Monday, November 16, 2009

Trip to see Garin, Katrina and Olivia


Friday November 6th we drove to Leavenworth, Washington. It is a small German town nestled in the mountains. Garin, Katrina and Olivia drove from Seattle and met us there. They braved the snow and mountains to get there. I thought it was just a little snow but they hit the snowstorm on the way and when we traveled back there was a foot of snow on the trees. It was beautiful but frightening as I thought about them traveling in the dark on the mountain roads in the snow, without snow tires. Yikes!

That night we ate at a German restaurant serenaded by an accordian. The waitress was dressed in the German style dress. Mike was disappointed that the man playing the accordian and the waitresses did not speak German. We enjoyed the food and the atmosphere and Olivia had to get down and dance to the music.

We spent the night and the next morning on the sundeck the scene was so beautiful. The mountains, trees with their faded Autumn colors, a river flowing by and a small cottage barely to be seen among the trees greeted us. The clouds circled the tops of the mountains and set the scene of high in the mountain feeling.

We went to breakfast at a waffle house and the waffles were covered with strawberries and whipcream. Yum! The owner came and introduced herself and it made it even more memorable to have met her.

We walked around the quaint little town. They had little shops that sold anything you can imagine. I especially enjoyed the Christmas shop.

Olivia was so cute and sweet as we walked around. There was a bench that said Oma and Opa on it with an old man and woman. She remembered it whenever we passed. Then, we decided to get our pictures taken. We dressed in the German attire and Olivia smiled and said cheese. We got a really cute picture. I felt like we were retracing our roots by getting dressed up in our German town.

After lunch we traved back to Seattle. Garin and Katrina have a cute apartment. Katrina has the living room fixed up so cute. The apartment complex is new. They have two bedrooms and two baths, a kitchen and living room. They park under the apartment complex of six stories.

Olivia was so fun and our main entertainment. She sings along with Garin. She is taking gymnastics and showed us the bear crawl, forward roll, crawling on the stomache, running etc. She can catch a ball and she talks in complete sentences at barely two. She has beautiful blonde shoulder length hair with a touch of red highlights. When I said, "You"re so cute!" She smiled and said, Cheese so I could take her picture! We played hide and seek and chasing games. She has a little kitchen set she cooks and talks on her cell phone.

We got to go to church with them and enjoyed our trip so much. It was hard to leave and we are looking forward to seeing them at Christmas. Unfortunately, even though we bought a new camera for the trip and got some really cute pictures and beautiful scenery pictures we were messing with the camera yesterday looking at what it can do and accidentally deleted all the pictures. We were so disappointed and wanted to cry but hopefully Garin and Katrina have some and will post theirs.

1 comment:

Gretchen said...

Oh Mom, that sounds so fun! Olivia sounds like such a doll! Did dad find anyone to speak german to? By the way, when are you going to send me your newsletter?