Dueck's Roost

And for our final post of 2016, a fun winter hike!  I'm sort of cheating putting this in December (as it actually took place on New Years Day), but since it was part of our Christmas Break, I figure it works.  This was actually one of my favorite hikes!! We've done Twin Falls ( https://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/twin-falls-state-park ) many many times before, and it's always a nice family hike, but being out there in the snow was kinda awesome! The scenery was pretty fantastic, and it was just a more leisurely, unique experience than typical.  The only down side was that we slipped and fell A LOT. Which was quite fun, but also somewhat painful;).  Group shot. With Timmerman;).  I'm not sure all these pictures really need an explanation, so I think I'll just let them speak for themselves ...  Yep! It was pretty gorgeous and most of the photo credit goes to Porter Clarence Timmerman!! ...

As a fun Christmas present, we were lucky enough to have a visit from our cousin/other brother--Porter Clarence Timmerman himself!;) We love when this awesome guy visits.  We started off with some yummy BBQ, played lots of Cosmic Encounters ...  Enjoyed some fluffy white snow (obviously pretty tiny flakes, since you can't really even see them in the picture), played a video game or two in the gameroom ...  Did some climbing at the gym ...  Attended a Thunderbirds hockey game (where there was a partial power outage and spectators shared a little light with their cell phones) ... (we sure do love us some hockey!) Squeezed in a holiday party with the Stuckis, Manjares, and Sorensons ... (in addition to charades, we had some jokes, a little music, and quite a bit of ping pong) And finished off the year with a church youth New Years Eve dance--Kevin and I chaperoned and the Porter's had a great time dancing and being crazy wi...

I decided to include this here, since the next couple of posts cross over just a bit into January.  To (sorta) finish off December we have ...  Straight No Chaser Concert!! (which was super awesome) And James Leavenworth snowboarding trip (thanks to our good friends Kai & Stein).

Before we knew it, it was Christmas Eve!  It was actually our first without extended family around, which in the beginning was a little sad but it turned out to be a really nice day.  We started off with a friendly family basketball game down at the church-- man, did I feel out of shape! Then had a nice simple meal together. Before playing with a new gift from Auntie Heidi--the game Big Mouth!! At first we put the mouth pieces in wrong, which was really quite painful. Finally, we opened our Christmas Eve gifts Including this super cool one from Grandma Loo!! The next morning, we relaxed around the house and enjoyed each others company. Another great Christmas! Can't think of a better way to celebrate such an important day.

Since Grandma Loo was leaving for the actual holiday, our next bit of excitement was an early family Christmas party.  We had a delicious meal with Grandma, Jill, Eric, and the cousins. Played our traditional Minute to Win It games. Which were entertaining as always! And finished off with a bit of gift giving. We sure do love being with our family!

Next up, a fun outing to downtown Seattle! We rode the light rail. Ate some (sorta) yummy Mexican food. Checked out the Gingerbread Village display at the Sheraton Hotel (we skipped the line this year and just peeked from the side--learned our lesson a couple years back). And then headed over to Game Works for the rest of the day.  Where we played games to our hearts desire (the PacMan table was one of our favorites). And really, they had just about every game you can imagine.  After at least a few hours of games and fun, we re-boarded the light rail and headed home (after a quick stop at Jimmy Johns)