Jägerschnitzel and Lederhosen

We spent last weekend channeling our inner German on a roadtrip to Little Bavaria. Leavenworth, WA, is an old logging and railroad town that turned to tourism for survival 30 years after the mills closed and the trains re-routed. Talk about creativity and a strong community effort to keep a middle-of-nowhere, death-sentenced town alive and thriving for the past 50 years! I've never been to Germany, but the place seemed authentic enough to me-- in a quaint, touristy sort of way-- excepted for the American flags. And the "Alpine" mountain backdrop was breathtakingly beautiful. It's hard for me to choose a favorite picture to post, so here are quite a few. There are even more at our Picasa site.



























Leavenworth hosts multiple festivals and events throughout the year. They use the super-tall pole (partially pictured here) for different celebrations, although I'm not sure what they do our how they do it.




Are you tired of pictures yet? More of my blabbering will be coming shortly. Check out that limo. I'd hate to drive that when the roads are all snowy!



























This is where we stayed: The Enzian Inn. Pretty sweet, huh? Chris spared no expense for us. Okay, so the picture is actually the 4th floor breakfast room, but still, we were there. Our room was a first-floor standard complete with real keys and a wooden door, handcrafted furniture, European bedding (no flat sheet), and cheesy flowers painted on the wall.
Each morning at breakfast the hotel owner, Mr Johnson, stands precariously perched on the balcony ledge and toots his own horn. Do you see how thin that ledge is? If I owned the hotel, I'd pay someone else to dress up like a leprechaun and give the alphorn concert.

It was really neat to see-- a little old man standing on the rooftop and awakening the village. I know he played it well and with all his mighty breath, but my uncultured ears only absorbed a solo performance from a Ricola commercial.

We had dinner at King Ludwig's restaurant. We went there because of the advertised polka music, but ended up being serenaded by a sole performer. The polka convention must've been elsewhere that night. Ally still enjoyed shaking her booty to the music and listening to "Happy Birthday to You" played just for her-- even though it wasn't her big day. She became especially excited when we discovered Frank Calapristi, the lederhosen-wearing accordion player, was actually a Philadelphia-raised feather-struttin' Mummer in disguise!


That pretty much covers Leavenworth. I'll hopefully soon be able to post about the small adventures we had on the way there: Harrowing tales of a rattlesnake mountain, nuclear tumbleweeds, haunting orchards, a candy factory, and a ginormous swine.

Something Exciting

As we were preparing for bed last night, Ally made an often-requested request: "Ally pee-pee in the potty?" The girl loves to pretend to use the facilities-- even on the airplanes-- over and over and over again. Her newest twist on this never-ending game is to pretend to read while pretending to go. (I wonder where she got that from?)

A few seconds after Ally sat on the toilet this time, I heard the unexpected but glorious sound of fluid trickling into the water below. I'm not saying the kid is potty-trained, but Ally really did pee-pee in the potty! She gave me a big grin, and then demanded to see the "Barrack Obama" Reader's Digest. And with that, our normal life continues forward. . .

Flying Over Washington at Sunset

It's been about a week since I've blogged anything. Now that we're all caught up on sharing our vacation, I'm struggling to find subjects to blog about. (Ally's as cute as ever, but I don't want to always blog about her for fear she'll know she's always the center of my universe.) I also haven't taken any pictures since we've been home, and a blog really needs pictures to make it interesting.

These past few weeks have been generally nice. We've gotten back into the normal routines of washing dishes, doing laundry, teaching at church, paying the bills, playing with friends, fighting off mild sicknesses and germs, trying to decorate the house, shopping for groceries, reading books, running in circles, hiding in closets, digging cat poo out of our garden beds, and keeping Chris happy. Normal life is nice, but that's the problem. Normal life is way too normal.

We are hoping to take a mini-vacation this upcoming weekend. If it comes to fruition, I'll definitely have something exciting to post. Until that "something exciting" happens in our lives, here are some beautiful pictures I took over the paradise that is Washington State. Flying Seattle-to-Spokane at sunset-- an hour of heavenly bliss, especially since it meant we were finally coming home. . .

Driving (with) Miss Jessie

I really should be doing my taxes and paying the bills right now, but I'm a bad girl. (I'm not a complete slacker; I did do laundry today.) I just get so excited when Ally's napping 'cause that means I actually have full use of my two hands and half a brain. So, here I am on the computer, with the final installment of our grand adventure.

I have this great friend named Jessica. She's like a sister-- but even better since she actually cares enough to visit sometimes. (Amy, did I catch your attention?) She lives in Raleigh and was crazy enough to be an adopted Hoffman and gracious enough to be our personal chauffeur for our second week in North Carolina. We are grateful for Jessica, and also for her parents' willingness to run a "halfway house" with an open-door policy and homemade fried chicken that's finger-licking good.

Jessie drove us around Raleigh to look at some of the Victorian homes up by the capitol. That's when we stumbled upon the Oakwood Cemetery, so we went in and wandered around a bit. I know, only a weird mother would consider hanging out in a cemetery where you don't know any of the dead as "quality time". But we had fun and Ally seemed to enjoy it too. Within this historic cemetery, they have a Confederate Cemetery where about 1500 soldiers were laid to rest. Maybe it's the ignorant Yankee in me, but I was perplexed by the multiple unknown soldier graves that were adorned with confederate flags. If their identities remain a mystery, their continued allegiance to such ideology would be unknown as well. I much preferred seeing the American flags on the soldiers' graves. To me, that was a symbol of healing and unity. I'm proud to be an American, no matter where I live.


Our last real day of adventuring (Friday the 16th), Jessica took us to the Marbles Museum. At first I was leery of them charging regular admission for 1-year-olds, but after 5 minutes I could see why it was appropriate. Ally had so much fun driving.


She drove the cool car. Do you see her little feet sticking out the bottom like the Flintstones?








She drove the mail truck.








She drove the boat. (Not a flattering picture of either one of us.)







She drove the big city bus.







She drove an ambulance while a pregnant 10-year-old gave birth to multiple babies with some under-aged assistance in the back.









She tried to drive the firetruck, but decided on fighting the fires instead since she couldn't reach the steering wheel.






It was a full day of fun in the Marbles' scaled-down grown-up world. Besides all the driving and the dressing up, Ally learned about the weather, got her fingers pinched in some big gears, and worked on Lego construction projects with some other kids.




We didn't let her use the real tools (including an actual saw) at the unsupervised wood-working stations, but she and Mickey did try on the goggles. When we had last seen Daddy, Ally had 2 functioning eyes, and all her fingers and toes-- and I intended to return her in the same condition. Safety first!

The Hoffman Side of Life

It occurred to me this morning that I still haven't finished blogging our trip to NC. This will hopefully be the second-to-last installment about our grand adventure. Then we can focus on planning new adventures so we'll still have something to blog about.

A perk of being in North Carolina? We got to spend a few days with some of Chris' family. While in charming Selma, we stayed at Colleen and Kenny's. Colleen was smart and avoided her house guests much of the time with the excuse of "having to go to work". We are grateful anyway that she gave us a place to lay our weary heads and that she allowed us to eat her food. And play with her boys, Copper and Mike included.







Our first morning there we inadvertently frustrated a very sleep-deprived Kenny. Not a smart thing to do when the man has a gun and license to kill. We were grateful he was able to eventually take a much-needed nap. Cop by night, gangsta by day. . .











Ally and Nate quickly got to know each other. He didn't seem to mind all the hugs and kisses while being Ally's personal baby doll. Looks like Ally's all ready to be a big sister, don't you think?

These 2 old people decided to drive down from the snowy north and invade the place as well. Ally and I chaperoned their trips to the antique stores, the famous JRs, the bank, and the North Carolina Museum of History. We even traveled the county with them in search of a good retirement home--
I mean a good home in which to retire. They had to go by themselves to help Sarah transport her pee to the doctor's office, but they eventually found their way back. We love you, Grandma and Daddy's Daddy!

We did our best to avoid sick Sarah while we were in town, but we caved in and made a trip over to her house one night for Jordan's scrumptious spaghetti. I won't post a picture of the infirm one here. (You can find one on Picasa though.) I really enjoyed the food, and Ally enjoyed having Jordan read to her. She also had fun dancing and spinning the night away in their living room while we all chatted. Thank you, Grandma, for catching her every time she got too dizzy.


Here we all are at the Big Shiney Diner, our last dinner with the Hoffman Clan before we headed back to Raleigh with Jessica. It's not a good picture of any of us, but what can you do? In my 4+ years in this family, I've come to realize that being a Hoffman often leads to being unphotogenic.

Viva el Groundhog!

NEW YORK (WABC): Everyone knows what it means when a groundhog sees his shadow. But what does the future hold if he bites the mayor's hand?

Punxsutawney Phil

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: The world's most famous groundhog saw his shadow Monday morning, predicting that this already long winter will last for six more weeks.

Phil was as docile as usual, but the same couldn't be said for his grumpy New York City counterpart, Staten Island Chuck, who bit Mayor Michael Bloomberg during his annual forecasting ceremony on Monday.

The groundhog, officially named Charles G. Hogg, drew blood from the billionaire, but Bloomberg was told there was no risk of rabies. The 2-year-old animal was born and raised in captivity and has had no interaction with other animals.

These articles made me laugh, but Phil's prediction made me sad for all you helpless souls that are still stuck in the snow. Of course, you can choose to instead believe the mayor-hating, ghetto-loving, knock-off groundhog from the north who says spring is near. But I wouldn't trust him; he might just turn around and bite you.

Happy Groundhog Day! May the repeating snowstorms soon end. . .