The Beauty & The Beast of Our Holidays

Happy New Year! It is great to back in the blogging world after a three week absence. I've loved catching up with all of you through your posts and loved even more all of your holiday greetings over the phone, email, cards, and in person! Here is a (lengthy) recap of our holiday hiatus:

The Beauty

Since Peter is connected by the golden handcuff, I took off early on December 18th with the boys to Washington. The flight was on time, NINE hours long and fairly non-eventful, aside from losing a booster seat (I got it back later). I was happy that the boys did so well on such a long journey, cooped up in a plane. Upon arrival we were happily greeted by my parents and whisked away to Rainforest Cafe, where we met up with my sister, Megan, her husband Jason, and their new baby girl, Kate. It was so fun to meet Kate in person after drooling over so many of her cute pictures. We also met with my sister Mollie and her two girls. It was a fun place to reunite, eat, and chat, although Tyler was deathly afraid of the gorillas.

The next few days were spent preparing for my entire family of origin and their families to arrive for the much-anticipated Christmas excursion to Bend, Oregon. Megan and I shopped & baked up a storm (buckeyes, magic cookie bars, lemon bars) while the boys got along marvelously with their Uncles Jason & Mark. They had a great time playing with all of our old school toys that my Mom has saved (the cars, of course, being the favorite). We also attended the home ward's Christmas party and I had fun running into old friends, while the boys had a blast with the pinata (yes, a pinata at a Christmas party).

Peter, my brother Matt, his wife Lisa and their two girls arrived on Saturday and the real party began. We watched BYU win their bowl game and had a great time catching up. Sunday we attended church and made gingerbread houses to deliver to friends in the ward. It must have been quite a sight to see all of us caroling down the street, in the rain, with syrupy gingerbread houses in hand. I loved it.

On Christmas Eve day we made the 7.5 hour trek to Bend, taking the long route to avoid a predicted snow storm. For 18 of us to do this, we took two trucks, one minivan, one car, a U-Haul trailer, and a partridge in a pear tree. We got to the gorgeous vacation house just in time to set up the tree and decorate it with all of our ornaments from childhood, which was especially fun for the kiddos. Of course there were Christmas pj's to be unwrapped and put on, cookies put out for Santa, and "Twas the Night Before Christmas" was read. We were shooting for the kids to put on a live nativity, but we would've had some pretty whiney little shepherds so we passed on the idea.

Christmas morning came and Parker was happy to see that he had been a good boy after all - he was stunned to find a coveted race track near his stocking. T-bone got a vintage Little People airplane to indulge his obsession with them. Peter and I were only to exchange stockings this year, but I surprised him by filling his with dollar store beach paraphenalia and a trip to Florida for us in May. Gotta love Skybus!

The rest of our stay was spent enjoying time with my family. We talked, hot tubbed, watched a lot of He-Man, ate great meals, played Catch Phrase, took online quizzes, went sledding, and took family pictures. It ended all too soon and on Thursday, Peter & I's sixth wedding anniversary, we headed out to Lake Oswego to visit Peter's side of the family.

The drive there deserves a mention; we drove through Mt. Hood in an effort to take less time than it took getting there. What do you know? We hit a snowstorm. It was HUGE and beautiful all at once. The evergreens looked so majestic and peaceful covered in snow and yet the roads were very treachorous and we had to put chains on the tires. At one point, there was almost no visibility. Peter's knuckles were as white as the blasted snow from gripping the steering wheel! We made it out safely and enjoyed having the Stewarts host most of my family for dinner that night before we bid adieu to the Browns.

We were so lucky to now spend time with Peter's whole family and their kids, who came in from Utah, Wisconsin and Arkansas. Debra planned a very fun girls' day out with lunch at Zeppo's and mani/pedi's for all of us. We also window shopped and popped into a french bakery for a tasty treat. That night, we left the kiddies home with sitters and all of the adults escaped to Harborside restaurant in downtown Portland. It was a very nice treat for all of us and we enjoyed having time, uninterrupted, to chat and catch up.

The rest of our time all together was spent playing board games, playing with Grandpa's electric train set (the boys' very favorite), playing kickball, making terra cotta pot nativity sets, taking family pictures, exchanging gifts and of course, eating orange rolls and cream cheese brownies. Yum. Daniel & Katie had to leave early on Sunday morning, and Jared & Heidi left later that same day. Peter gave a wonderful talk in his home ward and had a nice time running into old friends.

On New Year's Eve we were spoiled on a shopping trip with John & Debra at Bridgeport and caught a little bit of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve before the clock struck twelve. Peter left very early the next morning to head back here to work and I spent a few remaining days being nursed back to health with the Stewarts (see The Beast). Parker had a fun outing with Grandma to the park and bookstore and also enjoyed playing marble works with Uncle Brian.

Since I was flying back out of Seattle, I headed back for one last night with my parents and the boys had a fabulous time playing with Grandma's new bath toys and roughhousing with Grandpa. I flew back home yesterday with the two boys, feeling a little strung out (lost the booster seat & the stroller this time!) but happy to have had such a fun break with family and to be headed back to normal life. Phew!

The Beast

Between the 27 people we stayed with over the holidays, we experienced the following illnesses:

10 Pink Eyes
8 Runny noses
5 Sore throats
4 Coughs
2 Rashes
2 Ear infections
2 cases of Stomach flu
1 fever
1 case of Pinworms

I promise we are a sanitary people.