I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas! Ours was really good, but filled with a lot of running around, and I am happy to be home once again to finish up some packing and sleep in our own bed.
The first part of the weekend was spent at Brasada with Pats family: His mom, step dad Roger, little brother Hayden, step brother Chris, his wife Mandee, and their son Maddox who just turned two.
friday
I spent Friday morning and afternoon packing and getting ready to go so that as soon as Pat got finished with work we could head over the pass to Bend for the first part of the weekend. Unfortunately we spent the majority of our first night there finishing up some work and trying to convince his mom that no, we couldn't play games with her because we had work to get done. Once we had some dinner and finished up our projects we tried out some of Pats homebrew and then relaxed before heading to bed.
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| [[ rain to snow. ]] |
saturday
In the morning we all got up to take Maddox, Pat's little nephew, down to see Santa, although I think he was much more enamored with the horse they had for children to pet. He told the horse to "sit!" several times like a dog, which was hilarious. After seeing Santa, and posing in his sleigh for some pictures, we headed back up to the house to make breakfast and open presents. Me and Pat had not had time to exchange our presents for each other yet, so we did this now as well. I got Pat a brewing kit to make Rogue's Hazelnut Brown, a Marvel encyclopedia he has been coveting for a while, and a few other things he asked for. He got me several of the books I asked for and a pair of Urbanears Tanto in grape to use for work (which I am enjoying right now). I will get more in to the gifts later with their own post. His parents were extremely generous and got me a warm puffy jacket I wanted, as well as an adorable pair of Sorel boots, both of which will come in handy very very much once we make our final move over the pass next week.
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| [[ the christmas tree. santa claus. maddox and the horse. me and pat in the sleigh. sunny saturday. reindeer hayden. my fancy new christmas getup. the sorel boots i have been wanting. ]] |
After breakfast and exchanging gifts we decided to go swimming in Brasada's outdoor pool which was heating for the holiday weekend. I was a little skeptical, but it was actually really warm and a lot of fun despite being freezing outside. I guess it really is sunny for most of the year over there after all.
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| [[ outdoor swimming in december. ]] |
When we got back to the house we played some board games while dinner was finishing up. Chris kicked our asses during Monopoly, but I am still the Rummikub champ. Dinner was delicious and a ton of food, I definitely over ate a bit and was really tired after, so I curled up with A Little Princess, a book I had started reading right before the weekend for the rest of the night.
sunday
In the morning I finished up my book (I couldn't put it down, it is definitely one of my favorites now) before breakfast. It had started snowing really early and was gorgeous out at Brasada, but we had to pack up and get ready to head over the pass to my dads house. We loaded up, car and said our goodbyes and thank yous, and then headed out. There was a lot more snow through Redmond and everywhere else and we got stuck a number of times before even getting on to the Mt. Hood pass. Once we had started on the pass we were stopped again for almost two hours at a stand still for whatever reason, which was not ideal, but I was glad to have coffee, full glasses of water, and Pats grandmas homemade chex mix with us. It was dark by the time we started moving again and once we hit Dumascus we were in a full fledged blizzard with slush everywhere and couldn't see anything. It was terrifying. By the time we made it to my Dads place around 8, I was extremely thankful to be out of the car.
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| [[ the long long drive to portland. ]] |
I will post the second part of our weekend adventures tomorrow since I took so many pictures, and another post with all of our Christmas goodies later!
