Day 7: Wenatchee & Leavenworth, WA

Today the majority of the siblings, Mom, Brian and I took a field trip to the greatest attractions in the area: Cashmere's Aplets and Cotlets factory and the Bavarian village of Leavenworth, WA (clarification for those of you confusing it with the federal penitentiary.) We screwed in our sweet teeth, strapped on our leiderhosen, harnessed up a few of Mom's monstrous Bernese Mountain dogs with some bells and a wagon and headed out for a great tourist adventure.
We all piled in to the small factory and took a tour of the 87 year old candy company. Founded in 1920 by two Turkish gentlemen who bought an orchard in Cashmere, Aplets and Cotlets now turns out 40 flavors and types of Turkish delight-based candies. An Aplet contains apple puree and walnuts; a cotlet is apricot puree with walnuts (plus other ingredients such as sugar and cornstarch.) In the above picture a worker places a slab of the gummy material on a conveyor, coats it in powdered sugar and sends it through a chopper which cuts one slab into over 170 pieces. Okay, it was either 170 or 750. I thought the first was more likely but since I'm terrible at math I'll let you estimate.
The pieces get hand picked and placed in their appropriate boxes by this line of employees. Now who wouldn't want to re-enact the "I Love Lucy" episode in the chocolate factory with all these glorious delights passing your way? I'm in!
Ah, little Bavaria! Leavenworth didn't always look this way. During a slump in the last quarter of the 20th century Leavenworthians decided to make the most of their alps-like setting and draw the tourist crowd in by recreating their town in to a quaint, Bavarian village. Every business -even the recently added Cold Stone- MUST have Bavarian signage and maintain the cutesy Swiss decor. It's a riot seeing McDonalds and Safeway done up with painted blue birds and faux wood beams crossing their exterior.
This toyshop -mainly boasting a wonderful collection of locally handmade decorative wooden puzzles- was the big event. We spent near two hours visiting and revisiting all the treasures and fun junk.
Brian was in heaven. He bought a tiny, child size guitar, a little key chain that has 6 direct quotes from "The Princess Bride", a Frisbee for Savannah and I got some souvenir postcards and a T-Rex wood puzzle for Wilder. So, what did you get?
After looking around we ate lunch at Los Camperos -a Mexican restaurant with a Swiss exterior. Hey, we're forward thinking, multiculturalists -we're open for anything! I mean, why feel confined to the 912 German restaurants there. We were bold, we were daring, and at the end of the meal...we were full. Yet, still some of the family still had room for ice cream afterwards. We ate too much chips and salsa to join in, but it sure looked tasty.
To round off the tour Mom took us up and around the hills of East and Western Wenatchee. The valley is certainly growing as more businesses such as Google and Yahoo move branches out here. Houses are going up faster than, well, just pretty darn fast and the commercial side of town continues to diversify, though Mom still doesn't have her Olive Garden yet.

In the evening we spent some time with the grown ups when Mom and Mark took a break, joining us in the guesthouse. After everyone left and the big house headed for bed, Brian shared how glad he was that both sides of our family are so easy to get along with. We are so lucky to have such wonderful family and, boy, are we glad that visiting relatives will never be an ugly chore but always a delight. We've enjoyed just being with the family in Wentachee for the past few days and I am so glad Brian was finally able to meet everyone. Tomorrow we head out to Whidbey Island for a visit with Grandpa and Sheila. I am thrilled for Brian to meet them and see where I've spent so many happy vacations!