We were up and Bruce was out of the house to pick up the car by 9.00am. We packed the car and were on the road by 10.30 (which is only 30 mins later than what we thought). The weather was as expected, raining!! We drove and drove, the boys did surprisingly well, we had to make a couple of pit stops; Jamieson, who else. We drive through the Siskiyou Mountains, and made a quick stop so the kids could play in the snow. We definitely picked the right spot, we continued up the mountains, and it was breathtaking, I got some great footage, which will be on the trip movie that Bruce is making.
We got out and the boys ran around the making snowballs and of course throwing them at everyone. We got in the car and through the gorgeous scenery crossed the state line into Oregon. We drove and drove and saw some gorgeous sites of Oregon. It’s very much farming areas, lots of open spaces and mountains. The darkness hit around 4.30, which made it feel like a longer drive then it actually was.
We stopped for the night at a place called Eugene/Springfield. We booked into a hotel and went to the store and grabbed some food for dinner. We went back to the hotel and ate our dinner, then not long after, I was in bed asleep. So what happened after that, I have no idea. I think everyone else was not far behind. We woke the kids up and went down to breakfast, which wasn’t too bad, toast, cereal, bagels, and of course, Danish’s and muffins (no donuts). We finished up and were on the road again not long past 8.30am.
We made pretty good time, cruising through, the boys just wanted to get there, so we ready didn’t stop at all, I had some stuff for sandwiches in the car, so we just kept going. Up through Washington and we made really good time until we got to Tacoma, 45 mins of sitting still, there was an accident cause of the weather, so we arrived at Rich’s in Lynwood an hour later than he expected. It was an easy transition for me, I felt like I knew them already as they did too I suppose, so we just rolled straight into it. Bruce was so happy to see them, he was like a little kid and couldn’t stop smiling. We chilled out for the afternoon, just chatting and staying out of the cold, Amhad (son) arrived for dinner and Brionna (daughter) got home a little later than she should have. We had some dinner and unloaded the car and just had a nice easy first night, sports was on the TV so we weren’t far from that.
Up the next morning, Rich was already up, (5.30 is his usual wake up time), we had some breakfast and just chilled out for the morning. Brie is a sleeper so we didn’t see her until nearly lunch, and the boys had a TV in their room so you know that’s where they were until we dragged them out. Christmas Eve overall was a quiet one, went to the supermarket to grab some stuff, helped Deb put out some nibbles for dinner. They were having some people over for drinks.
Funny Christmas Eve story…..
As I said Deb’s friends were due to arrive around 6.30. Now they were a little nervous, cause the last time they did Christmas Eve drinks, they didn’t leave until around midnight. We started eating the nibbles at 7.00 cause we were hungry, the phone rang and it was them, they would be there soon.
Soon… nothing, 8.30 the knock at the door came and what can only be described as wackiness ensued. Her friend’s mother turned up with some others, daughter and ALL her kids, and then another car (or 2) load of people turned up. It was like a scene from a comedy movie, people just kept coming through the door. Deb and Rich couldn’t even introduce us to them cause they were meeting them for the first time as well. There were room mates and boyfriends and sisters and kids, we counted around 12 people.
Everyone came in and they started getting out all the alcohol that they bought. Rich’s face was priceless, he could not believe what was happening, Bruce and I were just falling about laughing. Brie was just sitting there smirking; it was very funny. Around 10.30, Deb quietly asked her friend if she could take everyone back to her place, the kids have to get to bed and we still have to do stockings, (they do a their stockings the night before). So they were out of there and when the door closed, we all looked at each other and cracked up for about 20 mins, going through what had happened over the evening. It was definitely a story that we all will be telling for a long time. We put the boys in bed at around 11.00, after they scored a stocking that Deb and Rich put together for them.
We had Jamieson coming downstairs for about an hour, so that made things hard. Bruce and I got to bed just before 1.00am, which wasn’t too bad considering. The instructions to the boys were they were not allowed to come out of their room (Brie and Ahmad were sleeping downstairs’) until at least 7.00am, with Uggs and dressing gowns on.
CHRISTMAS DAY
I woke up around 6.45 and went to the bathroom just in time to spring Jamieson coming upstairs from checking on the tree. I went into the room and grabbed the robe etc, came out and opened their door, there they were sitting on the bed, with uggs and robes and big smiles waiting!!! VERY FUNNY! We went downstairs and by that time all the others were up, so the boys started on their stockings while we made ourselves a cuppa for the present opening.
The boys did quite well, and Brionna and Ahmad did just as well, all the kids were very happy and the day was off to a great start. We all chilled out and the kids all hung out with their toys and we all had showers and got dressed for the day. We didn’t sit down for a lunch, it’s pretty much like Thanksgiving, the big meal is later in the day. Around 3.30 we left in the snow to go north to Deb’s brother John’s house. Surprisingly they had had no snow at all. We had a beautiful dinner with Deb’s family they are really nice people and I forget that people just like hearing us talk, so as you can imagine there were a lot of questions. We got home around 10.00 and chilled out for a little bit, had a cuppa and then all of us off to bed.
Boxing Day or the day after Christmas as it’s known here, the boys asked if we could just stay at the house and they could play with their toys, so that’s what we did. It was a very quiet day, I made Lasagna for dinner and Deb finished off the ribs that we did have time to eat the day before. Conner waited patiently for 2 days for them. The boys went out for a quick post Christmas sales look in the morning and the girls went out in the afternoon.
Not really in the mood, I hit the Macy’s Christmas shop and got a Merry Christmas, which is kind of what I was looking for, so I was happy and ready to go after that. That was pretty much it for the rest of the day, it was a really quiet one, Ahmad was over for dinner then went back to home later after we headed of to bed. The boys were playing on the scooters, their Heeley’s and both of them on PSP games. They were in heaven.
Then next day we woke as usual and got ready for our day out in Seattle. We arrived at the Pike Place market and walked around, it’s a pretty cool place. Lots of history, the great thing is that Rich’s grandfather owned it until the 70’s when he sold it. So that was a nice tie in. We watched the fish throwing and the boys had some fun, but you can only watch fish being thrown so long in the freezing cold, so we headed out to find somewhere for lunch. We stopped at a nice little restaurant and had a beautiful sandwich for lunch. We were back in the car and out of the rain around 2.30 and did a drive past the Space Needle, there was no point going up there cause of the weather so that was a bit of a bummer, Maybe next time. We made our way back down the highway to pick up Brie from dancing, had a hot chocolate from the coffee shop next door while we were waiting and it started snowing again. The boys had a nice play and Brie finished her class, we met some of her friends and the studio owners.
We got home and Brie changed then we jumped back into the car and were off to do a little shopping, Big bargain place, I had some fun sifting through, so did Deb the boys not so much. We drove back to Lynnwood and Brie’s friend got us into this really cool restaurant for dinner. Meals were OMG!!! They were huge… we had a really nice dinner the night before we left and talked about the Krafts coming down south to see us.
Hopefully they will be down in July when Brie is off school and dance is taking a break. We had a fantastic dinner and got home around 8.30, and we sat down and put Cars on the DVD, Rich had never seen it. We all headed off to bed around 11.00, very tired!!
Our last morning in Seattle, was rainy as per usual, we were scheduled to drop into to see Brie dance, but the studio wasn’t going to be open until around 1.00, so we had to give it a miss. Bummer!!! We packed up the car and were on the road after a sad goodbye at around 10.30. It was a fun time; even the kids had a ball. They made some new friends, Rich and Deb wanted to keep Jamieson, I said yeah for a week. Especially Rich, he and Jamieson just had this connection, it was actually really nice to see. They would just sit down and chat.
And we were off……
The boys settled in and put a movie on the DVD player and I had the video and camera on the lap ready to go (for the trip video). We drove and really didn’t stop a lot. The boys did really well, we had some snacks on the way and they slept for a bit. We crossed the border into Oregon and kept on going around Portland and south. We stopped at an outlet mall that we had seen on the way up to have a look. The boys got their lunch, but as with kids, it’s not really a good thing to go shopping, especially when they get bored, and let you know. We went to Adidas and Nike and a couple of other places, and then couldn’t take it anymore and it was later than we thought, so we hit the road again.
We ended up stopping at a place called Grants Pass in a nice hotel, Bruce and Conner went out and got some dinner. Bruce kind of went the wrong way and got pulled over by a policeman, so there’s another trip story. He was really nice they said, laughing and knew they had no idea where they were going, looking for KFC for Conner. We had some dinner and just chilled out, the TV was off and we were asleep not long after 9.30pm.
I woke up and then Bruce not long after, the boys we had to wake up so we could go down for breakfast before it finished. It was a really nice spread. Bruce made waffles, there was juice, cereal, toast, pastries, muffins and hot chocolate YUM!!! We packed the car and were on the road again at around 9.00am. We filled up the car with gas and were off, we went through the mountains again and over the state line into California. It was a little hairy and we did see a car that had rolled off the side of the road, no one was injured, but it did look a little scary. Bruce drove carefully and slowly and the road had been ploughed, thank goodness for traction tyres. We got over the mountains and I got some gorgeous pics etc, we stopped at a little gas station and got out and the kids ran around, we had snowball fights and snowmen were made, it was a lot of fun. Back into the car again and we stayed in the car until we hit home. The rest of the trip the boys watched a movie, had a sleep and Bruce and I sat in the front and watched the world go by. We got home ahead of schedule at around 4.00pm, Bruce wanted to watch NFL New England Patriots go 16-0, undefeated for the season. So we unpacked the car, the kids grabbed out all their new stuff and I started on the laundry.
We were all really tired, but what a great time we all had. Next Christmas, who knows where we will end up. We sat down and looked at our beautiful tree, which we hadn’t seen for a week. It was good to be home but it was a great trip.
Our Sunday was spent fairly low key, Bruce took down my gorgeous tree, (I love that tree if you hadn’t figured that out yet) I kept going with the washing. It was a rainy day again, so staying in for the day wasn’t a hard thing to do. I had some present unpacking to do, the boys chilled out in their pj’s and it was a really quiet day and night all round.
Our New Years Eve was a busy one, well for me anyway. I spent the day at the store getting food to prep for the night at Paula’s. The boys chilled out and hung out for the day. I baked and cooked in the afternoon, then we got ready and headed over to Paula’s for a New Years Eve gathering. Andrea had pulled out because Robert was ill and Darcy had gotten a better offer to go out with friends that were over from Washington for Christmas. So it was us and Paula & Co and the Rivera’s were due much later. They were not arriving back from Germany until around 10.30.
We had some dinner and had a couple of drinks, then we played some cards and the adults took on the kids at Deal or No Deal, the parents winners!!! There was some dancing going on and it did get loud, which on New Years Eve is a fun thing. At 9.00 we celebrated East coast New Year on the TV and jumped around. Not long after Jeremy went off to sleep and we started putting the kids to bed, much to their disgust. Not long after 10.30 the Kristie and Carlos and all the kids and the Aussie boys turned up, and the party really began. The kids of course got up and they all started playing.
It hit 12.00, we all jumped up and down and danced around, Carlos got the firecrackers out left over from 4th July, then we all came back in the kids settled down and watched some TV and chilled out. Around 1.00am we put Conner and Jamieson to bed and the Rivera kids went to sleep on the couches etc. It was 3.00am when Kristie dragged Carlos and the others out of the house. You can imagine; we all hit the sack pretty hard, we were all exhausted!!!
And that is how we spend the last of 2007. I hope you all had a good year and that next year is a great one like ours is going to be.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
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