December Rain

2013 ended up being the driest year we have experienced in Washington State, although, neither one of us would call it a dry year (after living so long in Phoenix, how could you?).  Watching the weather portion of the news last night, they reported that Seattle received 5" under our normal for the entire year.  However, since 2012 was the 7th wettest year on record, we figure we are still at average, or above average -- generally speaking.  Lucky for us, everything is still green and lush.  Jared thinks we'll "pay" for the dry year, but Kristina thinks we already have.  :)

December followed suit for us in Woodinville.  Our rain total was 3.39" when the reported average was 5.43".  However, this did not keep the fireworks from going off last night. As is typical for the area of Woodinville that we live in, fireworks were going off until the early morning hours and the fireworks didn't seem to cause any problems with fire in the area -- a testament of how it is still pretty wet around here.

Good-bye 2013 and Welcome 2014!

Day After Christmas Hike -- Twin Falls

The day after Christmas was dry, but a bit foggy in Woodinville.  We never did escape the fog on Christmas Day, so we decided to try and find a hike where there was less fog for the day after Christmas.  Jared decided on the Twin Falls Trailhead in Ollalie State Park.  It is a very accessible trailhead (not far from Seattle at all), but we decided since it was only in the mid-30's that not many people would be hiking.  Well, there were a fair number of people and dogs on the trail after all, but it wasn't overly packed.  We definitely wouldn't want to hit it on a summer day.

Since there are waterfalls involved, a river needs to be included as well.  In this case, we got to check out the Upper Snoqualmie Watershed.  There is supposed to be some good fly fishing in this area, so we took some pictures of the map so we can check it out later in the spring.

Here was a pretty pool of clear water.  We could imagine that it might be a pretty decent swimming hole on a nice day.

We couldn't get any closer to this Fir tree, but just trust us when we say it was HUGE!  It is always amazing to see these BIG, OLD trees!

The hike to the waterfalls was actually really fast -- especially when you have a high speed dog leading the way.  The round-trip hike was only 3 miles, so we were at the top in no time whatsoever.  It was a nice view and really picturesque waterfall.  Lots of really nice pools at the bottom of each of the falls.

If you look closely, you can tell that the sun did come out, but it was mostly blocked by the mountains on this hike.  Having a dry day was more important than having full sun...while the hike was chilly in the beginning, once you start hiking up, you warm up in no time.  It was quite funny to see how many dogs on the trails had sweaters on to keep warm...

However, not our dog...she went swimming -- several times.  We took her down to the river so she could get a drink and she did a complete body immersion every time.  She made us shiver by just watching her dunk her complete body.  Neither one of us were brave enough to test the water, but since it was only 37 degrees (air temperature), you know that water was cold.  She was perfectly happy though -- it was a good day for her because she not only go to go hiking, but she went swimming!

Making Cinnamon Rolls

After we finished up opening presents, Kristina got right to work on creating some cinnamon rolls.  She had made the dough the day before, so it was just waiting for her in the refrigerator.

Here she is rolling the dough out.  Since it was in the refrigerator, it was a bit springy, but she eventually go it all rolled out into a nice rectangle.

After getting the dough rolled out, the next step is BUTTER.  To get that ooey, gooey cinnamon roll, you will need a lot of butter.  This is not a low calorie item, this is that once in a while splurge item.

Cinnamon and sugar mixture is next -- and again, you will need a lot to get the ooey, gooey cinnamon roll!

We both love raisins, so Kristina always makes at least one pan with lots of raisins for us.

Now it is time for the roll...it is a somewhat tedious job because you need to make sure it stays tight and you want to try and keep as much of your "fillings" inside the roll.  It takes a bit of patience, but the end result is one long log.

Next she sliced them up and placed them into buttered pans.  They rise a bit longer on the counter while you make the other pans, and this is how they look prior to going into the oven.  You don't want to crowd them too much otherwise they won't bake through completely and you don't want raw dough!

Here's the finished product...and boy they are good!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  We had a great Christmas morning; we had no agenda or schedule to do anything, it was just a nice day to enjoy.  Here is a shot of the Christmas tree all lit up with packages ready to go.

Here's a nice fireplace shot...we spend a lot of time in front of the fireplace enjoying the warmth and just relaxing.  We always joke about how re-doing the fireplace was the best money we ever spent.  :)

Indy's stocking was overflowing with gifts from Santa.  She woke up bright and early on Christmas morning -- just like a little kid would have done.  And as you can see from the photos below, she was ready to get things started!

There were definitely some items of interest in that stocking of hers.  She started checking it out immediately, and ultimately had that look, "Well, what are we waiting for?".

As you can see Santa spoiled Indy.  We think she had a pretty good Christmas too.  She hadn't even opened her presents from under the tree yet...and just look at that smile!

First Snow in the Lowlands of 2013

Last winter we were lucky (in our opinion), we didn't get any snow in the lowlands.  There was plenty of snow in the mountains, but as far as the general Seattle area, we had no accumulations.  That being said, we had plenty of snow our past winter seasons, so it was a nice change.

Plus, Kristina's workplace is at the top of a great big hill that is never plowed, or treated in any way.  And as far as the roads in general, since we live out in rural Woodinville, we are often the last to get roads plowed, if ever.

However, we woke up this morning, there was a decent amount of accumulation at our house.  These pictures were taken when it wasn't quite done yet.  In the end, it looked like we ended up with 2-3" of snow. The rain came in shortly afterwards and melted a lot of it.  When it was all said and done, we had about 0.9" of precipitation in our rain gauge on the back deck.

This is a hot from the back door looking over the yard.  

Our back door looking towards the pathway to the trail...you can see Indy footprints already in the snow. She doesn't at all mind the snow.

Looking at the sky, you could tell that more snow would be coming...

It also made for a slow morning.  We had to let the cars warm up a bit and brush the snow off them.  Lucky for us, there was no ice underneath and it was a pretty quick thaw.

Looking toward the mailbox in the cul de sac.  The trees always looks so wintry when it snows.  But you can tell it didn't snow too much because there are still pieces of grass poking through the snow.

By the time Kristina got home on Friday, a lot of it had melted into slush.  We weren't sure that the weather would do, so she went ahead and shoveled the entire driveway and all of the walkways!  What a wife!  By the time we woke up Saturday morning, most of the snow was gone -- only a few piles of snow remained and they were melting.

November Rain

November rain totals were 4.34" for us in Woodinville.  This was less rain than we have experienced for past Novembers in Woodinville.  Weather.com tells us that typically we receive almost 6", so our gut feeling was right.  We're not complaining though -- everything is still green, except for the trees that have lost all of their leaves.  Overall, things seem pretty lush.  Time will only tell what kind of winter we have...

Our Pileated Woodpecker

We are lucky enough to have at least two Pileated Woodpeckers frequent out backyard, but up until now it has been nearly impossible to snap a photo of one. However, they must have been feeling generous around Thanksgiving time, or really hungry, because this time when we went out, they didn't fly off as soon as we opened the back door.

We often refer to the Pileated Woodpeckers as pterodactyl because they are so large in size.  You can kind of get a sense of it in this photo -- look how he/she is large enough that the bird feeder tilts, and after he/she leaves, the bird feeder sways for quite some time.  They really enjoy the suet that we put out for them.

Here is it after it bit off a chunk of suet; if you look closely, you can see it has a chunk in its mouth.

A nice side shot of the woodpecker...

And this shot shows off the brilliant red head -- it definitely catches your eye when looking out in the backyard.  Many times it is the red that makes me look again.

Harp Parents

After Thanksgiving, we had through Sunday to enjoy our time off with Mom and Dad Harp.  On Friday, we decided to head up north to Chuckanut Drive on the coast near Bellingham.  It was a decent day, not overly sunny, but not raining either, and not too cold.  We stopped at The Oyster Bar just as you start up Chuckanut Drive to have lunch.  After that, we simply drove the rest of the road, did some shopping in a gift shop near Bellingham, and then looped around back home.

 

On Saturday, we went to Molbaks, then lunch at The Commons, ran some errands, and went to dinner at Le Grand Bistro Americain.  The dogs sat at home and watched squirrels!

On Sunday, we relaxed, watched some movies, and cooked up a killer steak dinner at home!

 

The weather started to turn a little more wintery Sunday afternoon, and we wondered if Mom and Dad would be able to make it over the passes Monday morning.  Fortunately, the weather wasn't quite as bad as they had predicted and the folks headed out and made it home safely!

 

Thanksgiving Day

Mom and Dad Harp arrived last night, and after getting settled in with a good night's rest, we were ready for Thanksgiving Dinner!  Most of us spent the first half of the day relaxing while Kristina worked away preparing dinner!  This year, there was Turkey on the menu... we know Mom loves turkey on Thanksgiving.  Also, Kristina had found a recipe for corn bread stuffing just for Mom since she always has fond memories of corn bread stuffing when she was a kid.  To round it out, we had cream peas, mashed potatoes, cranberries, and fresh dinner rolls!

And here's the corn bread stuffing (with smoked oysters)...

And the amazing clover leaf dinner rolls!

It was an amazing spread!  And if that wasnt' enough, there was pumpkin pie and cherry pie for dessert!

 

Even the dogs got some special treats...

Shadow of Mordor

The game Jared has been working on since we moved here to Washington has finally been announced! Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is the title, and as the title suggests, it is a game with its roots in Middle-Earth, a setting made famous by the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  However, this game tells a unique story that is not part of those books, but does draw heavily from the lesser known lore of Middle-Earth.

Jared is the Lead Graphics Engineer on the project and is super excited to finally have it out in the media and officially able to talk about what he has been working on!  It's not done yet, but it is definitely getting close.

The game was announced today via press release from Warner Brothers as well as donning the cover of the December issue of Game Informer magazine!

Go Monolith!

Power Outage

Upon moving to Woodinville, we had both heard stories about the power going out for LONG periods of time.  Normally when the power goes out, it is caused by a tree and since there are lots of big trees around, it usually takes some time to restore the power.  We had been lucky thus far because we hadn't had to endure really any long outage...until yesterday.

Electricity went off around 11:15am.  We had left the house around 10:45am to go get a late breakfast or early lunch and when we arrived to downtown Woodinville, it was DARK.  All of the power was out.  We told ourselves that we were pretty lucky that ours was still on, so we headed home.  On our way home though, we came to the conclusion that our power was out now too.  And sure enough, when we got home, it was.  We thought it would be no big deal based on past experience.

With the electricity out, we didn't know when it would come back on and we were worried about the sump pump – because of course it was raining and with no electricity, you know what that means – water in the crawlspace.  After a few hours of playing board games…Kristina was in heaven - she loves board games -- Jared decided that he should get the generator out.  We bought a new generator over a year ago, but we haven’t gotten it installed into the electrical panel yet – you know how that goes, everything else seems to take precedence.  Jared put oil and gas in it, and it started right up.  Then he put up the canopy we bought for it (out on the deck), wheeled the generator up there and at least got the sump pump going.  The generator is fairly powerful, so the only problem with running it was noise.  We also plugged in our frigs for a while to make sure they stayed cool.

Thank goodness for the GAS fireplace and GAS hot water heater.  We went to bed around 10pm last night, and then at 4:15am (we hadn't set the clocks back yet) all of the electricity came back on and the septic pump alarm and sump pump alarms were going off – telling us that they needed to pump.  Don’t get me wrong, it was nice that the electricity came back on, but alarms going off all over the place was not a good way to wake up.  So, we attended to all of that and went back to sleep for another 4 hours or so.  Clocks have been set back and we now seem to be getting back to normal.  Only bad thing is that we have everything piled into today to get done (cleaning, yardwork, errands, etc...).

By the way, power was out to more than 125K people – hardest hit was northern King County.  The winds were crazy – more than 60mph at times – they even shut the 520 bridge between Seattle and the Eastside due to high winds and high waves for TWO HOURS.  All of Woody was without power, Duvall, Redmond, Bothell, some of Kirkland…it was fairly widespread.  This morning when we got up, the news said that more than 13K people still had no power.  Yuk!

October Rain

We can't believe October has already come and gone.  As far as Octobers go, this one was a dry one.  We only registered 1.27" of rain here in Woodinville, while weather.com reports that the average is 4.78".  What we lacked in rain, we definitely made up for it in FOG.  The weather people started referring to October as FOGtober.  That's how bad it was.  We did manage to get a few sunny afternoons in there, so it definitely could have been worse.  If our past experiences are any indicator, November will MORE than make up for the lack of rain -- although you wouldn't know it was a dry month because everything was fairly green, except for the leaves changing colors!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Woodinville!

It was a pretty quiet evening around here.  The trick-or-treaters came and went; although we didn't get as many as we have gotten in the past.  The kids in the neighborhood must be growing up, or don't think the LONG, windy driveway is worth the trip!  However, considering that we give out full-size candy bars, let them be re-assured it is worth the trip!  We closed up shop around 8pm and took Indy out for her walk -- hoping to miss everyone.  That was the not the case however, the neighborhoods were very active and busy -- the kids all looked like they were done, but they were having a good time goofing off with their friends.  It was a perfect evening -- warmish, dry, and fairly clear...with just a hit a fog starting to form.  Indy thought all of the extra activity was great!  She had a look on her face that said, "WOW, there are never this many people out on my dog walk!".  Lucky little dog!

Remlinger Farm

Today we headed out to the Remlinger Farm with friends.  Our friends are new to the area and wanted to check out a local pumpkin patch.  Remlinger Farm is located in Carnation, right next to the Tolt River that we visit all of the time.  However, we had never been, so this was a fun opportunity to go check it out.

It was a pretty damp day -- while it wasn't actually raining, you can tell it had rained recently because there were mud puddles everywhere and the kids LOVED them.  Plus, since there was no real sun to speak of, it was a bit chilly.  That's okay though, we all had a great time and we found some great pumpkins for them to carve this week.

Afterwards, we headed to the Tolt-Macdonald Park to show them the suspension bridge that Jared loves. We also checked out the yurts and walked along the river for a bit.  It was a decent enough day to get out and walk about -- I should have taken a cue from the kids and wore my stocking hat!

It was a good day and fun to spend time with friends!

Size Does Matter

Just so you can get an idea of how BIG out leaves are, see the following picture.  On the left, you have a big leaf Maple Leaf and on the right, this is a Cottonwood Leaf.  In the middle, there is a DVD -- so you can get an idea of how LARGE these leaves are.  It is pretty spectacular when you think about it.

 



And of course, they are still pretty cool -- just by themselves!