Happy Holidays!

This has been a great holiday season, except for the fact I didn't enjoy a month long break as I have for the past 5 years. However, I fully appreciated the few days I did have off.



Erik and I worked up until last Friday and left for Idaho at 4:30am Saturday morning. He dropped me off at my Aunt's house in Spokane (for a Holiday Girl's Club Meeting, don't ask - its top secret anyway) and continued on to my parent's house. I had a great time catching up with aunts and "cousin-in-laws" (would that be second cousin?) and meeting the newest addition to my huge extended family, Grace Walsh.



After the "meeting" my mom and I did a little shopping and finally made it up to my parent's house. Erik and I spent the next 3 days enjoying snow, family, and....well lots of things like cookies, candy, delicious dinners and hors d'heurves, presents, scattergories, Muppet's Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (well Erik didn't enjoy that one), and generally being fairly lazy.



We also went on a great hike up at Priest Lake with Jenny, Ben B., Tom, Ben, and the dogs of course. It was so great being with my family and I was very sad to go.

the lovely tree my dad cut told ya I was lazy

for some reason I was into panoramics

Ben and Tom are going on an adventure

I was entertained by Jenny

Watch out!

Who's this hottie? Sunny and snowy at once
Ben B!
This was actually pre-hike

Destination: dock told you I went panoramic crazy
it was a beautiful day
thanks for taking the picture, Ben!
yet another, but so cool!

introspective perhaps? Nah.
they look excited about presents
a classic "Christmas in Idaho" picture, complete with racks in the background

and the best part?! Jenny and Ben announced they're preggo!

My pre-birthday weekend

My 24th birthday is tomorrow so Erik and I decided to celebrate this weekend (actually I might still be getting a tasty homemade dinner and cake tomorrow). Lets just say, its a weekend I will never forget ;)

It actually snowed for about 30 minutes, and rained the rest of the weekend

First up: I absolutely love decorating for Christmas. It has now become tradition to do this on my birthday weekend. I got down my boxes and went to work, mostly in the living room and dining area. After I got everything up, all I had left were ornaments and lights!


Next stop: a tree farm! There is nothing I love more than going out into the wilderness, hiking through two feet of snow and finding the perfect christmas tree to cut down and pack out. Unfortunately that is really hard to do around Portland so I settled for a scenic drive to a tree farm. By the time we got there is was POURING rain and instead of going for a hay ride to pick out a tree to cut down, we opted for one of the pre-cut trees. We were soaking wet and cold by the time we packed it in the car (Thank God for fold-down seats), but it was well worth it.


Finally: I decorated the tree while Erik played Xbox, which is fine because I am picky about it anyway.

No Dad, its not too close to the heater I do love the sparkly purple pineconeand jolly St. Nick!

We had dinner reservations at the Chart House which turned out to be very nice (can you say "valet"?) and had a beautiful view. The food was out of this world (lobster bisque, crab stuffed mushrooms, macadamia crusted mahi-mahi, and melt-in-your-mouth filet mingon with mashed potatoes). It was a fun and very filling experience.

No pics from dinner, but here's my dress (complete with tags)

Lets see....what else happened this weekend....

oh yeah!

the pictures don't do it justice, its actually very sparkly

Of course I said yes! He even got down on one knee

Miss Pup approves

Backtracking: Thanksgiving weekend

This year was the first time I didn't go to my parent's house for Thanksgiving. I initially thought I would be very sad, but we actually had a great time!

Jenny and Ben B. got to Portland Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday. We didn't do a whole lot outside because the weather was kind of lame and we found other things to occupy our time.

Jenny and I did a little shopping on Black Friday, but waited until 11am. I found a really nice snowboarding jacket on sale but that was about it. We went to the dog park one day which is always fun and entertaining.

The boys were interested in going to eat (and drink, of course) at the Rogue restaurant downtown. That was pretty fun and was followed up by a quick trip to Powell's Bookstore. Unfortunatly Jenny wasn't feeling well so that was cut short.

Jenny is not looking well

I think I'm teasing him

Time to go home

Thanksgiving dinner was hosted by Todd and Sobo at their apartment. It was nice meeting Sobo's parents and hanging out with the boys, Sarah, and Spencer (Sarah's brother). I made stuffing and pies, Jenny baked some delicious twice-baked potatoes.

Stuffing is serious business Mmmmm, butter Erik wasn't much help
Sobo and his nice motherOoooh, football

It was a great weekend!