Leavenworth 2013

Grandma and Grandpa blessed our family again this year by giving us another trip to Leavenworth! A couple of days after Christmas we all head out to Smallwood's Harvest and take over their three, sweet, little "cottages". We stay at Apple Blossom Inn, the main hang out where everyone else comes and goes at their leisure. We put together puzzles, drink hot cocoa, watch morning cartoons, played the Wii in the big kid's room (whoever is Toad has to wear the mushroom hat!), read magazines and eat.

Emma also brought along her Christmas present, Luna the hedgehog! We were so excited to meet a real hedgehog. She was pretty scared at first but she warmed up after a while and came out of her prickly ball shape. Pella and Kivi loved holding her in her little flannel sack.

There wasn't really that much snow, but Dada figured out a way to get both Opal and Jasper aquainted with skiing down the little hill we usually sled on. It was mainly ice, but he just held onto them with a luggage strap and walked/jogged behind them. Eben and Kivi skied the little distance down the hill and then walked the skis back up. Pella enjoyed sledding and Berg stayed warm inside with cousins and Aunty Tonya.

One of the more memorable things we did was drive into Leavenworth proper and take a walk along the ice with Grandma and Grandpa. All of the paths were covered with about 3 inches of ice. After we made a complete loop along the river and back up through the town we decided to wait for Dada to get the van so we wouldn't have to walk down the extremely steep hill where we had parked, but Dada never came to get us. We realized he was stuck and couldn't get the van back up the steep hill. So we all walked, very slowly, down the treacherously slippery hill to see if sitting in the van would give the van more traction. Nope. So, we took the same, very icy, slow walk back along the river and up through town because we couldn't even walk up the steep hill which we were trying to drive. Uncle Chris came to the rescue and brought us chains while we had lunch at the ginger-bread house looking restaurant, (which for a cute, kid-friendly looking place has nothing kid-friendly to eat except cookies and we didn't get those). However, the chains worked, we were able to wait in a warm place, and get back to our Inn.

 The whole Johnson clan posing for the traditional Leavenworth picture.