Christmas Lights

Last night we drove around the area to look at the Christmas lights, something we do every year.  These were some of the best where I could get a picture.

Merry Christmas!

A Puzzle & Tillie

Susan and I were working on a puzzle last night when Tillie decided she was being ignored. Tillie is not the type of dog to be ignored so she jumped up on the chair next to Susan and climbed up on her back.















She is so funny. She wraps her paws around Susan's neck and lays her head right on top of Susan's face. She would stay there forever if she could. The only problem is that Susan can't breathe.

All the Dogs

My first idea was to get a picture of just the dogs with the Christmas dog. Well, that idea did not last very long. It was warm enough today - almost 40 degrees - to be outside for awhile and the dogs were just going crazy running around the backyard. I could barely keep both of them in one place long enough for Julie to snap this picture.

What a gorgeous day!

Winter Solstice

Today is the Winter Solstice and if you are like Julie and Susan this is a day to celebrate.

















The winter solstice occurs exactly when the axial tilt of a planet's polar hemisphere is farthest away from the star that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt to our star, the Sun, during a solstice is 23° 26', occurring at some moment in time today.

From high latitudes, a hemisphere's winter solstice occurs on the shortest day and longest night of the year, which is why Susan and Julie get so excited. Susan made cookies last night to celebrate that fact that the days will get longer now resulting in more light each day, which she really misses in the winter.

The plate came from Susan's secret Santa at North Star Lodge. It is so cute!

Yakima Valley Museum Shoe Collection

Today my friend Julie and I went to check out David Childs shoe collection on exhibit at the Yakima Valley Museum.

David's ties to Yakima began in 1969 when he moved here from Waterloo, Iowa and began working in the shoe department at the local Nordstrom store.

This picture includes a little over half of the shoes in the collection.

These two shoes are examples of some of the heel shapes on display.
The shoes in the background make the gold heel a little difficult to see, so I added little pink arrows to outline the heel.

How about this Cantilever design?

















This design by Christian Louboutin is a four-colored patent leather platform with an extra high heel worn on Sex and the City.

The oldest shoes on display are from the 1920's. We could not get over how small these shoes are.

This shoe by Stuart Weitzman from 1998 is a Black peau de soie and crystal Seattle Skyline shoe made expressly for the downtown Seattle Nordstrom's grand opening.

Not only did some of the shoes have interesting heel shapes, several of the heels were highly decorated like this pair of Toe Pump from the late 1950's Saks Fifth Avenue. Multicolored strips of fabric are stitched together, with ornate teardrop and Rhinestones creating a Paisley effect.

In addition to the shoes, some very nostalgic ads are on display.

The exhibit remains at the museum through the end of December.

Baby Shower Rattles

Susan and I made cupcakes last night for a baby shower I am attending today for my friend, Katina. I provided her with four different designs and one of her favorites was the baby rattle. The cupcakes are lemon with lemon filling, topped with butter cream frosting. We thought they turned out very cute. You can click on the image for a larger view and then close the image window to return to the blog.

Even though we made 56 cupcakes we tried to decorate each of them differently. The only thing that would have made them perfect was gum drops in colors that matched our frosting.

Ready for Snow

All of the snow we received around Thanksgiving is gone, but we have the backyard ready for some more. We added the dog to our lawn ornaments this year. Both the deer are animated; turning their heads in different directions and the lights on the wheels of the carriage cycle around the spokes so it looks like the wheels are turning. It is very pretty at night, especially when the grass is covered with snow.

First Snow in November

It snowed today for the first time this fall. I love snow, so I am very exicted. It is snowing very lightly, and has been for most of the day, but not much in the way of accumulation. It is still pretty and Tillie loved walking around in the snow.

Turkey Cupcakes

Susan and I made these cupcakes over the weekend and she is taking them to work this morning.

We thought they turned out pretty cute.

More Halloween Pictures

On Halloween, a few days after our party, Radiation Oncology at Northstar had an 80's costume day for Halloween. Susan put together a fantastic Cyndi Lauper costume. It would have been difficult to recognize her, which is the great thing about costumes! Click on the image for a larger view and then click on the X at the top of the photo window. If you to see the photo gallery, scroll down to the bottom of the photo window.

This picture of the bloody footprints on the flour was in our other camera and I forgot about it.

I wanted to include a picture of our Christmas Cactus, in full bloom, with one of the Halloween decorations. Even if it won't bloom during Christmas, it was beautiful and had good timing for our party.

Halloween Party 2011

Susan and I hosted our second annual Halloween party on Saturday evening. We told people they could wear costumes if they wanted and we would give out prizes. The Blues Brothers man won the Starbucks gift card.

Banana Boy won the Dairy Queen gift card.

A few of the outside decorations. It is too bad that the large spider web does not show up better, but at least you can see the spiders.

The luminary bags looked really good when it was dark. There was also a graveyard closer to the front door and an orange porch light.

All evening, this spooky mummy man kept trying to get in the house.

Once again, our guest were treated to a bloody brain to eat.
Even the dogs got dressed up. Toby had on a Happy Halloween t-shirt and Tillie wore this adorable dress. At first, Tillie would not come out of the bedroom after Susan put on her dress, but she seemed to get use to it as the night worn on.

Bruce and Marie drove over from Seattle to join in the fun.

We also offered our guests mummy dip,

spider venom,

eyeballs,

and a skull on which to feast.

Several people did war costumes and I tried to capture as many as I could of them posing with Minnie Mouse who's health care plan is obviously failing.



It was warm enough to go outside without coats. There was a burn ban on, so we could not have a fire, but the kids had fun playing in the yard.

Several spirits were available including several wines, a rummy mummy cocktail, screwed-up screwdrivers, hot apple cider and witches punch.

Guests visiting with each other.

Another Halloween has passed and sadly it is time for everything to be put away, but we sure had a good time.

Art, Brunch and a Corn Maze

On Saturday Susan and I attended a workshop at North Star Lodge titled 'The Art of the Inner Journey'. The speaker was Margaret Carpenter and she was in Yakima to promote her new book of the same name. Both the book and the workshop describe how to work with images of the subconscious mind in order to process emotions and develop positive imagery to better deal with the challenges of life. I am looking forward to reading our copy of her book.

Sunday morning we went to the Yakima Cultural Center in Toppenish to try the brunch at the Heritage Inn Restaurant. Susan noticed in the local event newspaper that this brunch has been voted the best brunch in the valley for three straight years so we had to go see for ourselves. It was very impressive indeed. Not only was the food good but the price was very reasonable.
After eating we went to Union Gap to walk off our breakfast in Schell's massive corn maze. In addition to the corn maze they have a farm animal zoo, hay rides, a mini corn maze for little people, 6 bonfire pits and BBQ's, a pumpkin patch, pumpkin chucker and a haunted house.

In the background of the picture below you can see some of the straw bales for one of the mini mazes.

This maze did have a lot of twists and turns. I took this picture shortly after we started on our trek. We had to go pretty show due to the uneven ground, but we still got to the exit ahead of the average time.

The area is very pretty. We were there right when they opened on Sunday morning so there were still in the process of setting things up for the day, but it would be easy to spend a couple of hours looking at everything.

What a fun weekend!