Leavenworth- Icefestival

Leavenworth is a small German or Barvarian Village in the mountains of WA located close to Wenatchee River and Lake. The whole town is Barvarian themed even McDonalds and the gas stations. I honestly can't wait to do it again, maybe in the summer time for an anniversary?

So perfect, we were lucky to go the last weekend with all the lights up. There were so many people probably due to the fact that it was Icefestival, but then again probably nothing like Octoberfest or Christmas. I loved how everyone was sledding right in the MIDDLE of town! Jon and I would watch the sledders and sometimes laughed when they crashed. They were out there pretty late too. Friday night we went down to the pool/hot tub at like 10:30pm and out in the parking lot families were just getting back. Crazy.

Nutcracker museum, we laughed about this museum. Jon and I have no interest in $300 nutcrackers, but WHO DOES seriously people. We did find a rare and discontinued treasure that Jon felt impressed to purchase. We found a beautiful Royal Copenhagen hand painted Mother's Day series china plate that depicted a mother and daughter crossing the plains. Jon loves his Danish heritage on both sides of his parents family and it was ironic because we've been reading alot of family history lately. I said look it's your great great grandmother crossing the plains. It was the last of the series and half off so needless to say we purchased it. We already have a Christmas ornament from the year of our marriage made by the merged company Bing & Grondahl that also makes Danish porcelain china. This china is blue and white and is usually quite expensive. It will be fun to create our own family collection over time.

Jon said something about I don't want this to look like a myspace photo so I'm trying to supress a laugh here. We had gotten the sweetest compliment at The Chocolate Cup, where we played antique checkers on a cute table sipping our Italian Sipping Chocolate (MUCH thicker than hot cocoa) served in tea cups, the owner's wife said are you guys married to which we responded yes she said good you guys look so in love. How sweet right?

Dinner that night at Cafe Mozart. It was very high class and we spent more on the meal than I ever want to again in my life, let me explain that I thought I was smarter than everyone else and bought a coupon off of restaurant.com and planned to use it, well at the end of the meal I gave it to our waitress and she sweetly pointed out the fine print stating for parties of 4 or more. If its too good to be true then it probably is.

The romantic lighting, music, and private room was putting Jon to sleep. I quite enjoyed it.

I always forget to take a picture before we eat, kinda nasty that I took one while we were eating. Well Jon had delicious roast beef in a bordeaux sauce, the most tender we've ever tasted, and I had pork tenderloin in a wild mushroom sauce. The red cabbage you see here is very common in Europe and Jon was excited, but decided it was mushier than the Danes serve it. We had delicious international cheeses (smoked gouda, danish brie, motzarella) that we're fried and served w/ a berry sauce or marinara sauce. We also had a salad plate w/ 5 different types of salad my favorite was the spinach and the cucumber salad.

We got to this Danish bakery 30 minutes after they opened. Jon was determined to find a chocolate triangle. No chocolate triangle, but we did had a good almond kringle, burnt cream pastry, a strawberry pastry (Jon didn't think was too awesome), cannoli, and a cream cheese pastry, raspberry turnover that we took to our Gma Jean and Mary.

I've been craving a burnt cream pastry since the day we left, just think elephant ear meets cream cheese. Amazing.

Underneath the flag our his ancestors. We actually went to a shop where Jon learned that the name "Heslop" orginated in Scotland and means By Hope (Hope meaning the valley). We got to view the HESLOP "Coat of Arms" and WALKER "Coat of Arms". I found out that "Walker" actually meant that we were cloth workers and we would walk on the fabric to flatten it out. It was very interesting and would be cool one day to have it printed up w/ a copy of our "Coat of Arms". Also HESLOP has a family moto, it is "By these little things grow great". How perfect and almost scripture mastery like (small and simple things...).

Here waiting for our lunch, Saturday the last day we were there, we had some more delicious food. I had hungarian goulash (similar to my mom's recipe for beef stew) and Jon had the best reuben sandwich he's ever tasted. We were in the top floor of the building. The waiter and waitresses were dressed up in lederhosen and barvarian dresses. Jon said it was the first time he's ever seen a mexican male in lederhosen.

Farewell Leavenworth until we meet again.