Christmas in Oregon

Matthew, Brian and I had a great Christmas holiday in Oregon. Matthew and I were in Salem for a month, while Brian spent two weeks at Fort Lewis and then the main part of the holidays with us in Salem. It was so much fun, and I can't believe how hard we laugh when we're together as a family. A few highlights included Annie's baptism, a hilarious Balderdash game, watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy Extended Version (definitely a month long endeavor), hanging out with my old friend Liz and just spending time with family. (As a side note, I've discovered that the game Balderdash is hilarious with some groups of people, but not so much with others--I'm not sure why.) During the month I was there were two gloriously sunny days and the rest of the time it rained. It reminded me of how beautiful Oregon can be in the winter, and how much I don't miss the rain.

Oh, and a funny thing I forgot. Annie had foot surgery shortly after Christmas and for a couple of weeks she had to crawl around. Well, I guess, crawling brings a whole new perspective to a nine year old girl and she noticed a bag in my dad's closet that she hadn't noticed before. So, she opened it up, took out a cannister, removed its pin and sprayed the contents of said cannister. It turns out the cannister contained bear spray (a highly concentrated form of pepper spray) and the resulting sneezing, coughing, mucous flowing hours were not much fun. We had to open all of the doors and windows and leave them open for a couple of hours (the outside temperature was in the 30's). Later we had to revisit the effects of oleo resin capsicum when my parents removed the bear spray stain from the carpet.

Matthew bundled up against the cold as we allowed the bear spray to disperse.