This past weekend.....

Hello everyone!

How has your weekend been? Mine has been hectic, but in a wonderful way, if you know what I mean. We had a birthday party for a very sweet friend of mine, and almost all of the 35ish people were crammed into our front room singing and playing music.

 

We had various instruments, Guitars, Penny whistles, Violins, an Accordion, a Bass, 

a Cajon, a Melodica, and a Tambourine. It was really really fun.

Kind of hectic finding a song we all knew and could all play in, and that was in the

 vocalist's ranges. =)

And then today I went out with some other friends to go walk around in Old Snohomish while our moms had their monthly lunch/catch-up talk.

We saw this on one of the bridges, 

 So we went to investigate. It's a house or some type of shack built under the railroad tracks.

                                     I decided that we really need to do a photo-shoot on the tracks. The tracks are disconnected, so there's no danger of trains coming, which is nice.

This is Gracie (The other one) from over at Gracie's Tasties

I love her website and cooking, it's soo de-lish-ous. I approve of it very much.

But in this picture, her sister Anna and I were going to walk all the way out into the middle of the railroad tracks to go down the ladder into the house. But she's smart and said that since the moms had said NOT to get arrested (I kid thee not!) we should wait until next time. So she persuaded us to wait. 

                                            Here's a herd of Herefords grazing in the field that we could see from on top of the bridge.

                             A fun thing about the streets of old Snohomish is that there are all of these old clocks everywhere.

 

 Then we went here for pie-before-lunch. Right after diagonally jay walking. Such rebels. =]

It was a bit of a wait, but it was worth it. I got Strawberry-Rhubarb, Anna got Cherry, and the other Gracie got Raspberry. We all agreed the Raspberry was the best.

 Afterwards we went here for our lunch, it was wonderful. These people make THE best BLTC ever. 

They toast sourdough, then layer tomatoes, caramelized onions, bacon, Provolone cheese, and mayo on it, then I think they toast it again very lightly. It is the best sandwich I've ever had in my life.

 And they include a pickle on the side, and their pickles are beautiful. They have a lovely crunch and are *slightly* spicy and just the right level of salt and sour.

We ate our lunch in this charming gazebo. (In case you were wondering...)

 And this week is actually Hanukkah, which we celebrate, even though we are not Jewish. We celebrate Christmas somewhat, but our family prefers Hanukkah. 

Tonight us kids exchanged gifts, and my little sister Emmy got some new lipstick. She's a budding beautician. I just know it.

And this is what I got. Isn't she just BEAUTIFUL????? It cuts everything like butter. I love it. I have a thing for sharp kitchen knives, I'm going to have so much fun cooking with it!

What in your your past week has been wonderful? Or at least nice?

 I hope that this next one will be filled with God's blessing upon you!

Happy Hanukkah!

~Gracie

Mount Pilchuck hike!!!!

Hello My Dear Readers!

Ok, so we have a mountain near us that's REALLY fun to hike, Mount Pilchuck. We try to hike it annually, but we missed a couple of years, so last Wednesday we got some friends and hiked it! It was really fun, as a few of our friends have never hiked it before.

                                                 A pika

                                                                     Isn't it Beautiful??

                                                           This is probably my favorite pic of all.

                                      That arrow is where we're headed.

                                                       We haven't even started hiking yet!

                                                         The ride up.

It was sooo incredibly beautiful. I love the woods. When ever I go through one I can just see that God loves beauty.

Love,

~Gracie

Burns and Camping

Whew! This week has been busy! We decided to go camping at Kayak Point to celebrate my younger brother's birthday. (Joshy) It's right at Puget sound, and we went swimming, and bumped the volleyball around, and pulled drift wood into the water and played on that, and some friends came over and we played and swam with them, and looked for crabs, and I got sunburned. Like always. Ya' see, every time we go camping/swimming, I always think, "Oh I burned last time, I probably won't this time. Besides, now I've got a tan, (HAH! if you can call it that...) and tans don't burn" and lo and behold, I burn. Because of my English heritage, I have very fair skin, and fair skin burns easily. So, yeah, I fried the back of my arms and shoulders. Loads of fun. It wasn't that bad compared to a burn I once got though, that burn was so bad I still have scars from it. I found out though, that if you put a infusion of Yarrow, Comfrey, Marshmallow root and Plantain on it it helps it heal WAY faster than it would normally. Which is good to know. =D


 Our Raspberries are ripe, this morning I went and got some.

                                                   A Golden Raspberry, now you see it....

                                                         ..And now you don't! Huh, wonder where it could've gone.Of course I didn't have anything to do with it's disappearance....=)

                                                              Here's some of our family eating breakfast.

I don't remember what they were doing here...

Isn't she CUTE?!?!?

Here's a pic of our Yurt.

 

This pic I took through the lens of my mom's sunglasses.

                                                      Here's the inside of our yurt.

Can you see the crab? That one's pretty small, maybe 1 inch.

Here's a little green cricket Chasen found on his leg.

 

 The Dock.

 Outside of our yurt.

So it was really fun overall, except for the burns. And I had made some marshmallows for the trip but we ended up forgetting them. So today I decided I would toast one. With a fork. On the stove. It went very well, I grabbed the gooey white lump of deliciousness with my fingers, right after it came off the stove. But I forgot the tines of the fork were still hot, and I saw marshmallow sticking to it, so being a genius, I popped it in my mouth and discovered a new meaning for the term 'hot lips'. So I've been carrying an ice cube around in my mouth and trying to play frisbee with my brothers, and it's been, um, interesting=). I should probably go and get another ice cube now, 

Blessings,

~Gracie