Christmas pics and highlights

A few higlights from our Holiday in Oregon include:
-seeing LOTS of good friends
-staying with Dave and Majell
-gettinng a whole new bathroom set for Christmas (unexpectedly)
-watching Taladega Nights, In Good Company, Oceans 12, Pursuit of Happyness and The Holiday
-Deschutes Brewery tour
-hours and hours spent at Backporch
-Our awesome Christmas gift from Dave and Majell "Free drinks for the time you are visiting"
-Beginning my New York scrapbook
-3 Christmas celebrations!

Feel free to look through the album of pictures

Christmas Holiday 2006

Home at last! Happy New Year!

Happy 2007 everyone! My Holiday has officially come to an end. No more lights, trees, presents, backporch coffee and no more Oregon. It was a great great trip but I must admit, a bit long. We are glad to be home to our own place with our own bed, our own shower and our own space. Today I went back to work and life is now officially back to normal for the most part. The last week or so in Oregon was great. Just as relaxing as ever mostly spent sipping coffee at Backporch. I got to see some old friends, went to a wedding and had 2 more Christmas extravaganzas with Derek's family!! I am very happy to report that our drive home was much more successful than the drive down. We did not hit any snow banks and though we were quite tense driving through the snow over the Mt Hood pass we made it through safe and sound. Below you will find a couple pics of our last days in Oregon. I will try and post the whole album in the next couple of days in case you want to see more of what we did during our break. I hope everyone had an amazing Holiday with family or friends or however you spent it. I am just so thankful for all of the friends we were able to see while in Oregon. Dave & Majell, Chris & Jenni (and Sam), our new friend Joe, Kari, Megan, Marc & Alexis, Shaun, Amber, Rachel and more...I love you all and appreciate your friendship so much.

Kari, Megan and I (just like old times) on top of Pilot Butte in Bend.

At Beth Colclough's wedding

Beth's wedding reception with Jessica and Allison (love you girls!).

opening my new sheets and down blanket from Derek's dad & step mom!!

Our adorable niece and nephew on Alex's new rocket! Aren't they the cutest?!

Christmas and more!

The past few days have been great. Full of friends, family and fun! A couple days before Christmas, Derek and I, along with my dad and a few of his friends went to a Deschutes Brewery tour and tasting. Which, by the way, is free and totally recommend it if you are ever in Bend.

This is beers number 3 and 4 :)

On Christmas eve my sister and her husband came into town at last. We went to a Christmas eve Candlelight service with the fam...

...and then out to Pine Tavern for a late dinner

Christmas morning arrived at last and the family gathered to open presents and spend the day together.


My wonderful husband got me the new iPod shuffle!!!! I am so excited about this. It is so cute and compact and perfect for anything.

The rest of Christmas day was spent with the fam. We hung out at home, went running with Annie, had a big Christmas feast around 2:00 then we all went to a movie. The kids saw Night at the Museum and the adults saw The Holiday. SO SO good. After the movies we had a gift exchange and Derek and I scored some great DVDs and a wine opener set. Exciting! Later that night as we gorged ourselves on dessert we played a fun game of Cranium that lasted way too long. But we had a blast.

Well, Christmas has come and gone, the rain has finally stopped falling, and the retail return lines are ridiculous. Exhale! Derek and I went shopping a lot of the day yesterday and last night we were treated to dinner at Zydeco by Dave and Majell. A splendid meal. Now I sit again at Backporch coffee just hanging out and waiting for the day to officially begin. I am meeting my friend Amber in about a half hour and then later today meeting with Megan and Kari. Oh how I love my friends :)