Sapporo {throwback thursday}

Since a lot of the news talk these days is about snow, I thought I'd throw it back to our trip to Sapporo Japan.  We went to the annual snow and ice festival in February 2011.  Amelia was 2 and I was 5 months pregnant with Nolan.  This was the first ever cold vacation that I've taken.  My idea of a vacation is somewhere warm and preferably by some body of water.  We heard so many great things about the festival and Sapporo, so we had to make the trip up there.

Sapporo is located on  Hokkaido , it's the most northern island in Japan.  We took two plane rides and a bus to get to Sapporo.  It was SUPER cold.  Maybe since being in Okinawa we weren't ready for the cold weather.  It was no joke.  I of course packed to look cute in the snow, but that all went out the window when I got there.  I practically layered all my clothes everyday!

We stayed there for 3 nights and 4 days.  It was pretty fun.  Our hotel was located in the heart of Sapporo so we would go see something then come back to our hotel and warm up.  The snow sculptures were amazing!  Theses things were gigantic and had so much detail.  I was literally in awe of every single one of them.  We went to see them during the day and at night.  I suggest going at night!  The way they are light up at night looks so magical.  I remember Amelia saying "wow" the whole time we were walking around looking at them.

My favorite part of the trip was when we went to this parking lot that was converted into a big snow playground.  There were slides, rides, ice sculptures, snow playgrounds.  It was super awesome.  I know Amelia had the time of her life there.  This was the first time she had seen snow and been old enough to play.

Another notable mention of this trip was the FOOD!  Hokkaido is famous for their seafood, crab in particular.  It was so good, I still dream about it to this day.  It was so good I didn't even get a picture of it.  

Jensen Cookie Bash

 One of my fave things to do around the holidays is decorating cookies.  It's not just Christmas season, I love to decorate cookies any holiday!  New Years, Valentine's day, St. Patricks day... You name a holiday I will bake and decorate cookies.  They aren't the nest cookies! lol but I have fun doing them with the kids.  So I've always wanted to do a cookie decorating party,  I find that Christmas is one of the best times to have one.

Last year I actually had a precursor to this cookie decorating extravaganza.  We had a big potluck for Christmas with our Oki fam and for dessert I brought cookies and decorating stuff.  It was nuts, we had about 15-20 kids {we have a big Oki fam} and no real adult supervision but myself .  The other adults were there but they were occupied with real dessert.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself!  I could tell the kids were loving it.  That's when I decided that we would do the real deal next Christmas .

Fast forward to Dec 2013.  This time we had a party at our house.  I baked about 60 cookies and bought all the fixins to make a mean Christmas cookie.  We had a bunch of kids and my table wasn't big enough for them to decorate all at the same time, so we did shifts.   It was super fun.  I know the kids were having a blast.  All the parents looked worried about sugar overdose! lol  The lil kids mainly were just eating all the decor.  Haha. The kids decorated 2 cookies each.  I did cutout sugar cookies of gingerbread men, snowmen, Santas, snowflakes, and just plain round cookies.  The kids were able to choose the shape of cookie.  Luckily we had enough of each shape and none of the kids were sad they didn't get a certain one.    I made all the kids wrap up their creations and take them home.  They didn't need anymore sugar.  So final verdict,  we will keep this as a family tradition.  It was so much fun and I love seeing the creative side of the kids.  I think next year I will add a hot cocoa bar :)