Friday, we packed our bags and took the Train to Portland.
That in itself was an adventure since I was alone with the kids. Luckily we found a station to board where we could check our bags and carseats. Hayley wasn't even scared when the train came up (they are pretty big and loud.) We visited the bathrooms and the food cart. For some reason we were seated in the Business class. Which was fun, little larger seats and we got coupons to use in the food cart.
(Who could pass up free chips and M&Ms at 10am?!)
We made it to Portland where Skyler's parents picked us up and headed to lunch at my favorite bakery nonetheless, to meet up with his three sisters.
Skyler drove to Seaside to meet up with all of us after officiating a Community College game in Walla Walla Saturday night.
It was a long, late drive but we were sure happy to see him :)
We celebrated Christmas on New Year's Eve eve. All the kids were very excited to be together. It was pretty crazy, but fun to remember times when we would go to family gatherings and I was SO excited to see my own cousins.
(Kylee, Hayley, Ashlyn & Tessa in blue)
We went to the Seaside Library one day and made all sorts of puppets. We also made snowflakes to send to the children in Newtown, CT.
Hayley and Milena are only 1 year apart and are virtually inseparable at family functions. Hayley nearly refuses to go anywhere without Milena. Such love :) Good thing they're so cute together or we might have had problems.
Happy New Years!
As a New Years tradition, since we are usually all together at New Years celebrating late Christmas with everyone, Ben & Jodi bring their chocolate fountain and we pull out all the stops, scotcheroo balls, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, cinnamon bears, pretzels, donut holes, apples gosh did I forget anything?! Cider!
Hobbes getting his dinner, not quite as exciting as the scotcheroo balls
next to him, but hey yams are good too.
Since the kids don't really understand the concept of celebrating the New Year, we didn't feel like putting them and us through misery by keeping them up till midnight. So we had fake New Years at about 9pm. We had party hats, noise makers, music and hurrah-ing. And then put them all to bed :)
We took an adventure with the kids to Longbeach, WA. We walked the boardwalk and up the beach. Played in the sand and enjoyed the fresh saltwater air.
(Ashlyn, Brenna, Jenna, Kylee)
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