and bask in thoughts of their love.
Most of our visit we simply spent cozied up with Grampop Dennis, GramMeg, Tess, and Mike, sitting in front of the fire, chewing on Uncle Casey's old teething ring, and getting our holiday on!
We even had cocktail hour in the soon-to-be-inhabited rammed earth house where Fiona tried out the lovely kitchen drawers.
After a terribly long drive from Lopez, across on the ferry to Anacortes, and then down to Seattle, east on 90, and north on 97/153/20, we arrived in the dark at the Cedar Creek Cabin in Mazama and it was fabulous. KP and Tobias had dinner ready and Haven was immediately an object of Fiona's fascination.
The Methow Valley has 200 kilometers (what?!) of cross-country ski trails connecting town to town. After a reasonably bad sleep (darn) we all tried out our skis and baby-carrying apparati. Fiona reminded me of Amanda Pig all bundled up and WAITING FOREVER to play outside as we readied ourselves. We tried to time our outings each day so that the girls would fall asleep for a portion of the ski. It mostly worked.
Checking out the skiable and empty roads all around the neighborhood.
There was a lot of this face wiggling up from the carrier.
We caught the game at the Old Schoolhouse Brewery in Winthrop. Bummer about the outcome but there's still tomorrow!
That night Elliott's sniffles blossomed into sinus nastiness so he stayed home Monday and cooked up a storm. I must say, that's not what I would have done, given the sizeable movie collection, but I'm grateful for the vegetarian lasagna and baba ganoush that resulted from our differences.
Monday's ski was all smiles...
...until the blizzard hit with half an hour left. I did NOT feel like a good parent as Fiona screamed until she conked out with her head buried in my pounding chest only to wake as I fell trying to ski-sprint through the woods. Jeez. The up-side was that it was GORGEOUS and totally silent (except for the screaming infant) in the woods.
KP warmed her up in front of the fire.
And she forgot her troubles.
And then Tuesday was beautiful!
Each day we would stop for snack time at Cow Beach warming hut.
It made a nice changing station too.
Christmas Eve I got a mild case of the Christmas-ain't-like-it-was-when-I-was-8 blues and started bemoaning our lack of Christmas tree.
Solution #1: We decided to make a gingerbread house from scratch that would double as a prototype for the home we would build together over the next several years in the Methow.
Solution #2: Elliott led me and KP out the back door with our eyes closed and when we opened them we saw that he and Tobias had strung Christmas lights on a sweet pine tree in the back yard.
So, all was right with the world and Tobias started preparing the dough for Christmas' contracting job. Here he is waiting for the darn molasses to pour.
Post-nap cuties.
"This is for me, right?"
MERRY CHRISTMAS! Thanks, Grammy!
Christmas hut snack with Pop.
It's not snowing! Yippee! That's Haven back there in the Chariot.
This is what we looked like a lot.
Methow-style house with ADU, wood pile, and hot tub full of sour patch kids under the Christmas tree. We're so proud. Can't wait to break ground on the real thing.
Christmas double chin. That wine bottle was our rolling pin.
Wait, Pop, did you just say there are TWELVE days of Christmas?!
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