My Birthday

My birthday always rocks and this year was no different.
The difference this year was that Ethan surprised me big time with an awesome cake. I don't know how or why, but our family is obsessed with pomegranites. Its started in Provo when we could buy them at Buy Low for like 80 cents a piece (which is CRAZY!!!!). I would buy like 5 at a time, sit for literally 20 minutes pealing all of them, and then we would just inhale all the delicious tiny seeds one glorious, messy handful at a time. It is heaven.
Well they aren't super cheap here and we just missed pomegranate season in AZ, so we were feeling pomegranate deprived without even knowing it. Enter my birthday.
Kids were sick so we had to go to church at different times and when Kelsey and I got home from church, we walked into this....

 And in the center of the table was ......

 THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CAKE IN THE WORLD!!!!!

 It even had layers. He worked so hard on it and did such an amazing job. Needless to say, we only had cake for dinner and all fought over the seeds. There were certain little people, whose names  I will change for discretion, lets call them  Chelsey and Hadison, kept trying to pick the seeds off the cake! I got so territorial! "Its mine!" I kept yelling and then they would laugh like I was joking. I wasn't. I wasn't joking! Back away from the cake my little friends.

Ethan also surprised me the night of my birthday by having a babysitter all lined up, having an Uber pick me up and I met him for a SUPER fancy dinner at Daniels Boiler. Daniels is super expensive, but apparently for Christmas, amazon gave Ethan a 50 dollar gift card. That bought us like one half of a plate, but it was still fun to pretend that we were super fancy as we shared our meat and potatoes. It was so much fun. the waiter found out it was my birthday and even brought me a surprise dessert on the house!! That has never happened to me! I felt so big city and cool. 
When I showed up, Ethan was dressed up in a bow tie! It was so cute!

 It was such a fun birthday week, but it was my favorite to pretend that we were cooler than we actually are. I loved that.

Christmas Time

We had a really good Christmas season. We spent a lot of time with friends and did the #lighttheworld advent set up by the church which was a perfect addition to our Christmas traditions. It was the first advent that I was legitimately excited about. What a better way to spend December than in acts of service. It was perfect.

We went to Snowflake Lane in Bellevue which just made us all miss Disneyland

We walked around the Botanical Gardens in Bellevue and looked at lights which ended up being like a 400 meter worth so good thing we went on a free night

We walked around downtown looking at displays including a HP gingerbread house display. This was super awesome, but rumor has it that some people were standing in line for up to TWO HOURS!!! Ridiculous!! We only waited about 10 minutes other wise we would have gone home. but all that aside, these houses were INSANE!!!

Andy visited us for about 36 hours but it was so refreshing to have him here. He literally played with the girls for about 30 hours and then we ran to look at the troll under the bridge and the Ballard Locks. Lucky for Andy, it POURED the whole time he was here but he was brave and ventured out with a smile on his face. It was SO good to have him here. Maybe next time he comes it will be sunny. No promises. I hear the sun doesn't come out until like July

 I really loved how the Christmas decorations looked this year. We keep saying that one day we will get a bigger tree but I don't know if we ever will. We kind of love our tiny tree now. I literally can hug it, but I love it

One of our #lighttheworld service activities was to hang the Christmas lights up for Ethan. It was very simple and I can't say that it changed his day but he had been meaning to hang them up for weeks and just never had time so Kelsey and I decided to surprise him. Not gonna lie, it was one of the funnest things I have ever done with Kelsey. It was hilarious as we were hanging from the house posts trying to get these lights around them with just a chair and her four year old arms. A neighbor even stopped to laugh at us. It was a lot of fun. Well, we got all the lights up and were really proud to surprise Ethan. We plugged them in and TA DAH!!! The middle strand didn't work. I burst out laughing so hard. I didn't fix it all winter so we always had a missing strand. Sometimes it would kick on but most of the time it didn't. It was kind of hilarious.

One day the fog was creeping up over the houses and it looked like the fog in Hunger Games. It was fun to watch it roll in.

The girls ALWAYS want to eat our food. It is a total no for me but Ethan gives in a little easier. I have to say though, I'm glad he did becasue these pictures turned out awesome (and they ate tons of soup so win win)

Cute right?!

Cute right?!

The sun came out so we ran out

Bainbridge Island

One rainy Saturday we had nothing to do so we decided to hop on a Ferry and head to Bainbridge Island. It was something we wanted to do at one point and we figured this was as good a time as any. We left around 10 and planned to be home around 3:30.

We left in a such a hurry. I grabbed a few snacks, packed the girls some clothes, and we were able to catch the 10:30 ferry. Getting on the ferry was exciting and smooth. I-90 essentially ends at the ferry dock and I've never been on a ferry so it was fun to drive up onto it and then go up onto the deck. Its scary for me, but I love doing new things. It makes me feel much cooler than I actually am.

The ride over was about 35 minutes and luckily the rain had stopped so we were able to go out on the deck more comfortably.

Once we got to the island we actually drove to a little town called Paulsbo. It is a little Norwegian looking town (because I would know) right on the coast of whatever body of water they are on. To be totally honest, I never know what water Seattle and its surrounding areas are touching. I know there is the Sound and I know there is the coast, but we are not on the coast and there are so many inlets and things that I get super confused. Its all really pretty though.
This town was really cute though. It was all decked out for Christmas and not very crowded. There was a little Santa house where Santa sat and you could go inside and sit on his lap. Best part: no line! He literally just sat in this little shack in the middle of the sidewalk for people to walk in and out of. It was awesome. There was also a horse drawn sleigh free of charge and trees everywhere. We had so much fun.
We went into this bakery that served doughnuts the size of my face and then walked along the water before the rain came.

There was a cool walk around the "lake" but the stairs all led to the water. It was kind of creepy

 

I hate doughnuts and I am never tempted by them. they just destroy my stomach and I am over feeling terrible. However, we bought this and Ethan was like, "Cami, you HAVE to try this." I am not one to exaggerate, so you know how serious I am when I say that this hands down, was literally THE BEST doughnut in the whole world. It was like doughy crack topped with gold sprinkled with rainbows and happiness. It was amazing. I mean, yes it still destroyed my stomach almost instantly so I couldn't have a ton, but it was worth every ounce of discomfort.

 

After Paulsbo, we headed over to a really fun beach and threw some rocks in the water. On our way back to the car, there was a GIANT puddle that I knew was going to be trouble. Sure enough, before I could even say stop, the girls were in the middle of this puddle. "Don't worry. they have their boots on," says Ethan. Not 10 minutes later, Madison face plants and instead of standing back up, tries to SWIM her way out of this puddle. Naturally Kelsey thought that was hilarious and started doing cannon balls. Don't get me wrong, it was hilarious and they were having a blast, but it was literally 40 degrees outside!! I don't remember why, but I did have dry clothes in the trunk (including shoes) but if we didn't have those we would have been toast!!

Madison was getting so hyper! It was hilarious

Around 3, we decided to head back so that we wouldn't be late for the 3:45 ferry and this is where all the fun started. We waited in line to board the ferry for 2.5 hours!! We got in line at 3:15 for the 3:45 ferry and didn't get on a ferry until 5:45!! It was insane. The poor workers kept apologizing explaining that a couple ferry's had emergency's so they had to leave early etc. but it was awful. Luckily, we had a few snacks and since you park and wait for the ferry, the girls were able to get out of the car and run around. It was nuts. Had we known we would have driven all the way around because it would have taken just as long.
We bought some tots at the cafeteria to hold the girls over once we finally got on board and seeing Seattle all lit up almost made it  worth it.
We are not anxious to get on the ferry any time soon, but we had such a great day. That is something we definitely will want to show people when they come and visit.