Kicking off the Christmas Season

The original photo of 7 including l-r: Kathy Feek, Suzy Krabbe,
Diane Kuenster, CK Coles, Toni Hoffman, Michele Heidt
and Nancy Strom

Tonight the festive party season began!   We went to a marvelous private Christmas gathering dinner party at a beautiful home in Kirkland overlooking the Christmas ships as they gathered for the evening.  Chef for the party was Ethan Stowell.  What fantastic little plates he and his team served all evening including squash soup, crab salad, tuna sashimi, Buffalo mozzarella salad with prosciutto, creamy risotto with mushrooms (my favorite!), duck with cherry sauce, seared scallops on root vegetable puree, beef tenderloin with artichoke hearts, and pots de creme to name most but maybe not all of the courses.

Photo of 10 including additional faces Susan Taylor,
Cathi Hatch and Trudi Syferd 

It was a festive and fun party with numerous friends attending and a few new faces to meet as well.  Some of the friends attending included Susan & Gary Neumann, Trudi & Dave Syferd, Toni & Rod Hoffman, Suzy & Moe Krabbe, Carol & Spike Anderson, Michele & Dan Heidt, Jan & Jim Sinegal, Carol & Art Harrigan, Susan Taylor, Jan Rogers, Nancy & Van Strom, Arlene Wright, Sue & Tom Raschella, Leena & Mel Sturman, Kathy & Jim Feek, Carole Ellison & Bob Cremin, Kathie Price, Joyce & Doug McCallum, Sandi & Tim Premselaar, Diane & Gordon Kuenster, and CK & Jim Coles.



Photo of 12 now including Carol Anderson, Jan Rogers,
and Arlene Wright.  Where's Trudi??  What an expression!

I wasn't planning to take photos but walked past the dining room and saw seven of my friends all sitting together on one side of the table engrossed in conversation and obviously having a great time together.  It was such a cute photo that I couldn't resist.  Of course, just as soon as I took that photo, additional friends began flocking into the photo, so the photo grew from seven to eight to ten to eleven to twelve and finally to sixteen friends together in the photo.

Blurry photo of 16 now including additional friends Sandi
Premselaar, Susan Neumann, Leena Sturman
and Sue Raschella

Of course I had to be a part of the photo as well, so we had to depend on spouses walking by to take the photos and some of our recruited photographers struggled with putting their fingers over the flash, cutting off one end of the group or the other and moving the camera as they were taking the photos.  The photo quality continued to diminish so that by the time sixteen of us had gathered to be in the same photo, the photo quality was not very clear as you can see.  Oh well, wrinkles don't show up as much in blurry photos!

Ken Hatch and Bob Cremin



Rod Hoffman and Dave Syferd



I decided that I needed to take at least a couple of photos that included men since the party was definitely not a ladies' only event.  I couldn't get the lighting quite right so my favorite photo was about the third or fourth one I finally got of Dave Syferd and Rod Hoffman together. 

Ken, the Party Curmudgeon, was quite enjoying himself sitting in a comfortable chair and conversing, surrounded by friends.  We were actually some of the later guests to leave which is very unusual!  Definitely a party that we and everyone there appeared to really enjoy!  We are lucky to have such wonderful friends.

Trudi Syferd and Van Strom