I'm so honored!

Just received this from Peggy over at Rock, Paper, Lizards.

About the award : This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated.


I think it's my first blog award. And now I can't get the #^$*%* italics off. Good thing the award says nothing about technical savvy. I just noticed that the award says we're not interested in prizes. But it does feel good to get one. Thanks, Peggy! BTW, Peggy got it from Annie over at Sensible Living, a new blog to me -- she has some great stuff there, and I've added her to my iGoogle page.

So to pass it on...I think I'll name Circle the World in Big, KatCraftFever, and the Blog of the Zombie Princess.

Sabine's view of the world

Sabine wanted to put some pictures she took on the blog...so here they are:


The recently dismantled Christmas tree (amazing how big the room seems now),


Daddy and Vivian playing MarioKart,


kid books...


and Mommy's book.

The perfect women...

It's true...that's what Bret called us...that's Kat and me...playing MarioKart and drinking beer. Bret came in and said something like, "...And they say that the perfect woman doesn't exist...here's two of 'em...drinking beer and playing Wii..." Love that man.

The inspiration behind the salmon...

Just found this while looking for another photo...the bison (there were several) were carved out of a snow bank down the street from us...it was a big snow year...

Christmas dinner...

...Pacific North West style!


The girls and I went to New Seasons (the grocery store 2 blocks away) and got 3 Dungeness Crabs (it's crab season...for some reason I'm reminded of Elk Season, but I think Crab wins, hands down...). The woman at the counter, Dana, asked if I wanted her to prep them (are you kidding, free kitchen help? Hell yes!) we watched, and the girls asked lots of questions. Vivian was most concerned that the crabs would pinch her, but Dana assured her that they were indeed, dead. She even showed the girls the heart of one of them (did you know a Dungeness Crab heart is about 1" and shaped like a star? I didn't either...).


Vivian, doing her crab impression.


Sabine, preparing to dig in.


The remains...I think I'm going to try making a stock out of them. We're having crab cakes tonight as we had about 1.5 cups of leftover crab. Bret did the dirty work of getting the rest of the meat out while I watched Prince Caspian with the girls the second time that day -- he watched it the first time. It's the 2nd in the Narinia series -- just found out Disney is bailing on the 3rd movie...not enough $ to be made, apparently, so they're looking for other backers...anyone? Great movie, we've also enjoyed the first one -- read the book aloud to Sabine first, and she wanted to see the movie...thought it would be too scary, but no.

Frozen fun with Bret

These are some things Bret has created out of ice/snow in years past...including a special Pacific Northwest addition

I think this was made for the 2007 New Year's Eve party


This was the Wyoming Igloo...


And now...the Snowy Salmon! It's on the corner - in front of our house...You can't see the roe (small, red snowballs) behind the fish...but they're there!

You can take the girls out of Wyoming...

But apparently you can't take the Wyoming out of the girls...

Here's Vivian enjoying the back yard snow...


Sabine as Queen of the World...


Enjoying the igloo slide...


The Oregon Igloo (Bret says igloo building goes a lot faster when you use a picnic table and benches for the base).