What a lovely little break this has been thus far... and we still have 4 more days off. So grand! Andrew took the Friday before Christmas off and we visited the Portland zoo. Drew had never been and the few times that I have visited I had a child strapped to each hip. We woke up early, packed the entire car up (bc we would be headed south for Xmas right after the zoo!) and made a little pit-stop for our morning fix, Starbucks!
It was free.zing! Glad we requested our lattes extra hot ;)
We felt like Mr. & Mrs. Claus. I love wrapping & giving presents!
The days leading up to Christmas, as well as the few days that have followed have been absolutely packed! Packed with gifts, lots of driving, lots of Christmas movies, hot cocoa/steamed eggnog w/ sprinkles (our new holiday fav!) delicious goodies, lack of sleep and lots and lots of beautiful faces that we do not get to see enough! We have celebrated the holiday four times! Andrew's mom, his dad, my parents and then the 11th annual tradition with the grandparents and the entire Short/Elliott/Belloir clan at Seven Feathers. I love love love Seven Feathers with the wholeeee fam. No sleep, nerts tournaments, poker, over eating... It just isn't Christmas without all of it. :) And might I add that this year my uncle and I took FIRST PLACE in the nerts tourney. That's right. There were a total of about ten teams, so it was totally legit, a ten team tourney, and we so dominated!
Flash back to Christmas am... Hubby and I totally pulled of the BEST surprise. My parents thought we would be heading down later in the evening to celebrate... but little did they know, we were up and at em at 5am and hitting I-5 by 5:20. We blared Christmas tunes the entire trip, with Clover and coffee in hand, of course. We pulled into the driveway a little bit past 7am, rang the door bell 25 times and completely surprised them. My mom was literally jumping--then ran into the kitchen, started brewing coffee and put her a.ma.zing Chirstmas casserole in the oven. Oh, I love being home for the holidays.
A few a lot of snapshots from the past few days.
The next four days are going to be just as lovely. Filled with ringing in a new year in Portland, getting to see and spend time with our wonderful business peeps and planning out 2012. This will include -- Ava (our favorite cafe, conveniently located 800 feet from our front door), pictures, cork and the the sees & jrad.
2012 is going to be even better than 2011, I can just feel it!
The next four days are going to be just as lovely. Filled with ringing in a new year in Portland, getting to see and spend time with our wonderful business peeps and planning out 2012. This will include -- Ava (our favorite cafe, conveniently located 800 feet from our front door), pictures, cork and the the sees & jrad.
2012 is going to be even better than 2011, I can just feel it!
