Tuesday, February 26, 2013

December Part III: Wrapping Up

We spent this past Christmas with my side of the family.  Tradition is we always spend Christmas Eve in LaGrande with my mom's side, Christmas morning with our immediate family, and Christmas dinner with my Dad's mom and sister.  Overall, it was a relaxing week at home with my family.  The kids got to play a lot, spend time outside, and we all continued to soak up the family time.  I took a ton of pictures, and am disappointed that there weren't some gems, but memories were captured.  Enjoy!  

*I promise this is it for posts about 2012.  :)

Christmas Eve 
The same little garage that I remember playing with and Grandma and Grandpa's house when I was little.  
  
Snooping around my grandparent's house I found this picture of my mom.  Doesn't she look like a doll?    Loved it!
Speaking of dolls... there's mine with her idol, Daddy.



My cousin Cori drew Kira's name for the kid gift exchange.  She heard Santa might be bringing Kira a toy kitchen for Christmas and so she cleared out her kitchen toys.  Kira scored.  :)
Quinn's favorite toy from the holiday, I'd say.

Christmas Day









 







Post Christmas


 


 My favorite pic from the holiday.
 



 

 
Hugging Laney "bye-bye" (while Quinn is doing something that looks violent).  She loves her cousin so much.  
 The ridiculously packed car.  
 Appreciating the beautiful state we live in on the drive home.  
 Twinsies

We spontaneously decided to throw a little New Year's Eve party on the drive home after traveling for two weeks.  Here's the spread pre-guests.   

Happy 2013!  I'm finally caught up... ish.  

Monday, February 25, 2013

December Part II: Sunriver Christmas

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet.  It's almost March for crying out loud.  Forgive me.

In a nutshell, we spent Pat's family Christmas in Sunriver.  Quinn was really sick at the beginning of the trip, and by the time we left the illness had successfully passed to Kira and she was miserable.  In addition, traveling to Sunriver proved to be quite difficult in the winter.  Three hours in the car turned to six on the way there, and five hours to get to Walla Walla turned to 10 on the way home.  Despite all of these less than ideal circumstances, it was such a great trip.  Quinn LOVED staying in a house with his cousins and asked daily, "we gonna go back to the house with all my friends?"  We played games, played in the snow, played in the water, soaked in a hot tub, cooked and ate all day, and just enjoyed time together!  I can't wait for more family trips like this in the future, perhaps even with healthy children and dry roads next time!  

*These picture are in no particular order.  They've been sitting here for over a month and I haven't been able to bring myself to make any sense of them.  So, here is a scattering of random memories from our time in Sunriver, some particularly grainy/blurry due to using my phone, low light, and moving targets.  :)
So much snow!


Gorgeous Lolo.


Their faces showed no emotion, but anytime someone stopped pulling them they requested more.





Soon to be Mr. and Mrs.!



One of many stops to either put on or remove the chains from the car.  Pat was a pro by the end of our travels.


He loved holding the chains.  Good thing because our car was so stuffed there was no where else for them to go.








Look at her poor sick face.  She wouldn't let Riah leave her side, ever.









This photo cracks me up because Aunt Libby looks like she's having a great time and Laney looks scared out of her mind.

I took this final photo after our 10 hour trip to my parents' house from Sunriver.  Snow slowed us WAY down, and just as we got out of the snow our car broke down and, long story short, we were saved by a good samaritan at a truck stop who helped Pat get us on our way again.  It was quite dramatic (think vomiting/naked children stranded at a truck stop after having been stuck in the car for 7+ hours), but enough time has passed now that I don't have it in me to really tell the story up like I did just after it occurred.  This picture is my reminder though.  Finally making it to Walla Walla felt like a Christmas miracle.