Spritz Cookies and Yoga Pants.

"What are you doing for Christmas?" my Seattle friends, coworkers, or volunteers at work would ask. 

"I get to go home to my parent's house!" 

That elicited 3 types of responses. 

"Oh, Minnesota! How fun."

"Oh, Colorado! Beautiful there I bet!" 

"Oh, South Dakota! How nice." 

Many of them just hear bits and pieces of my story so yes, it gets a little confusing. 

I get it. 

"Well my parents and I are from Minnesota, but they retired 3 years ago and moved to South Dakota, and I moved to Denver for just a year, but now I live in Seattle." 

Keep up, people ;)

So this year I get to spend Christmas in Spearfish, South Dakota. For both my parents and I, this will be the very first Christmas away from Thief River. And as sad as that is...this is their forecast this week. 

A HIGH of -8? Confession: I sort of brag about how cold it gets "where I grew up" but I didn't know any different when I was a kid. And I knew how to layer up. The more you looked like a Goodyear blimp, the better. If you try to be all cute and fashionable in northern Minnesota winter weather, you will die. 

Or you'll at least be made fun of. 

But I won't get to experience the Minnesota cold this Christmas. Which I'm kind of okay with because....now I'm kind of a wimp. Seeing extended family always trumps eyelash-freezing temperatures, yes. And holiday traditions are precious. 

But as parents retire and relocate, as grandparents get older, get sick, or pass away, as children grow up, sometimes old traditions become memories by necessity. To take their place, new "firsts" may eventually become new traditions. 

My mom and I just tried our hand at making my grandma's Spritz cookies in the name of keeping some sort of tradition. We don't have a cookie press so we improvised with a Ziplock bag. We ended up with delicious tasting Spritz cookies...that looked like piles of dog poop. 

Of course it was my dad who pointed that out, we all laughed but he still ate about 5 of them. I now secretly hope she never buys a cookie press :) 

Speaking of dog poop, we also took our friends' dog on a walk this morning. Yep, it's cold here too but not nearly as bad and the scenery gets me every time. 

So this is only Day 3 of my 10 days in Spearfish. Josh flies out here on the 26th so I have until then to be super lazy and not wear makeup and wear yoga pants every day. 

And when he gets here...let's be honest, I won't change a thing because it's Christmas vacation!!! 

Seattle Secrets.

I'm now in my 12th month of living in the Seattle area. Can I tell you a secret? 

It doesn't rain as much as you think. Well, maybe it does...but it's really not so bad. 

Maybe I've just had a lucky 12 months, but overall I found myself doing the Instagram "look how beautiful it is here!" thing way more often than the Twitter "sarcastic comment about the rain or why I miss Minnesota" thing. 

I've lived here almost as long as I lived in Denver. Weird. 

Like, really weird. 

Denver was sort of a hard year for me, but looking back I can see how much I grew in my independence and confidence. A shedding of some old lifestyle habits, and the development of some new, good ones. It was a stepping stone to my life here in Washington. 

Side note: somewhere along the way I've lost about 80% of my Minnesotan accent. Which makes me sort of devastated. I blame the pitiful lack of cheese curds here. 

Uffda. 

Back on track: I've been pleasantly surprised by the Pacific Northwest. It has beautiful views of the Puget Sound. It has it's quirky, fun, hipsterish Seattle neighborhoods. It has mountains to climb. It has some of the nicest, most generous people ever. It has rainforest-like plants and flowers. AND. It has the Seahawks (sorry, dad). 

So come visit me (ahem, Laura, Tricia, Dani, & Traci--since you've all mentioned it) and I'll make you do this: 

 

And show you this: 

Oh, and of course, this: 

I kind of think people keep the beauty of Seattle a secret and instead fill everyone's heads with visions of neverending torrential downpour to keep everyone in the world from moving here. Okay maybe not. And if so, I'll probably be soon kicked out for sharing the secret. 

But really. It's great. Come visit. 

Special shoutout to Emily (who loved it so much, she moved here!), Nicoley, Alexandra, my parents, Alex, Michele, Kyley, and Carolin for visiting me and letting me show/drag you around! 

And extra special shoutout to Nicoley for coming AGAIN soon with Holly this time! 

Quincy is already planning our adventures :)