Our First Christmas/New Years

The holiday season came so fast and we were in shock that we had been married that long. We were so surprised but excited that we were able to decorate our home for the festive season. The weekend before Christmas we spent it with my family exchanging gifts and spending time with one another. It was so much fun, they kids loved their gifts so much. We got the three little ones, Nerf guns which turned into a Nerf gun fight with all five of us. Their was Nerf darts in the Christmas tree and the floor. My Mom could not stop laughing and video taping all of us running around. We spent the night and then left to head back home to get ready to pack for our road trip to Oregon with Ryan's family. Our First Christmas was so much fun. We woke up to the smell of Coffee and Ryan jumping on his parents bed, then Ryan coming back to our room jumping on me waking me up. It was a little different than the Christmas I was use to. Usually it was the kids running into my room waking me up to open presents.

We all got up and opened presents and we got the best gift ever a BABY!!!!! Of course it was not a real one yet, but good enough for now.


She giggles and jumps and coo's, she is like a baby except all the getting up in the middle of the night or feeding her and changing her. We had a very relaxing day and got to enjoy being with the family and spend time exploring nature. We had a wonderful Christmas dinner, and after dinner we all got our hair cut by our WONDERFUL Grandma. We were sad to see the night end because we knew we were leaving in the morning to drop off Josh.
On our way to drop Josh off we experienced snow falling and rain and hail. It was so beautiful but also weird to see all within a few hours. We dropped Josh off near Salem, and said our goodbyes and began our week long adventure touring Oregon.

We had a cottage by the ocean with a beautiful view all around. The only issue was our cottage lacked a working heater. lol John tried to fix it but we needed a new one so that night we snuggled with multiple blankets, by multiple I mean like 6 blankets. The next day we headed to a aquarium where you could actually feed the seals.

We had such a great time feeding the seals and seeing all the different sea wild life. The Seals were great they made so much noise and were little characters. To get our attention they would slap their stomachs and swim right up to the cage.

That night we had heat which was so nice and we were very warm and weren't having to have 6 blankets. We played a new game that Ryan and I got Carol, it's a version of phase ten but called phase ten twist which was a lot of  fun.

We took a visit to the Tillamook cheese factory which was very interesting. I have never been to a place that had so much cheese. Joseph would have loved to be there to eat all of it. We got to see how the cheese was made and packaged and the history of the factory and company. After our tour we got ice cream which to me was the best I have ever eaten.We left Tillamook to go to the best store EVER. Fred Myer, can I just say that Target and Walmart does not even compare to the store. They have everything, it is a full grocery store, clothing store and a hardware store, it was huge. The one we went to was two stories, I could not believe how big it was and just how many varieties the store contained. The only bad part is they are only in Oregon, which is so sad.

Alright, I know this is a long blog, sorry about that but we did so much to just skim by it all. Our next adventure included a bigger aquarium which included not only sea life but reptiles as well. We saw so much, from huge snakes, fish, sharks to piranhas and many more.

 It was such a huge aquarium, bigger then some of the long beach ones that I have been too. We got to touch some of the plant and animal life, which made me a little scared because I didn't want to get stung or anything.

The next day we took day off from traveling and went to the beach which was nice to just walk around and relax. The boys made us a bridge so we could cross the fresh water stream that was over flowing due to all the rain and snow they had at the camp site. We walked along the beach to this spot with a ton of rocks and tide pools. There were so many anemone's and star fish Ryan had a blast finding them all.

We went exploring like we normally did and got soaked, well I did not Ryan. A huge sneaker wave came out of no where and hit us, it was really funny but scary because I didn't want to fall off the rock into a puddle of water. The beach was a lot of fun, we saw so much and enjoyed the fresh air.

 We spent the rest of the day, with one another and playing games and eating dinner and enjoying our last day at the cottage before we picked up Josh.

We were sad to say goodbye but very excited to pick up Josh and celebrate the new year. We picked up Josh and spent New Years with each other playing card games and going to dinner at one of the best places ever. Izzy's. It was a huge buffet dinner that had a wide variety of foods. You can never go wrong with an all you can eat.

New Years day we went to the Sea Lion caves, which was really interesting. It was a huge cave with sea lion's taking refuge in this cave from the weather and the pounding waves. They were so up close and personal, we couldn't touch them but they were close enough.

 It was so loud, they were making so much noise communicating to one another. They were also fighting for territory which was sad to see the little sea lion's get kicked off the rock to let the bigger sea lion's come up.

After we went to the Sea Lion Caves we headed to the National Animal Park. I've been to many parks but not one that let you touch the animals. The animals were so cute but they let the goats roam free which I did not like. I was scared the goats were going to ram me or something, so every time they came close to me I had Ryan scare them off.

We got to hold a possum and pet a baby leopard, it was so neat. They also had this cat which I can't remember then name of but it wasn't the nicest, he swatted at my hand which scared me because I got nervous he was going to claw my hand. We also got to play feed the bears and I think they are called wallaby's.

After our long day at the park we headed to a hotel to spend the night and head home the next day. Our journey home was very long and funny, they had a lot of freeway closers due to the weather conditions which made our journey home a little difficult but we made the best of it with our card games in the car and game boys. We were sad to see it end but glad to be off the road and home. We had a great New Years and Christmas. Our first road trip as a married couple was a blast and excited for our next one.