This past weekend we took advantage of having a friend with a lodge in the Cascade Mtns (Basecamp), and took up a little cross country skiing. It was a lot of fun, and QUITE a workout :) If we lived there permanently, I'd have my New Years resolutions finished in no time. Avery had a lot of fun playing with my friend's daughter in the snow. You can see her in a snow cave in the picture below. She even strapped on some ski's herself, and trudged around a bit.

So, this month it was my turn to leave the "twenty-something" crowd on my journey to old age and, eventually, death. But, to keep things fun for the moment anyway, we celebrated by going out to dinner with some friends. This was the first time sampling sushi for a few of our friends, and they were good sports about it. Leann gagged on her roll, but ultimately managed to keep it under control. Happy 30th to me!

I guess this is what Avery thinks I sound like when we read her stories :)

I know all my stories about Avery lately make me sound like a neglectful parent, but I think the truth is that Avery is cleverly learning the craft of parental manipulation. In any case, here's a new one:

This morning I was reading a book while Avery was variously watching cartoons and playing with toys. Occasionally, she'd come over and try to jump on my head (or something) and I'd shoo her away or try to get her REALLY interested in another toy, etc. So, finally, Avery comes over to me, and as I'm about to suggest that her dolly needs to change her clothes again, Avery says "mommy . . .I miss you." ! Naturally, that did it and we spent the next half hour putting the dolly's clothes on together. (Didn't that put a tear in your eye!). Anna's sales and persuasian skills must be floating around in the gene pool :)

M-I-C-K-E-Y! All the training I'd be doing with Avery paid off when we finally went to Disneyland and she could recognize Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and "princesses" in general. What a fun day. The day started off kind of . . .smelly when Avery threw up in the car on the way there. My mom came to the rescue and bought her a shirt, which was very cute, but Avery did look a little conspicuous when we went to Princess land and literally every other girl under the age of 16 was wearing a princess dress. Avery was a good sport, though, and participated in the dancing nonetheless. There were some changes since the last time I was at Disneyland and I enjoyed going on the revamped Space Mountain, and seeing pictures of Capt. Jack Sparrow plastered on every available surface between New Orleans Square and Tom Sawyers Island. Avery's favorite ride was definitely the new Winnie the Pooh ride by Splash Mtn, followed by climbing through the caves on the island. My favorite was sitting down and eating a pineapple smoothie :)

California here we come!! Or, rather, came and went. Sigh. It was lovely to visit sunny CA for a week and a half . Avery left her little cousins to play with her grown up aunts and uncles, who were arguably the louder and more rambunctious group (!). Example, the picture of Avery running around with Beff. Avery also got to spend some quality family time with her Great-Grandpa Kerr. One of the first days we were there we went to the beach, it was a beautiful day apart from the hurricane-force winds. Please notice the picture of the rainbow in the sea spray (I'm very proud!). Seriously, I think I had forgotten how beautiful the California coast is - no wonder the cost of living is astronomical. For Christmas, the family got a Wii and it was a lot of fun watching my Grandma and Grandpa Cusworth learn how to bowl. Grandpa Bob got a higher score on his first try than I ever did :) I love this picture of Mike playing the Wii because my grandparents are peeking out on either side of him.

We had a really great Christmas in Moscow, ID with the Walker family. All the brothers and associated spouses and kids were there, so it was a lot of fun. Plenty of cousins for Avery to play with. She loved playing all her cousins, but she and Jesi were especially cute as they ran around together, leaving destruction in their wake. As you can see, the family put on a nativity play (the sisters in law were mercifully spared!). We had to keep bribing Avery with candy canes to keep the halo on :) Other fun activities included bowling, building a gingerbread house (I got quite a lesson on physics, fluid dynamics and pressure with that one), and of course, the Christmas morning deluge of presents. So fun!

Avery on the carousel at the FigPickles Toy Emporium. Isn't that a great name?!

This past weekend we all went to Moscow. Mike and his dad went fishing on the Snake river (Mike caught one fish, Monte caught three). Sandy, Avery and I went on a lovely Christmas field trip to Couer d'Alene where we shopped 'till we dropped. Literally, we couldn't even stay awake through the ABC broadcast of "It's a Wonderful Life" that night. We also went on a boat cruise of Christmas lights that made a stop at Santa's house at the North Pole. Avery talked about "Santa's house" for the next couple of days. We had SO much fun we're going back in FIVE days for Christmas :)

Here are some pictures from our Christmas-themed Saturday. We hit the children's museum Santa party that morning and then went with Kyle and Rachael to pick out a Christmas tree that afternoon. That night we went to Mike's Christmas party. It was a fun day, but I was pretty beat by the time it ended :)


Getting zapped by the static ball at the children's museum.














Avery strapped on some "ice skates" and mom and dad helped her skate around. Pretty cool, actually.





















Checking out the wildlife at the tree farm.



















Avery helping Kyle and Rachael pick out the perfect Christmas tree. . . not too big, not too little, not too blue, with branches spaced far enough apart for ideal ornament placing but not too skimpy looking.

Here's a picture of the sunrise this morning. This is one of the perks of it being dark for so much of the day . . .I'm awake when the sun rises :)

This how Avery and I communicate when we're in different parts of the house.

Snowy fun for Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving with Monte, Sandy and Darren - and there was just enough snow for a few trips down the hill. It was COLD, and Mike and Avery lasted longer outdoors than I did :)

Mike's 30th birthday!

For Mike's birthday we hit the town, went to a sushi place, apparently the BEST sushi place in Seattle, according to my Japanese co-worker :) And then to a comedy club called "Giggles." The next night, Sunday,we had some friends over for cake and Mike got a birthday surprise when our friend had his roommate break out of box and do a little striptease. As you can hear from the video, it completely freaked Avery out! At least it was memorable.

Ah, Halloween night. The long-awaited event. As you can see, Avery went as a Geisha girl. A costume that was inspired by Avery playing dress up in my lingerie. I hemmed and sewed my robe (unused for the squeamish) so that it would fit her, colored some wooden chopsticks black, and voila! Happy Halloween.

Avery caught onto the picking candy out from the pot bit really quickly. I don't think she actually ever said "trick or treat" as the older kids usually got to the door and finished this part before she got there. Anyway, she had a lot of fun. And now Mike and I are reaping the benefits :) Who gets the "king size" butterfinger?

Here are some pictures from the church Halloween party and carving pumpkins at home. Avery wore fairy wings to the church party, we preserved the "real" costume for Halloween night :) Avery's favorite game at the party was the cake walk, where the kids all walked in a circle and got a cake if they landed on the right number. She won a few times, but we stopped getting cake (she didn't notice) after awhile.

Avery really liked carving the pumpkins. I should say, she liked watching us carve the pumpkins. But she did scoop out pumpkin seeds, although she got a little creative about where they went after taking them out of the pumpkin. I think there still might be a few in the carpet somewhere. I thought Mike did an awfully nice job on his pumpkin, don't you?

We've been blessed the last couple days with some really beautiful fall weather. Today we went to a pumpkin patch with our friends, the Williams. Avery had a lot of fun going on the hay ride and trying to sit on pumpkins.

The Parliament building

Craigdorroch castle

Butchart Gardens

View from Lt. Governor's home

Parliament at night

Mike and I just got back from our get-away in romantic Victoria, Canada and so here some pictures and quick description of our trip.

We took an early ferry through the San Juan Islands, and arrived in Canada around 12pm. We first went to the Butchart Gardens, which are about halfway between the ferry and the city of Victoria. Luckily , the day was really gorgeous and clear. You can tell from the photos that there was a lot of sunshine (it kept washing out our pictures!). By the way, in some of these pictures I tried to counteract the washing-out effect of the flash by turning it off, and that's why a lot of the pictures are fuzzy (oh well!). We were surprised at how many flowers were still blooming - we thought it would be all bedraggled and wet like it is in Washington :)

After the Gardens, we drove down into Victoria and checked into our B&B, the Fairholme Manor, a renovated Victorian home. We would definitely recommend it to anyone who might plan a trip to Victoria in the near future. (Although, if anyone is going to come up this way , I would also recommend The Walker Manor. It comes with a queen size blow up mattress, your OWN tv, a shared bathroom with the 2 year old resident and a quality breakfast - depending on how tired the hostess is in the morning).

Our B&B was literally next door to the residence of the British Lt. Governor for the island, and the grounds are open to the public. So we explored that a bit, the south side of the house had a beautiful view over the Strait de Juan de Fuca to the Olympic Mtns on the Washington side. That night we ate in downtown Victoria at a recommended restaurant - very yummy. We walked around a bit and saw the Parliament building all lit up, etc.

The next day, to summarize more briefly as I'm writing more than I intended to (!), we went to Craigdorroch Castle (a restored Victorian residence, kind of like Hearst Castle but much smaller) drove around the coast, had tea at a Scottish tea room (Mike had a sandwich and hot chocolate, much more manly than my crumpets and tea!) and then did some souvenir shopping. That night we saw Harry Potter at the IMAX.

The next morning we caught the ferry back and made it to Lake Stevens just in time for "Papa Walker" and "Bama" to get on the road to Moscow. A million thanks to Sandy and Monte for watching Avery while we had some time away! And that's it! I'm having trouble uploading pictures, so I'll try to get some pictures up later. - Sarah