And the Little Women
The Little Women are pleased to announce a new online museum where their readers and fans can see some of their finest works, many of which were previously available only in exclusive private collections (i.e., the living rooms of their relatives).
The exhibits will be updated periodically and are available here. Happy browsing!
The Seattle housing market may be cooling down, but the gingerbread market was warming up at the Vance house last night. The Little Women unleashed their creative talents on some blank gingerbread canvases from Ikea.
All of the houses now have a place of honor next to the Christmas tree.
Here we see the Little Women hard at work on assembling Christmas cards, bringing holiday cheer to people around the globe.
This year they took a page from Henry Ford’s playbook and assembled the cards in an assembly line. They also adapted his philosophy on customer choice, namely, “Our friends and family can have any Christmas card they want, as long as it’s this one:”
In recent weeks Nicolyn has been honing her sewing skills. Here are two quilts that she made herself.
Last week the Little Women enjoyed an extended visit from some special guests on Jonathan’s side of the family: their grandparents, their aunts and uncles, and their nine cousins (plus Aunt Aubrey’s dog). As part of giving their visitors a taste of the Pacific Northwest, they reprised last summer’s hike in Wallace Falls State Park.
The 5.4-mile hike helped everyone sleep a little better that night. Hopefully the guests will come back for more hikes in the future.
The camping trip got rained out, but the Little Women enjoyed some roasted marshmallows thanks to the broiler in the oven.
And now for a very belated report about how the Little Women spent their Christmas break. The short answer is that they spent it in Germany, the place where Jonathan would gladly spend every Christmas.
The week before Christmas they flew into Frankfurt, where they met up with Aunt Aubrey. (This is important because during the trip Aunt Aubrey introduced them to many life-changing activities, like taking selfies, posing for photos with statues, and doing facials in your hotel room.) Their short time in Frankfurt allowed them to visit Christmas markets in the old part of town and also see Mainz, the old stomping grounds of Johannes Gutenberg.
After a couple of days they took a train to Dresden, in the eastern part of Germany. Having previously spent Christmas in Dresden, the Little Women knew that a great Christmas market was waiting there for them, along with beautifully restored buildings. On Christmas Day they visited the historic and beautiful cities of Görlitz and Bautzen.
Once Christmas Day was over, the Little Women packed up their growing stash of holiday treats and took the train north to Berlin. While there was much to like about Berlin (what with the girls’ love for hip European capitals), their favorite part about the city was the fantastic breakfast that the hotel served every morning.
With December drawing to a close, they whisked back to Frankfurt to spend one more night there before flying home. When the plane touched down in Seattle, the Little Women had great Christmas memories, and Jenelle and Jonathan still had their sanity, so it must have been a fantastically successful trip.
More pictures are here.
On Friday the Little Women took advantage of mid-winter break to drive into the Cascade mountains and visit Hyak Snow Park. They were thrilled to find two to three feet of snow waiting for them.
The park’s main attraction was its sledding hill, but it turned out that their sled wasn’t very good. (Maybe that’s why someone gave it to the Vances for the low, low price of free?) Fortunately there was plenty of fun to be had with snowball fights, digging snow caves, and tromping through the forest.
While decorating the house for Christmas, Clara and Nicolyn decided to decorate each other as “trees.”
The Little Women celebrated the first Advent Sunday by building gingerbread houses. This year Jenelle decided to use some nice pre-made kits, made in Sweden by the masters of pre-made kits, Ikea.
That’s right, for only four dollars, you too can purchase a Vintersaga house kit. Like most Ikea products, it appears to be made of brown particle board, assembly is required, and the instructions have no words. The lifespan of this particular kit is short even for Ikea.
Of course, it also comes in a flat pack. Clara finished her house first.
She claimed that the marshmallows in the chimney of her house were supposed to be smoke, but really it was so that the chimney could serve as a candy dish later on.
Below is Jonathan’s gingerbread lake house. Note the fish doing tricks along the shoreline.
This is Annika’s house. She designed the pool so that it waters the adjacent Christmas tree.
This is Nicolyn’s house. If any of our diabetic readers were injured by viewing this picture, we apologize.
And here is Jenelle’s house. Note the skillful use of Life cereal (gingerbread-spice flavor) to simulate the appearance of a thatched roof. Jenelle saw many houses with a thatched roof while living in England, and she can give all sorts of reasons why you should be glad that your home does not have one.
