I took a lot of photos over the past several weeks and they are all about to show up in one blog post.:)
We got to enjoy going to several of the Lady Griz Basketball games while I was in town-- a tradition for me and my family every time I return home for Christmas.
My cousin's wife, Sarah Velin, had her baby shower. She's due in February and we had lovely Saturday morning celebration with quiche, greek yogurt and granola and a lot of gifts. We also all had the task guessing Sarah's "circumference" by cutting a string of yarn the length we thought was just right.
Surprisingly enough, the girl that just got done with her OB/GYN rotation in medical school won :) Ok, well I tied with the mother-in-law but she gave me the prize since she was hosting the party.
I was spoiled with food the whole time I was home. I already posted the video of the creme brulee action on facebook, but I had to document it here so I'd remember in 5 years how amazingly blessed I am!
We also busted out an old time family recipe: Schupfnudel! It's a german bread noodle that is served with potatoes and bacon. Okay, okay, we didn't go light on the calories this Christmas, but we had a wonderful time as a family recreating an old family favorite!
Grandma got in on the bread-noodle making herself. She taught us all the ways of proper Schupfnudel rolling.
Vicky was pretty proud of how perfectly shaped hers turned out to be.
And mom didn't stray from her usual self in making the food talk to us in some way shape or form :)
The dough is so yummy I had to hold myself back from eating it all in the dough form instead of the cooked form.
Kaylee was home from her Sophomore year at George Fox and go to help us out with the rolling as well.
After the dough rises, you role it into noodles, then you store the noodles in a warm place (generally we use garbage bags to cover them) for another 1-2 hours before steaming them over the potatoes and bacon.
After all the hard work, Grandma got some snuggle time in with Owen, who is now a 2 year old!
Isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen? Especially when playing with the pups.
Owen got a taste of another family tradition-- food or water or bubble fights (whatever medium is available at the time) between Nancy and Vicky. He wasn't a big fan of the bubbly fun.
Here's the Schupfnudel all risen and ready for steaming!
The bacon and potatoes always smell so delicious
The noodles get layered on top of the potatoes and then wrapped up like a bug in a rug to make sure they get nicely steamed.
Then, when they're ready we dip them in grape jelly and chow down until our bellies are so full of bread dough we fill like Pillsbury dough-people.
We celebrated Christmas early with my dad's side of the family. We busted out more bread, because clearly we hadn't had enough yet.
It's always a gorgeous setting for a Christmas dinner.
The menu included prime rib, baked potatoes, salad and french bread!
Once we were all stuffed we settled into the parlor for a little gift giving.
Tom received a great new shirt and tie combo from Grandma and Grandpa.
Kristi got a brand new knife set.
After all the presents, we decided to "work it off" with a little bowling, which is now somewhat of a tradition in and of itself when I come home for the holidays.
When Christmas Eve rolled around we weren't quite ready for another large meal but we were getting one anyway-- complete with three fabulous mud pies made by Kristi.
Curt had to show off his most recent Christmas gag gift from his employees-- a Griz themed grilling apron complete with hard had and light and gorilla-like oven mitts. He was all set to help grill up the steak for dinner.
As tradition would have it, I also prepared Challah bread (to think, I almost didn't make it this year!)
After the Christmas Eve service all sorts of elves gather in the kitchen to help prepare all the fixings. Here are Kristi and Vicky munching as they make the garlic mashed potatoes.
All the cousins made it back to the Mansion this year, complete with all of their adorable kiddos that I hadn't seen in ages! This is Johanna, the cutie that just loved to walk around and explore.
She changed out of her Christmas dress into PJ's for the present unwrapping (with a little help from Mom and Dad of course).
The older guys, Cypress and Kale, couldn't wait to tackle the gifts.
Then our annual $10 gift exchange occurred, complete with the action packed 10-minute dice rolling challenge. If you roll doubles, you get to steal a gift without any limits on the number of times something can be stolen. This years hot items: a gift certificate to Sweet Peaks Ice Cream in Missoula, some Made-In-Montana Caramel and a leather lined flask set.
Even little Landon got excited by the dice game.
Johanna loved to find the dice and hold them in both hands so that Landon didn't know where they were.
Occasionally though, Landon and Johanna would find some joint fun in the dice together.
Isn't Landon just adorable!?!
More baby photos because I just couldn't get enough!
The mud pie finished off the evening before a lot of family members went to celebrate christmas with their other-half of the family. The Velin's stuck around though and we all cuddled on the floor upstairs while watching "The Santa Clause" to ring in Christmas.
It had rained all of Christmas Eve but when we woke up on Christmas Day we were greeted with a white wonderland.
Grandma and Owen snuggled by the fire. Poor Owen had been sick all Christmas Eve and didn't really get to participate in the good times. Some stomach bug was grinching up his Christmas!
We gathered around the fire to open up stockings before dining, yet again, in a traditional Christmas fashion.
Eggs Benedict cooked by dad is always the request and is now the expectation of Christmas morning.
Owen was finally feeling well enough to be awake longer than 10 minutes so he got to play with his indoor bowling set....sadly, about a half hour later the vomiting resumed and he was all tuckered out again...
Peyton even got a Christmas treat- "frosty paws" ice cream.
As if we hadn't be blessed enough already, we headed upstairs with just the immediate family and Grandma for our family gift exchange. Kristi ended up with the largest and most unusual looking box this year.
She was pleased to find underneath all that cardboard, a brand new roof rack for her car!
The day after Christmas we decided we had had enough sitting and eating and we were ready to MOVE. So, we headed out to Bear Creek Trail where we wandered through a bright, white and quiet forest.
Peyton and the other pups LOVED the snow!
And, what winter hike would be complete without a snow angel?
The views were breathtaking!
We arrived home and decided to try out Kristi's electric turkey fryer that we had intended on busting out during Thanksgiving but didn't have time (or room) for.
First, we measured out the oil
Then we rubbed the bird down with seasonings.
The fryer then got carried outside to get all warmed up before placing the turkey in it.
It was a LOT of oil! But the nice thing was, the turkey doesn't absorb any of the oil hardly--when we took it out there was just about as much oil in the fryer as we started with!
Dad got it all set outside, complete with a safety net of cardboard to protect against any possible spillage (after all, we had never used this before and you always hear stories about people lighting fires, getting burned or spilling oil everywhere with these things).
Once the oil was hot, we lowered the bird into the fryer.
And 40 minutes later, it was done!
By far the fastest turkey making experience we had ever had.
Perfectly golden brown turkey.
After it all was said and done, we decided to head out a day earlier than planned because of some on-coming winter weather warnings. And, boy, are we glad we did! Our drive through look-out was quite easy--snow flurries with wet roads.
Once we got to Eastern Washington though, it was smooth sailing (until we got to Snoqualamie pass where it was raining SO HARD our wipers couldn't nearly keep up!). But, we relished in the gorgeous sunshine near the gorge and the fact that the following day there was a lot more snow and "emergency driving only" warnings issued for the passes.
We nestled in the next day to the seahawks winning their last regular season game and then set out to clean out and clean up the apartment. Two trips to Goodwill later, we fell much more refreshed and organized in the house.
The next months I'm scheduled to do my Psych rotation at Harborview, followed by Pediatrics at Seattle Children's followed by Family Medicine in Seattle as well. Tom will be taking 4 classes, working as a judicial extern for the supreme court and editing a journal--its a crazy busy schedule but technically one less class than he took last semester!
We're feeling refreshed but glad that we have another few days before it all starts back up again. We're celebrating Christmas with the Glassman's this weekend and I'm nailing down my requests for what I want my schedule to look like in fourth year. It's going to be, yet again, another whirlwind so we're stopping to take a breath and go for as many walks in Magnuson park as we can prior to starting it all up again! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Comments
Post a Comment