2008 Off to a great start

Happy 2008 everyone! Vacation from school and work was fabulous! We played around home for the first part and then headed to family in Moscow. I got out X-country skiing with Ashley the first day of break and the snow sure got the Christmas mood flowing.

Cheese!

Mike and I stayed in for Christmas just the two of us this year. We usually spend our holidays traveling from place to place, and we still love that, but we were ready for a break. We had delicious fruit crepes for breakfast and then headed "up" to find snow. It did actually snow at the apartment on Christmas day, but not enough to play in... We then had a friend over for a gourmet dinner and called it a great holiday.

A Christmas snow angel

After we arrived in Moscow, the Beard clan celebrated Christmas all together, just a little delayed. Us kids headed out to go sledding in the afternoon and managed to get in a few good runs before the light died and we were ready for turkey dinner.

Christmas morning in Moscow

A silly place to nap

So far January has been great to us! We rang in the new year in Moscow and helped my parents celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary! Bunches of good friends came by to eat yummy appetizers and to clink glasses of champagne at midnight. Mike and I were able to spend nearly a week in Moscow/Coeur d'Alene visiting, it was lots of fun. The weather was really snowy so we didn't get to see Mike's parents from Boise, who were going to drive up for the party, which was the only bummer!

The whole family

There was tons of snow and we got out sledding, running, snow shoeing, and shoveled lots of stairs! Sam was hilarious chasing snowballs on Moscow Mountain in snow about as deep as his legs are long. He ran and ran and ran and ran until he was pooped, but would have run more had we not dragged him home! (Mike also enjoyed diving into the snow=+)

Pounce!

Yaaahoo!

We also got to spend some time in C d'A at my brother Mike and T's apartment. We hadn't seen it before so it was nice to get to visit. We watched part of the Brown's game and just hung out. Mike took the opportunity to run down to "ground zero" for the Ironman cuz Mike and T live really close to the route. (wow, can you follow the Mike's in this section?) Peter came up to join us too, braving the nasty, windswept roads to get there after his play rehearsal. He had to shave his head for his upcoming play and he said it was weird cuz his head was cold! Tee hee. Before heading back to Moscow we were able to squeeze in a quick breakfast visit with Sarah, Ryan, and Jacob -who is growing like a weed and absolutely adorable!

After New Year's Day we had to head back to Seattle and the whole work thing. It was hard to go back that Thursday, but it was nice to have only a short, 2-day week to help us work back into the groove of things. The past couple of weeks have been mellow and lovely. We saw Charlie Wilson's War (Tom Hanks is so great!), went out to happy hour with friends, trained for the Ironman (or worked off that holiday food!), watched videos, bought fancy new running shoes, started new photo album projects, etc. We love the Seattle area and hanging with all of our friends here!

Two weekends ago we had our 2nd annual seafood fest with the Girards in Renton. (5 lbs of fresh mussels and 3 whole fresh crabs!) Man, we gotta keep this tradition alive and well, yum! Great friends, food, and beverage, what more can you ask for?

This last weekend we got up to the mountains and went snowshoeing with our friend Anne. It was a hoot! Mike found a demo days thing so we could try out different snowshoes for free all day long. It was snowing and beautiful, if a little wet, and we hiked on some trails in TONS of snow. Shortly into the hike, however, we were inspired to build a snowfort and just goof around in the snow. Man it was soooo cool. (literally!)

Snow Angels!

Come on in, it's fine!

Eeek! I had to sit on the bump and ended up in Anne's lap!

Sadly while we were out enjoying the weather, the Seahawks were losing to Green Bay in another blizzard, but what can ya do? Maybe next year? (But they'll have to watch out for those Brownies!)

So that's us in a nutshell for the start of '08. So far so good, on the resolution to blog more often...we'll see if we can keep it up. =+)