{ 30th Birthday Weekend }

I think this birthday – the one I dreaded the most – lasted the longest!

On Friday, my actual birthday, my Mom, Grandma, & I left right after school to take my Grandma to her hair appointment. While she was there, Mom & I went to my Longaberger friend’s Holiday Open House where I got another gift checked off my list! We picked Grandma up and went to enjoy the holiday decorations at Beaver Bark. They even had reindeers outside!

I didn’t used to like my birthday around the holidays, but the last few years, I’ve come to appreciate it. I like the things I get to do for my birthday – look at holiday lights while drinking Starbucks, for one.

We met up with Dad, Melissa, and Karlye at PF Changs and enjoyed some of our favorites: Chicken Lettuce Wraps, Shrimp with Candied Walnuts, Mongolian Beef, Crispy Honey Chicken, and Singapore Street Noodles. YUM!

Melissa gave me a Vera Bradley bag in my new favorite pattern – Baroque – to hold my new laptop!

I had never been to Leavenworth in the winter, so that was what I decided I wanted to do for my birthday. I must be 30 because that seems a little boring.

On Saturday morning, we loaded up and headed to Leavenworth to enjoy the Christmas Lighting and the winter weather. It started snowing around Quincy and didn’t let up all day long. We were covered with snow as soon as we got out of the car!! Our first stop was the sportswear shop to buy new hats!

My Dad dropped us off right along the main street – so these were our first views of Leavenworth:

It was so picturesque – like it was out of a card or something!

Karlye & I and our new hats!!

Leavenworth is so neat for it’s Bavarian looking buildings and surroundings. Even the Starbucks looks Bavarian!

We got there just in time for the kick-off parade with Santa and Mrs. Claus making their official entrance along with the Nutcrackers, the Angel, Frosty, and the Grinch!

One of the shops we wanted to browse was The Hat Shop – but there was a bouncer at the door and a line about 20 people deep! Wow! We didn’t want to go badly enough to wait in line!

We browsed in a few shops – and found a few Christmas icons to take pictures with, including Father Christmas!

We found a place to sit down (inside) and have some lunch – King Ludwig’s! We had authentic German food – sausage and sauerkraut! Yum! We even found some authentic Oktoberfest beer!

We found more icons to take our pictures with…

Melissa & the Grinch (She didn’t to take her picture with the Grinch, but I convinced her to, for the sake of her students!)

Santa!!

The angel of Christmas

It snowed and snowed and snowed the whole time we were there. I haven’t seen it snow that hard except for when we’ve been in Chelan and I’ve never been out in it! It snowed steady and strong with big flakes. It was beautiful! It actually wasn’t too cold until we went back outside after lunch with our wet coats & scarves.

Grandma used her umbrella to “keep her hair nice” but had to keep tapping the snow off of it!

Finally – the lighting! We couldn’t hear the announcer very well, but sorta got the jest of it. These stars came from 4 directions and the buildings lit up when they passed by.

 

It was just as beautiful as everyone said it would be. I’m glad we went even though it was cold at the end and we had such a long ride home. We were thankful for my Dad driving since we were in a whiteout blizzard until Quincy. We saw cars spin out right in front of us and could only travel about 35-40 mph the whole way. Thankfully we made it home safely after a great day in Leavenworth!