Oregon Christmas Vacation

We spent most of the holidays over in Mo-town in Oregon with Ben's family. It was wonderful getting to see people again and hanging out with the family. We had (too) many late nights playing Settlers of Catan, Cards and Mexican Train Dominoes with Ben's family. It's one of the things we miss most about being in Oregon - the comradry (some might refer to it as contention).

The weather ended up getting the better of us while we were there. The kids had been praying that it would snow while we were there and Heavenly Father definitely answered their prayers. Ben said that it was the most snow that he's ever seen in Oregon. (In fact, the kids prayers worked so good with the snow we're thinking of enlisting their help for other things!) The day after we flew in it snowed. We thought it was really fun. . . until it wouldn't stop snowing. It kept thawing, then freezing over, then snowing again. The cycle continued for close to 2 weeks. We only ended up having church 1 Sunday (out of 3) so we didn't get to see everybody that we wanted to. By the end of our trip I was sick of the cold and snow, but the kids had a blast. Here are a few of our pictures from vacation.


The plane ride there:

Hanging out waiting for the airport to open (it was 3:30am).
The kids did awesome on the trip there!

My favorite time on the airplane - Nap Time!

The Snow:

This was from the first day it snowed. It was so great that day
and the kids really enjoyed making a snowman!

The next few days weren't so bad because it got a little warmer and the snow went away.

And then it came back. Curses to you snow!

The games:

Here we were playing Settlers of Catan (Cities and Knights). I started taking some
pictures and they started posing. I love that Ben has a seriously scary look on
his face (he looks like Popeye) and Troy is pretending to chug a 2-liter.

Lexi learned to play a new game - she loved playing Mexican Train Dominoes
with her cousin Grant. I'll think we're going to have to get that game!

Hanging out with Grandma:

Lexi and Sam helped Grandma to make gingerbread
man cookies which they had fun decorating later.

Grandma had them paint ceramic ornaments to hang on the tree.

Christmas Day:

It was a little weird not being in our own home for Christmas, but it was so great
to have Grandma and Grandpa around when the kids got to open presents. Dayne
really had fun this Christmas and LOVED opening presents. We had to make sure
that he didn't open everyone else's as well.


The annual Puffer White Elephant gift exchange was so much fun. Some of the
gag gifts were hilarious, but I think this Barbie head takes the cake. As you can
see my nephew didn't think it was very funny and Mari looks pretty disgusted.
Kent looks like he just struck gold - who wouldn't want a Barbie head?




The End!