Life with the Conleys

On Saturday Josh and I headed about two hours north to hike into Fragrance Lake and to go to the Tulip Festival.  The plan was to hike into the lake and then stop at the festival on the way home. The Tulip Festival is really just tulip fields but from what I have heard and from the pictures I have seen they are absolutely beautiful. However, it turns out that we should have swapped our activities and hit the Festival first because after the hike there were WAY too many people and we opted out. The freeway was backed up for miles (not an exaggeration, literally miles) and we had no desire to sit in traffic. We have learned our lesson and next time we will go nice and early to beat the rush. Bet, even with the change in plans, it was still a really great day!  View of the Puget Sound. Half way to the lake. Darling y Pantalones. Lummi Island is in the background. Watch out for a future post about this little isle. On one side of the lake there was a large r...

I do not make cakes frequently. When I do make them they taste good but look a little sad. After years of delicious but ugly cakes I finally made a pretty cake. The cake was for a dessert auction raising money for our Young Women to go to girls' camp so I really wanted it to look nice. Last year my cake, though delicious, just didn't look spectacular and I felt the need to redeem myself. Thanks to food blogger  'i am baker'  I had a pretty straightforward model to follow and redemption was mine. Not flawless but definitely the best looking cake I have ever made.   White/Vanilla cake with chocolate ganache filling and a raspberry buttercream icing.  Remember how this was for a fundraising auction and how I shouldn't have a picture of the insides because the cake should now belong to someone else? Well, Josh bought it. Not sure if it was a sympathy bid or if he  actually wanted it, but either way it ended up back in the kitchen that gave it lif...

That's right folks, I'm 25. And thanks to my wonderful husband this view greeted me on the morning of my quarter century birthday.  Westport, WA On Friday we left work a little early and drove out to the small coast town of Westport. Josh had made arrangements to stay at a beachfront condo for the night and the condo was really nice. We got there late enough that we dropped our stuff off and went immediately to find some dinner. The only open place we could find was Odysseus Restaurant. It was... interesting. The food was not spectacular but we had a fun time. Josh had a seafood combination with cod, halibut, battered shrimp and some fries. After his first bite of fry he mentioned that they tasted like shrimp. Throughout the meal he mentioned several times that he was unhappy that the fries tasted like shrimp and he kept dipping them in more and more ketchup to try to mask the shrimp taste. I decided to try one and see if it really was shrimpy and my first reaction was ...

A few weeks ago Josh and I packed our bags and left Seattle in search of some sun in Southern California. We actually went to spend time with Josh's family but the sunshine was a fantastic perk. We arrived late on Friday night (thanks to a 2 hour delay at the airport) and early Saturday morning the boys headed out to go quail hunting. They didn't end up getting anything but I'm sure they had a good time. After they got home Josh, Jereme, Christy, and I went to the beach. You will notice that most of the pictures in this post are from that afternoon. I don't now what it is about the ocean at sunset but the lure to take pictures is hard to resist. Ocean (and me, but mostly the ocean) Flying a kite. It's not as far away as it looks, the kite is just very small  I was moving back and forth to get my feet buried in the sand and Josh started telling me to hold still. I had no idea why or for how long so I just stood there looking down feeling ridiculous....

As I am sure you are all aware, Christmas just happened. We have no pictures. So this will be an interactive post that requires you to use your imagination. This was our first Christmas in our own place. It was kind of weird on Christmas morning with just the two of us, but it was also really nice. We woke up early so we could be done with our Christmas before heading to Lynn and Angie's to watch their kids open presents. After Lynn and Angie's we went to church. After church we went to Dan and Ashley's for Christmas dinner.  It was fun to be able to do our own thing and get to spend time with family. A wonderful day.  As nice as it was though, it was tinted a little gray. On Christmas Eve my Grandfather passed away. This meant an unplanned trip to Emmett for his funeral. As much as I will miss him, it made me realize that I have an incredible family. There is so much faith and love. I am truly blessed to be a part of such an wonderful family.  We were in Emmett ...

Some friends invited us to go to Leavenworth with them. We have heard that Leavenworth is a fun town to visit, so we were excited to go. It is called a "Bavarian Village" and all the shops on the main streets are themed accordingly.There are art galleries, and candy shops, and all of your typical tourist town shops. It was RIDICULOUSLY busy. I really couldn't believe how many people were there. There were even lines to get into some of the shops.  After visiting some of the shops there was a tree lighting.It seemed to last a very long time (not sure if it actually did, but I was hungry and everything seems to take forever when I am hungry).  After they light the tree the whole town lights up.  After the tree lighting we went to dinner at Andreas Keller . It had pretzels, brats, schnitzel, kraut, and other German fare. It was a cool restaurant with a delicious house mustard and a resident accordion player. Thanks Dan and Wendy for the invit...

That's right, no pictures. We were too busy having fun to document it with photos. We flew to Boise late Wednesday night, just in time to go to bed. On Thanksgiving day we went to my Grandparent's house for an early dinner. Not sure why but they always do a Thanksgiving lunch instead of a dinner. There was lots of food and family. It was really nice to see so much of my mom's family. I saw some cousins that I haven't seen in years. Love them. On Friday we played volleyball for 4 hours in the morning, ate at Roe Ann's (a must when visiting Emmett), saw my Grandpa Mendenhall and listened to some of his memories from his service in WWII. Saturday started the same way Friday had, with volleyball. That is one thing I love about my family. Enough of us play volleyball that when we go to Emmett, it is a guaranteed activity. After volleyball we rode the four-wheelers up into the foothills and went shooting. We shot a .22, an M1-.30, a 357 magnum, and a 30-6. I a...