A Christmas Recap

As we continue into the (finally) cold month of January, I need to make sure I quickly highlight our 12 day Christmas break before it's once again time to do so (and trust me, I'm not exaggerating...).

First of all, let me just do a quick shout out to the sun. You, my friend, pulled through BIG this year. Move over Santa. When we got into Oregon, the weather was BEAUTIFUL, and, get ready for this, SIXTY degrees. It was only the 22nd, and I already felt like a little 7 year old on Christmas morning. Tyler and I took my grandma and grandpa to the Portland temple. It was the first time we had been back since we got married at it four months ago, so it was awesome to finally get to do a session. The sun and the temple. Wam bam thank you mam. Since I could hear my grandma's stomach making very ungrandma-like noises during the session, I knew we had to go somewhere to feed the woman, so we headed to Salvador Molly's, a place Tyler saw on the Food Network. Patrons and employees travel the world and then bring back recipes to put on the restaraunt's menu. We had the hurricane fries with BBQ pork, cheddar cheese and sour cream to start. Tyler and Grandpa had the Kalua pork dish, I had the burrito, and Grandma had some curry/Mexican thing from.......maybe that random Mexican restaraunt Billy Bob, the dishwasher, went to in Delhi??? It was an experience, that's for sure, and did nothing to suppress my appetite for travel. Next stop? Delhi.

That evening, as the Western sun slowly set, Grandma, Tyler and I set out through the hills of West Portland, where Tyler and I just couldn't help but to continually take deep breaths. The air was so fresh and clear, thanks to the towering fir trees surrounding us. And Grandma ran a little with us. She. Is. The. Bomb.

At midnight we picked up the one and only OJ/Francis from the airport. She kissed us both on the heads.

Christmas Eve morning we made the I-5 trek down to to the Burg, guided by the still shining sun, not unlike the second star on the right and straight on til morning. My dad's house was in fine festive form and the view still never gets old...

Christmas Eve was full of the the typicals -- the yule log on the flat screen, the Utah-themed DI shirts, and the massage train.

It was a great night, and the Fran was once again complete with her feline friends...

Christmas Day was pure chaos--I mean joy!! My aunt and uncle came down from Corvallis and the kids shrieked and ran and pretended everyone was a Power Ranger from sun up to sun down. Christmas Day: The one day Bryce remembers he's a child. Santa came with Grandma and Grandpa and it was a happy Christmas filled with new recipes that did not, surprisingly, end up down the garbage disposal (as in previous years), ping pong tournaments (and by that I mean between Bryce and Tyler over and over and over again -- I think at this point my mom appointed Tyler to be a saint..."Saint TyTy"). Do you know that vacuum silence that's created by having the window down on a car while driving on the freeway at 75 MPH, and then quickly rolling it back up? That's how it sounded when the Young Family left. But no worries -- Bryce could still be heard in the background: "Tyler! Do you want to play Ping Pong? Tyler!"

The rest of the holiday was spent relaxing, climbing Mt. San Souci every other day, dancing in the pouring down rain, moving a few pieces of the wood to the wood pile, playing Farkle, eating burgers at the local tavern, and sitting around an open fire singing Kumbaya (seriously).

Oh, and Tyler grew a beard. It was red. And it was patchy. But it was, nevertheless, his first beard. My little baby is growing up! I think it's finally time to buy him a razor...

All in all, Oregon was green. It was NOT lean. But it was clean. We had sun, we went on runs, and got nothing done. We read our books, we had our own cooks, and we, thanks to Grandma, improved our looks. It was grand, there was ham, and we got to spend time with fam.

A special thanks to our sponsors who made this Christmas Break a happy one: The Earleys for being our number one rated Utah taxi service; Grandma for being our Portland shuttle, as well as the best darn Garden Burger Maker west of the Mississippi; Grandma/Grandpa for bringing down Santa's sleigh because he got caught up at the Woodburn Outlet Mall, I'm sure; Dad for taking so many pictures of the cats that it's almost entertainment in itself; Jen for the awesome food and decorations; Mom for rubbing my head until I fell unconscious; Kent for the Mission Impossible adventure; Mandy and Jason for letting us escape Hurricane Francis (the rain/windstorm we encountered upon taking OJ/Francis to the airport) and letting us sleep on your couch (see picture below);

OJ for braving the Oregonian Crazeeeeeees yet another year; Gage for, well, being Gage, and Bryce for reminding us that when we have children, we will have more than one so that they can play ping pong with EACH OTHER.

I love Christmas. I love Oregon. I love Garden Burgers. I love my family. And I'm a Mormon.