Chase and I didn't travel home for Christmas this year. We were very sad about not getting to take part in all of the fun Christmas get togethers that our families had. However, we did have a very nice and relaxing Christmas here in Richland.
Our Christmas celebrations started off with a lovely party thrown by a coworker on Saturday night. We had some great homebrew and good food! I made these SkinnyTaste Red Velvet Rudolph Cupcakes. I'm sure most of you are aware, but I am OBSESSED with this website. Almost everything I cook is off of her website. Thank you to Karen Stephens for introducing me!
We also had a nice Christmas dinner with Kit and Kelsey on Sunday night! Kit and Kelsey cooked an awesome ham as well as some roasted veggies; and Chase and I brought some stuffing (also skinnytaste), bread and roasted butternut squash! Here is the spread! It was a fun evening of food, friends and games! They also got us the coolest Christmas present! A picture of the Royals stadium and some napkins Kelsey had sewn. So nice of them. Thanks guys!
The weather was beautiful on Christmas Eve. I didn't have to work that day and Chase got off work at 12 PM. He called me on his way home and was so excited about how clear it was out and wanted to go up to Badger Mtn. I frantically started coloring the Flat Stanley that we have for my second cousin Daniel so that we could take him along on the adventure as well!
Chase also had me open one of my Christmas presents early as well. It was a Gorillapod for the camera! It is a flexible tripod for the camera. We can take it hiking and wrap it around tree branches or rocks or whatever to get the pictures we want! I'm very excited to take it out!
The clarity of the sno-capped Blue Mountains in the distance was the main reason we wanted to head up to Badger. It is very rare to be able to see the Blue Mountains from the Tri-Cities. We get a lot of fog here in the winter and a lot of smoke in the summer/fall from all the wildfires. It is very hazy on a regular basis here which I was not anticipating! I have a feeling that the spring time is the most clear season so I'm excited for that.
Once we got to the top of Badger we headed over to the other side to look towards the west. We had been told that you can see Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier on a clear day. Sure enough we could see Mt. Hood (I didn't get a good picture) and either Mt. Adams or Mt. Rainier. We think its Rainier, but we really aren't sure...
The picture quality isn't so good since you can still barely see the mountain! It is much more clear in person, but the pictures aren't too bad considering that huge mountain is about 200 miles away.
We had to get a few pictures with Flat Stanley too! It took me over an hour to color Flat Stanley. We were supposed to make him look like someone from our region. We associate the Northwest with lots of beautiful hiking, so I dressed him up as a hiker complete with a backpack. It took awhile because of course we had no crayons and it took me awhile to find some markers...also, I'm not very artsy. I'm working on it though...I've been going to a pottery class and sewing a lot as well (more to come later)!
Chase manned the camera on the way down and he got these awesome pictures of the White Bluffs. They are across the river from our house. You can ALMOST see our house in the photo. It is just to the bottom right of the photo. I started to try and actually zoom in on our house, but as you can see it wasn't super warm. The sun was setting at this point and it was super windy up there! Glad I had my buff to cover my ears!
We cooked some delicious homemade creamy tomato basil soup for dinner and ate the remainder of the bread I had made earlier! We also enjoyed the spiced wine that I had purchased in Leavenworth a few weeks ago. I took some pictures of the bottle by the tree because it was so cool! I also had a little photo shoot with our cats by the tree. They loved the Christmas tree. I can't believe it didn't get knocked down this year!
*warning: I'm about to post a lot of pictures of our cats. I apologize, but at least I don't do it often
Christmas morning we got up and had chorizo breakfast burritos! Chase's favorite. With the help of Kelsey, I made us all some new stockings. I think they turned out pretty good if I say so myself! I'll throw a phone picture in there so you can see them close up! I'm pretty proud of them!
We were SO excited for the kitties to open their stockings. As you may have noticed in the picture above, they had already tried to get into their stockings the night before. We actually had to take them down. What were were thinking putting cat nip in their stockings while hanging. Oh well. It was fun. We found a Catnip Stoogie at the store and Chase just HAD to get it for the cats. We only got one and also got a light up ball for them. In retrospect, we should have gotten two of the catnip stoogies. I've never seen them react so fast to catnip like this. Enjoy:
Apparently Bo is harder to photograph than Miles because not as many of the ones of her turned out. Probably because she was hiding under the tree the whole time. She did obviously enjoy her catnip stoogie though. :)
Chase and I got each other surprise presents this year. Mine were much more of a surprise than Chase's were because he had already told me a few things he wanted and they already reached our limit! Chase got a new pair of hiking pants, a Sporting KC jersey and a Sporting KC soccer ball AND a new K-State sweatshirt! I was able to find some awesome deals! Chase got me the tripod for the camera, a phone attachment for it, a waterproof phone case for hiking and a gift card to a local winery. I'm excited to go use that! It was a great Christmas! Our first one as a married couple and our first one on our own. It was relaxing, but we are VERY excited to see our families in Jan and Feb. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
