Christmas Part 2

After playing at grandma's house for the morning, we freshened up and headed over to Max's "acting" grandma Annette's house for a couple of minutes to see her family for christmas. We then quickley headed over to Max's uncle Jay's house for his family get together. We played with the cousins and opened presents and then had a massive wrapping paper fight. After cleaning up, we had a nice little dinner. We then headed home back to Red Grandma's house.

Mum-Z with our new nephew August!

The next day we got together with a lot of my wilcox cousins. We were there all morning, and in the afternoon, Max, Dad, Austin, Danny, Elizabeth and I headed to the temple to do baptism for Max's and my family. It was wonderful!

A couple days after Christmas we were able to go up to Tacoma to James and Elizabeth's house to stay for a couple days. We went with Dad and Danny and Austin. It was so fun spending Peaceful time with the family.

One of the highlights of our break was redeeming our gift certificate for a couple's massage. All I can say is that it was amazing!

For New Years eve I was able to go snowboarding for my first time ever. I thought I would be cold and miserable but it ended up being so fun. We went with Max's brother and his son and also my little brother Danny came! It was his first time too. I'm bummed I forgot my camera. Danny did awesome. We had so much fun, especially when they started shooting off fireworks over the snowcovered mountain.

On New Year's day we packed up and headed to Madras to visit Max's uncle Jay's property, a summer camp where Max had gone many years, and Jay's madras house. Jay showed us where he is going to build a house in the near future. We got to wrangle some cows which scared me to death. We also met Jay's girl's! (His seven cows that he recently purchased)

Jay with his girls

The cows we wrangled. (Jay's friend's ranch)

Jay's friends pet. His name is spike and he likes sitting on the couch.

That was our fabulous two weeks we were able to spend with family. We had so much fun and we can't wait until next year!

A hectic bunch of weeks!

SO, all I can say is that our winter break was probably the best ever and it was somewhat spoiled as we had to jump into the busiest semester yet of school. Don't worry, I'm loving the learning and keeping plenty busy.

Our break went a little like this...The morning after our last finals we headed out about 8:30am. The weather was perfect the whole way and we made great time to Portland. We arrived in Portland just as My younger brother Austin was performing with his bag pipe band on the historic PEacock Lane...That was our first stop instead of dropping of everything at Grandma's we just hung out down town looking all grubby for the evening.

Before leaving Portland, we found out Max's brother managed the Chipotle downtown near where Austin was playing and we were starved so we stopped by to see him and chow down.

We finally got to Grandma's pretty late and we were so excited to see her!

We spent a lot of time trying to visit all the family we have in the Area. We made dinner and played games with Max's grandma (MUM-Z) for an evening, we got our car all fixed, we went running regularly on the trails of cook, Tualatin, and Durham parks. We slept in more than we should have and attended our wonderful home ward.

On Christmas eve we went to Green Grandma's house as I have always done for as long as I can remember and have only missed the one year while on my mission. There are so many new cousins it seems every year.

We left Green Grandma's house a little early to head to Brent, Max's brother's house to celebrate Christmas with them. We had a fun time playing with our niece and Nephews and spending time with family.

The next morning was probably one of my favorite Christmas mornings. I was able to sleep in! Well, until James and Elizabeth came to wake us up. We were all at Red Grandma's house so we went out to her tree and saw the beautiful Christmas scene. Max and I filled eachother's stockings that morning! We opened up gifts with Grandma and soon after my little brothers and dad came over. After the wonderful present festivities Max, Dad, and I made a breakfast of homemade buttermilk pnacakes, hashbrowns, and bacon. Yummers! It was so tasty and I loved having a family meal!
We had a nice slow morning and I mostly played with my beautiful neice. Our favorite game was sailing in other words... "Let me push you around in a box Gwenevere!"


It is taking me days to work on this post so I will post this now and then finish it later!