A Little bit of Christmas

 For Christmas this year we journeyed to Oregon.  We spent two nights in Medford with our good friends the Millars.  The kids had an excellent time playing with the goats, creating a clubhouse in the barn loft, and checking for eggs in the chicken coop.  Country living at it's finest!  Kenna and Natalie enjoyed playing with their friend Grace.   I love the bottom left picture in the collage.  Natalie gave Grace such an abundance of love they fell right off the couch.  Luckily, Grace was a good sport and didn't mind the tumble!

Our next stop was to Grants Pass.  We were able to attend the baptism of cousin John, and stayed for a large family Christmas hosted by my sister Jen.  She did a great job and it was so nice to be all together.

Stockings!  It was our first time doing stockings in a hotel.  Kids didn't seem to notice the difference.  Santa makes it in any way he can.  Hannah and Brynne were at Grandma Honey's house so we didn't get to witness their stocking opening.

Our third, and final (hooray) stop was in Corvallis to spend a few days with my parents.  Three of my sisters also live in town.  I loved having extra time with my newest niece (2 months!!) and catching up with everyone.  I have a sister getting married in two months and a sister having a baby in four months, so we had plenty to talk about!  Josh introduced his favorite game to his brother-in-law and we had a fun couples night with just us married couples (sorry, Devon!)

The bummer part of this trip was the flu bug that the two little ones picked up somewhere.  Kenna bounced back pretty quick after just a day of being sick, but Natalie was miserable for the entire second half of our trip.  I was a little afraid that my parents would ask us not to bring our kids back again.  She was seeming much  more like herself the day we left.  Of course.

Driving home through the snow-covered hills!  We did play in the snow on our trip, but my sister has all the pictures on her computer.  We thought it was a lovely drive, but we were also super grateful that it was a clear day and there was no precipitation actually descending from the sky while we drove.  ;-)

The kids surviving our 11 hour journey home.  Thank goodness for movies.  It saved our life.  We spent the last half hour of our drive singing all sorts of songs and it was so awesome to be in the car singing together.