Road Trip to Leavenworth

The day After Thanksgiving and we headed over the mountains to play in the snow. Stevens pass was beautiful... not as much snow as we had hoped for... but just enough that was it so pretty and the roads were not bad. One of the best things is that half way up the mountain the cell phone service really starts to get bad... and the daughters attitude starts to get a lot better :) I can and do take her phone away from her.. but then she is mad at me and I get all that.. but when we go on road trips where the phones do not work.. the kids just seem to shift into a lot better moods only a few minutes after their phones die. Yesterday was no exception.... about 10 minutes after we lost service we all really started having some fun.

Headed up icicle road which follows the river... there are lots of camp grounds and a bunch of snow..... not enough that we have to worry about getting stuck or anything.. but just enough to have a lot of fun and to make everything beautiful. I have memories from when I was very little of camping up here with my grandparents.. not really clear ones.. but more feelings :) I do remember that when grandpa would catch fish in the river that they would get frozen in the 1/2 gallon milk cartons. I also think there are some hot springs around here.. but have no clue as to where... going to have to remember to talk to my cousin about this.

Anyway.. we attempted to build a snowman... but the snow was not wet enough for that .. we were lucky to get some handfuls of snow so there could be a little sort of mock snowball fight. I love being the one holding the camera.. they all know snow is not good for a camera so I pretty much was safe. Dave and Missy got into it... wish I was better at taking action shots but with laughing so hard and then the snow being so dry that when it was thrown it ended up looking like a cloud... I did not get too many good pictures of that. We did find a couple of big parking lot areas and we had some fun with the jeep in the snow.. doing doughnuts... round and round we went...the older I get the less my tummy likes those... but they were fun.. again.. I tried taking pictures and videos.. lol after the fact I know I should have gotten out of the car to attempt that...no way I could hold anything still while in the car and laughing.

After we were done playing in the snow we headed into the town of Leavenworth... found this great pizza place... Rudloof's I did not take too many pictures because I was really hungry... but the pizza slices were so huge that one would have been plenty. We got the crust with the cheese in it... it was really good.. I will go back there for sure. By now it is dark out and the whole town is lite up with Christmas lights.. there is Christmas music playing from the gazabo in the town center and kids sledding down the hill.... they have tents set up and are having a craft fair... we bundled up and heat out. First thing Missy saw was the Starbucks.. so our first stop... Black and white peppermint mocha with whip.

We then wandered around in the snow under the lights, watched the kids sledding for awhile and checked out the tents... then wandered up and down the streets going in and out of the shops. Before we left we sure to stop in at Rocky Mountain Chocolate for a treat. It was the kind of night were everyone stops and talks to everyone.. where people are paying attention and if you stop to take a photo everyone stops for you.... everyone was friendly and thoughtful and smiling and happy. It was my first experience walking around Leavenworth and I did love it :)

Started home about 8... it was snowing pretty good.. roads were a bit more slippery on the way home but not too horrible... and the best part was that there was really no traffic.. which is the scariest part for me.... some people really should not drive in snow no matter what. Lucky for us..... they all stayed home last night. Was a wonderful day all the way around!

~Michelle