Leavenworth

Today at church I subbed for the Sunbeam class in primary. Two hours in junior primary with kids ages 4-7 made me wonder how on earth kids aren't sick all the time. I witnessed: hands reaching down pants, sucking on fingers, kids touching each other, licking arms, nibbling pencils, licking paper, coughs, sneezes, and more. And those hands touched ME too--my clothes, hands, and even my FACE. It grosses me out just as much when my own kids do these things, FYI. I do my best not to be a germ-a-phobe but by the end of church I was feeling very vulnerable. When I got home, I washed my hands nearly up to the elbow with lots of soap and changed my clothes. Then I washed my hands again. Please, oh please don't let me get sick.

Long drives for short rewards seems to have been a theme this week (the carousel), because yesterday we decided to go check out Leavenworth, which is supposedly gorgeously decked out in lights and all quaint and snowy. In one of our most epic-ly fruitless family adventures to date, we drove 2.75 hours to Leavenworth, WA yesterday (Saturday) afternoon to see the famed Bavarian-style village nestled in the scenic mountains and covered in thousands of Christmas lights. It's a Washington state tourist destination, especially at Christmastime.

Alas, everyone else in the state seems to have had the same Saturday plans as us because 5 miles outside of Leavenworth, after more than 2.5 hours of driving, we hit a huge traffic jam and ended up taking 45 minutes to drive that last 5 miles. Then when we were finally in the city limits, there were people everywhere, zero parking spots, multiple road blocks, and traffic cops. It also happened to be 36 degrees, pitch dark, and raining. We slowly wove-drove our way through a tiny fraction of the town, saw a few pretty lights through our blurry rain spattered car windows, and then proceeded to drive straight back to Wenatchee (20 minutes) for dinner. Red Robin restaurant made me think how glad I am NOT to be a vegetarian, at least when it comes to hamburgers--ha ha. Then, back in the car and on the road again, this time headed home. We arrived home eight HOURS after we left! We were only at the restaurant for an hour tops! Nothing like a nice 7 hour drive as a family to end up right where we started! Thank goodness for Harry Potter audio book on CD.

At the beginning, before we knew what we were getting ourselves into... 

All of those dark blurs along the sidewalk are PEOPLE. The place was packed, even in the freezing rain. 

Wet, crowded, cold, and blurry. Hah! That about sums it up. If we ever feel so inclined to see this pretty little town again, we will make sure to go in the off season!