Here's to Good Times and Three Day Weekends!

Family Literacy Night is an event that I planned as a part of my AmeriCorps year for Manson Elementary school. Manson is the neighboring town to Chelan, and is a wonderful, small and welcoming community. This was my first ever event of this type, which turned out to be quite the success. With twenty-five volunteers, 100 attendees and several different activities throughout the night, I believe everyone enjoyed themselves and had fun with literacy.

Parent Workshop on "The Importance of Literacy" delivered by community professionals, conducted in Spanish.

"Story Lady" reads to a group of elementary students as parents and volunteers are gathered around to listen.

Students are working on an arts and craft activity that matches the "winter" theme of the stories, before heading back to the gym for a book swap and prizes from the local book store.

In North Central Washington, MLK weekend is celebrated with Winterfest…to some this means ice, snow, jackets, sledding and hot cocoa; while to others this means swimming. One of the ways that towns like Chelan keep their businesses going throughout the winter is by having festivals like this one over three-day weekends. This involved having a huge bonfire of everyone’s old Christmas trees and the infamous Polar Plunge. Oh, yes, several of our group went in!

Winterfest is also famous for the beautifully crafted ice sculptures outside every downtown store front. These are some of our awesome Washingtonian friends.

Happy Birthday, Joe! What better way to celebrate than with Settlers and a box cake?

One weekend, four friends (two couples) got engaged! Congrats to Chelsey and Jimmy (above) and Erin and Sean (below). 

You know you really have great friends when you can call them up late at night in early December, get them all on one phone conversation, ask them to book plane tickets to come visit during President's Weekend in February and they do it that night. After a day of checking out Pike Place in Seattle and walking along Puget Sound, we made the long trek back to Chelan.

Yes, they really do throw fish, just like the one the guy is holding!

First Day in Chelan

I think the picture explains it all.

Went up to the parking lot of my elementary school to check out the view of Lake Chelan.

Saturday night we went out to the Bavarian themed town, Leavenworth, and enjoyed some delicious cuisine at the beer garden.

After spending Sunday morning at Lake Chelan Lutheran Church, we headed up to Martin's house where we were greeted with a surprise!

Martin calls this a "weasel." It is a WWII tank that got a new paint job and still operates. We loaded the inside (and boarded the top) and started to make our way to the top of the hill.

Okay, well we didn't quite make it to the the top of the hill, but had an exciting ride=). Thanks, Martin, visits to your place are always a fun-filled experience.

Hopefully you saw the tower from my fall post....if not, check it out!

What a wonderful way to hang with some of our favorite peeps! Thanks, CA family for coming to visit and Flemings for hosting us! 

Tata for now!

Happy Holidays!

Our holiday party invitation read: be sure to come clad in your favorite Christmas sweater, ready to decorate the tree, sing some classic carols, and enjoy bringing in the season. All was accomplished. 

Many people over time have asked me, "Do you like having your birthday so close to Christmas?" and my response is, "Yes, because everybody is in a cheery holiday mood--so what better time to celebrate your birthday?" This year I got to share the celebration with my friend, Soren. I turned 27 and Soren turned 8. Together we blew out our candles on our Dairy Queen ice cream cake.

What's a holiday party without an assortment of white elephant gifts? (Did you know the the term "white elephant" comes from the story of the kings of Siam that used to give a real white elephant to their obnoxious courtiers. The white elephants were considered a gift that was more work than pleasure and therefore intended to ruin them because of the required investment.) We did not intend to ruin anyone...except for Annie who accidentally got rotten apple sauce, sorry Annie! She seems pretty happy about her corn, though.

Remember our fabulous neighbors, Kathy and Bill? They hosted our Chelan wedding reception that was part of a post. To give you a glimpse into their kind of wonderful people they are, they have basically adopted Cassidy, above as their grandson. Cassidy is 3, lives with his mom in town, but spends his days playing with dinosaurs and keeping Kathy and Bill youthful=). Over winter break, I brought over one of the valuable white elephant gifts Anders and I acquired, and Cassidy and I had fun  building this delicious house. That afternoon, with Kathy and Bill, we drove up the hill, directly behind our houses and up to 3,000 and some feet, and enjoyed the view below.

For Christmas Eve service, Lake Chelan Lutheran Church was dressed in its finest. This is our cozy place of gathering.

After flying over night on Christmas Eve, we arrived home to Minnesota, had a wonderful Christmas with our families, the Petersons, the Clarks and our California family=). We celebrated Jill's birthday at Erte in Nordeast.

And the addiction continues...luckily we got my family into it too! Settlers saw a lot of action over the break. Whether playing the game at home or at a random bar until 2am, anywhere works. Brick, anyone?

And the fun continued on New Year's Eve. On the only night of snow in MN, we drove out to Cottage Grove, to hang with the Gusties. Eventually we returned to the Rasmussens' house. Below we are promoting an exciting new, microbrewery in Minnesota called, Olvalde Farm and Brewing Company. Check them out!

 A late night walk in the snow=).

The Gruber gang reunites. 

A pleasant surprise. As Anders and I were en route back to Chelan, we ran into Aaron and Amber, who were on their way back to DC. It was great to see a few more of our California friends.