Ah, Christmas. Where do I even begin? The Lewis side of our family is all over the place...Chicago, Houston, Oregon and us in Washington. We had made a goal the previous Christmas to get together for 2015 but we weren't sure how to work it all out. Where to go, where to stay, how to get everyone together and off work on the same days- I mean, we're talking about 7 working adults here! That's A LOT of planning.
But, the phrase "where there's a will, there's a way" perfectly sums up how it all came together. We missed my brother, who is serving overseas in the Navy, but otherwise we were all together. We spent a full 8 days together, with an additional travel day each way for everyone. We decided on the Gorge- an area just east of Portland. In the country, but 15 minutes from the mall and 20 from the airport. I found a house online to rent through airbnb- a cute little family that were headed to Central America for 3 weeks over the holidays and wanted to rent their house out for the first time. They were so great and had prepared the house for us- all the bedrooms were set up with the right number of beds which made sleeping arrangements easy. There were essentially two living rooms plus a play area for the girls. A big deck and hot tub we were in most nights, rain or not. They even left their Christmas tree up! The house was in fairly easy driving to Mt. Hood and we ended up going there twice. I LOVED having (almost, love you, Matt) everyone together. It is so rare since we live far apart (and Brad and I keep moving!) and everyone is, of course, very busy.
Because it was such an effort to get everyone together, we didn't do many gifts for Christmas. Our biggest gift was being together! So the stress levels were low on that front, which was a welcome relief. To me, a wonderful, perfect Christmas would be singing songs together, watching movies, reading the story of Christ's birth, decorating sugar cookies, sitting around talking, drinking hot chocolate, and enjoying the lights of the tree, not necessarily a lot of gifts. I feel it takes away from the true meaning of Christmas and I enjoyed bringing the focus back to Him.
Papa and Mia....lots of quality together time. Mia is ~crazy~ about him!
My beautiful family
oxoxox miss you, K!
A and Mia played so well together. Since they are both only children, we were wondering if conflicts would just naturally pop up here and there. Honestly, none did, it was awesome. They had tons of fun together and Mia is still asking for her cousin!
We took a trip to Powell Books in Portland. I want to live there.
These girls love Papa!
We went on a little hike one day up to a waterfall nearby. The area is known for waterfalls with over 90 being on the Oregon side alone. Although we had tons of rain, we didn't let it stop us and still enjoyed getting out and exploring together!
Group photo with Mia trying to escape and you can only see A's kitty hat :)
Loving Papa time- I don't think she could ever get enough, I love it!
Mt Hood day 1...oh man, the visibility was not nearly as good as the second time we went but we had SO MUCH FUN!!! Mia is absolutely crazy about the snow and sledding and just being there. We had all the right gear, which makes a huuugggeeee difference.
Sledding with Daddy
Mia eats snow. Non stop.
Happy, happy baby girl!
Trying to feed Daddy some of "her snow"
She wouldn't stop eating it even for a picture
Me and my Daddy
My sisters are so pretty!
I'm not kidding. She was actually crawling around, with her face in the snow trying to eat as much as she could. Since there was about five feet of snow and the top couple of feet were fresh, I said go for it
Taking my family sledding to Mt. Hood was huge. My brother in law and niece from Houston had never seen more than the lightest dusting of snow. They had never been sledding or seen anything like this. At first, A was pretty frightened actually and was afraid she would "freeze to death" (thanks, Frozen). She was also mad she needed to wear the snow pants. But I was so proud of her! Once we got out there she totally turned it around and was begging to come back. Although we were missing two of our family members (who stayed back to work/rest), when we were talking later about our favorite part of the Christmas vacation, many of us said this day was it. And that's a fact- it was pretty awesome!
<3
We all knew we wanted to go to the Oregon coast for a day during the trip. The drive took just over 2 hours so it would be a pretty full day. When we were looking at the weather forecast, it consistently said that Christmas Day was the day to go. Clear skies, warmest weather. What to do? Move Christmas, of course! So we had Christmas Day on Christmas Eve and the spent the 25th at the beach. The girls are too young to know what day it is anyway (or what Christmas is for that matter!) and the adults just wanted to go to the coast so it worked out. We took a small picnic and headed out. We walked the coast line for awhile and played on the slides there for a bit and then went on a nearby hike. It was beyond beautiful and we had the place mostly to ourselves!
stomping the foam
I really love this picture of Mia and I. She is such a light in our lives!
Merry Christmas from Cannon Beach!
Katherine and Miles were so great on the trip, filling their roles perfectly and helping out tremendously. It was cute to see how Mia just loved being around them!
my sisters <3. I miss you so much
Cousins are the best!
The view on our hike...this picture is nothing to the reality of it.
2nd sledding day with the whole group. We weren't as happy with the sledding conditions on the second go around. They were crowded and the snow was over packed or something. I don't know, it just kept flying up in our faces which is never fun. So Brad had the idea to make our own run and that ended being a great choice! We all worked on it and never got snow in our faces- I even went down backwards just in my coat!
My gorgeous sisters!!! This is the same spot from the picture before with Brad, Mia and I. The visibility was incredible and the mountains were so beautiful!
My sweet niece. How I've missed her!
We went up to Timberline Lodge. I've read several articles about the lodge over the years- it is where The Shining was also filmed. Everyone said go, it's incredible, but it just never seemed on the way to anything or convenient. Well, the area we were sledding is just past the drive up to the lodge so on our way back we decided to stop off and check it out. Although it was quite busy, we were able to get up there (even though they said it was full and closed), find parking (finally), and even find a table just as some people were leaving. If you had been there and seen exactly how many people there were everywhere, you'd be impressed by these simple things, trust me!
We got hot chocolate and walked around. They had a nice little museum type area talking about the long history of the lodge.
I asked a nice stranger to snap a group photo on our way out.
I was glad we went up there on the second trip, when the visibility was so good, because ohhhhh my goodness. The view. Breathtaking. You could even see Mt Baker in the far distance- that's how clear it was. I hope we get to return again soon!
This is kind of a funny picture but it represents one of the most fun activities we did all week- at least I thought so!! Katherine and Miles live in Chicago and have access to amazing chocolate, like pretty much all the time. I'm jealous, I'll admit it! We weren't doing gifts this year except for the little ones but they couldn't resist and got each of us a fancy chocolate bar. Each was a different, quite unique flavor and had different text on the back explaining exactly "how" to eat that chocolate as well as what made it special. I think it was two days before we left, I can't remember now, but most of us hadn't eaten ours (ahem. Austin ;)) so we gathered around and took turns reading the back of our chocolate bar and then passing it around so we could each try some. Everyone had a favorite and it was just so nice to sit around (the girls were sleeping) and talk and enjoy being together. The next day when it was the last day there and we went around and said what our favorite thing from that week was, I said the chocolate tasting. Yes, I do loooovvvveeee chocolate but the reason it was so fun was we were all relaxed and happy and I don't know the word. It was just a feeling of "togetherness" and I loved every minute. My family is awesome. I love being around them because I can be myself without worrying if I've offended someone, if my words were taken for the wrong meaning, tip toeing around to make sure I don't do the wrong thing, always reassuring that I mean what I say....
There was none of that for me for the entire week. I was truly relaxed and I think they did, too. I'm so happy Amelia will grow up having these wonderful people as part of her extended family and we are all blessed to have her be apart of our forever!
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