Creating Traditions

We have had an oober busy but fabulous week. We were booked solid from Christmas Eve on with family festivities so we marked off Wednesday the 23rd for a "Just Us" day. I'm excited about the traditions we created for our family of three! We had a special breakfast of Coconut Lemon Ricotta Pancakes, sausage, grapefruit and hot coffee. After some quiet time at home, we left in search of a good neighborhood for walking and "house shopping" (to make things clear, no we're not actually looking). We settled on the Yarrow Point neighborhood on Lake Washington between Kirkland and Bellevue. We both found houses that would be "tolerable," you know, the kind with the pool in back, a 5 car garage, a BMW in the drive and a complete lake view. Oh and a mortgage that would be anywhere between 10 and 15 K a month. Perfect. Maybe someday when Graham's rich and I'm famous. :o)

We grabbed a seasonal Gingerbread Latte at Starbucks and spent some good time in conversation before heading to Houghton Beach Park in Kirkland to listen to the Dickens Carolers sing from the Argossy Cruise Ship that stopped just offshore. They even had a bonfire going to keep us warm! We'd planned to go enjoy the lights display at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens afterward but saw the huge line of cars heading up the hill and decided to skip it. So we went home and had Christmas steak with a delicious blue cheese onion sauce (created by Graham), twice baked potatoes, spinach salad and nice a Spanish red wine (we're really into these lately). We finished the day by watching White Christmas while drinking hot cocoa with homemade marshmallows and eating sugar cookies. I think we created a great tradition that we'll look forward to again next year