Bavarian Bliss

By now, you should be well aware of my love for Leavenworth. Any town that combines great weather for every season, good beer, fun festivals, taffy shops, wine tasting, German pretzels and an overall kitschy tourism feel - is a fabulous town in my book. To kick off the fall season and say goodbye to summer, the girls adventured east for a day trip to our favorite Bavarian getaway - consisting of an authentic German lunch, wine tasting, store hopping, ice cream eating, riverside walking and more.

I think another winter trip to Leavenworth is in order. Who's with me?

Ain't no mountain high enough

When you have SNOWSHOES on! I got Joe snowshoes for Christmas, so we didn't have to borrow all the time. This, in turn, meant that I would also have to buy them for myself. What a pity :)

So on our little mini-trip to Leavenworth, we went on 2 snowshoeing adventures. Once in Leavenworth and once at Stevens Pass, but on the other side of the ski area. At Stevens, we gained some major elevation and weren't too far from the top! I kept blaming my lack of breath on the high elevation... I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with my lack of exercise recently, right? In Leavenworth, however, it was a bit more flat. But we did forge the river because it was frozen over! I guess they call is Icicle River for a reason.

Near the top! Isn't it lovely? Minus my bright red nose. Am I Rudolf?

We even "off-roaded" a bit, which was my favorite part.

And I found this hole in the snow and took a rest.

And Joe conquered this mini-hill. This was in Leavenworth when we thought this was a big hill... before the monstrous mountain!

We ended up snowshoeing until the sunset, which isn't too late this time of year, but still. We're badass.

Willkommen in Leavenworth

On the heels of this little video, Joe and I decided to make the trek over the pass to go to one of my favorite Bavarian towns on Earth: Leavenworth. (I guess I haven't been to any others, but it's still an AWESOME place.)

We meandered around the town, ate a schweinshaxe, drank German beer, wine tasted (did you know they now have 13 tasting rooms in the town?), visited the hat shop and Nutcracker museum, watched the Huskies win the Holiday Bowl and more! (Our snowshoeing adventures to come) Ironically, Erik, Shelly and Johan (Joe's family) were in town our last day, so we also visited with them over a drink and some sledding.

Overall, fabulous little mini-trip!

The classic welcome sign picture. How many times have I posed with that sign? I can't even count.

Schweinshaxe!

German beer the size of my head!

Can we please talk about how red my hair looks here? And how purple our teeth are? And how blue Joe's eyes are? And his awesome Swedish hat?

Nutcrackers galore. Joe was excited.

As I was trying to take of photo of Joe and Johan, all of a sudden the little bugger came crashing down directly for me. Then this continued for a good 30 minutes. I haven't seen a little kiddo laugh that much in a long time. Good times.

Is here a party?

I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am for my absolute favorite festival of the year:

Leavenworth Oktoberfest!

(I'm sure there will be several more posts about it.

I like to obsessively talk about it.)

This year marks the 5th annual trip east of the mountains and in true former-sorority-member fashion, what did we decide to do? Make a t-shirt to commemorate the momentous occasion.

For a little context, last year our favorite Oktoberfest band, Die Hockfellner, was trying to excite the crowd between songs and would shout in their adorable German accents: "Is here a party?" and the such. We couldn't get enough of it. Hence, our decision to create a shirt that proudly displays the fabulous phrase. This is the masterpiece design that Kotis put together for us. Isn't it amazing?! I know, you're jealous... with good reason.

Last year, Maddie and I decided to surprise everyone with these lovely costumes. We were super sneaky and no one had any idea what their "Special Leavenworth Surprise" would be... We were superstars that weekend; random people, left and right, asked to get their picture with us.