January Birthdays

January is a double birthday month in this family.  Scott's birthday was on the 8th and Gabby's is on the 29th.  Scott was sick on his birthday, so we never really got to celebrate.  Gabby's birthday is coming up on Friday, but she will be performing in the school musical.  So, we decided to celebrate both of their birthdays tonight by going out to dinner at El Sarape in Olympia.   I'm not sure how, but Gabby managed to eat an entire 12 inch burrito AND a giant plate of sopapillas!  Happy birthday to two of my favorite people in the world!

Can't believe she is turning 17!

Look how big that plate is!

Happy New Year 2016

 

Winter Break & Corey Update

Corey's winter break will officially end tomorrow, but she headed back to Pullman today.  We sure enjoyed having her home these last three weeks.  We did lots of fun things:  saw the new Star Wars movie, ate at Saigon Rendezvous (her favorite restaurant!), went snowshoeing, played dominoes & card games, made yummy spring rolls, went bowling, and visited with friends and family.  We also had a few not so fun things: she had her wisdom teeth pulled, Scott got really sick (and it's still lingering), and I hurt my back twice in the last week!  I'm glad that she was able to rest & recuperate as last semester was really rough for her.  She still managed to get really great grades & kept a smile on her face through it all.  She's excited to be officially done with biology classes so that she has time to take a couple of history classes this semester.  I know she will do great, and I hope to get more photos of her this semester since she should have a little more time as one of her jobs has ended.

I think she was mad because Gabby ate something of hers?

We didn't get much, but it did snow one day and the girls went out to play..

Channeling their Asian side & rolling spring rolls.

Hanging out with her best buddy.

Corey & Scott both a little bit miserable. 

Snowshoeing with the Gattons on Mt. Rainier

This morning Corey & I went snowshoeing with Jerry & Brenda on Mt. Rainier.  Poor Scott was home sick, and Gabby was busy working on a project for school.   Last year we hardly got any snow, but we've had record snowfalls already this season, so we were excited to get out & enjoy it.  Luckily, the sun was out & we had beautiful views of the mountain.  We had a bit of a rough start because we weren't quite sure where we were going, and ended up climbing a very steep hill with Jerry in the lead, making a trail for us.  About 2/3 of the way up we decided to call it quits because we just couldn't climb any more!  We decided it was way too steep to walk down, so we slid down on our butts, which ended up being a lot of fun, even though it was a little painful in spots.  After we got to the bottom we noticed a real trail that went down to Narada Falls.  We decided to check it out, and it was worth the effort.  The falls were beautiful, all covered in ice.  I'm glad that we got to go on our first of hopefully many snowy adventures this year!

Ready to go!

Brenda & Jerry

The hill we climbed.

Selfie from where we turned around.  You can see how high we climbed by the size of the building below us.

Not sure what Corey was pointing at?  This is where we turned around.  It looks like we were pretty close to the top, but it was quite a ways further. 

Jerry is almost standing straight up, that's how steep that hill was!

Beautiful Narada Falls

 

Corey munching on an icicle.

 

One last shot of  Mount Rainier!