One of our most favorite family traditions is our bus day! Our whole family meets at the Bus Barn in the morning and we ride the bus all day long to different family members' homes to eat and do some Christmas activities. We have done a progressive dinner for as long as I can remember and the bus was introduced to our tradition in 1998. From the looks of things, my mom may not be working for the bus company much longer so this was likely to be our last Bus Day. We tried to make the most of it and I tried to do my best to document it.
The morning started off great with my cousin Sam reading his mission call. He's been called to Russia (I have no idea how to spell the name of the mission so I wont try) He will be leaving in February. Throughout the day I tried to remember the Russian words I learned in Armenia and I could only seem to remember Ice Cream and Okay.
The first stop on our Bus tour was our house. We were eating fruits and veggies there and my uncle brought cinnamon rolls. We were packed in my house like sardines and I took this moment to go feed Miles' up in his room so I don't really know much of what happened here except for the food got eaten.
We then went down to Aurora to have incredibly delicious Gyros at the Packhams' house. Oh they were good.
We also got to play Jingo and win great Prizes. Charlie is still pretty excited about his new ball and his ninja turtle Frisbee,.
Then we got back on the bus and Miles got a quick turn driving the bus. We has all sorts of giddy.
The drive from Aurora to Vancouver is the longest stretch so many people took this time to nap.
I think it's funny that babies and children have all these restrictions and guidlines on how they should be buckled into the car but throw them in a bus and it's a free for all. This boy loved the freedom.
I liked that Gwenevere sat with us.
There was food on this kids face all day long. That's allowed on bus day...and it usually happens on every other day too.
SO then Max fell asleep and Charlie sat there wondering what to do with him.
He played with his face and hat.
Timmy and Gwenevere.
In the meantime Charlie is just wondering what is going on with daddy while Max's head continually falls and bonks Charlie.
"What are we going to do about this mom?"
But Max wasn't the only sleeper.
Little Evan
More sleepers.
I saved Charlie so Max tried to sleep more with Miles, Miles was even more wiggly than Charlie.
And this is probably my favorite photo from the whole day, He was completely in heaven riding on the bus and going to all his cousins' houses to play with their toys and eat treats.
Then Charlie and Everett got their turns driving the bus. I know Charlie had been talking about this moment for a long time.
We finally got to Jay and Natalie's house and were greeted with delicious Burritos and Wassail.
We made sure to get our family photo with the bus.
Next we went to my mom's house in Tigard.
Charlie liked sitting next to Uncle Dan and helping (distracting) him with his homework.
We had some pull-up competitions. It turns out that Miles likes to hang.
Sort of...
This little football star showed everyone up!
Max was trying to be humble and only do a couple...he really is good at Pull ups...ah..I swoon!
I tried and still can't do a full pull up but I was stronger than I thought and did some sort of pulling up.
We did the bells at my mom's house.
The pinata is always a highlight!
It took awhile with all the little kids that we have in the family now,
We were glad we had Donovan though, he busted it open for us.
I think it also might be a tradition to make hats out of the pinata parts.
At some point all the drivers went back to the bus barn with my mom to clean the bus and get our cars to bring back to my grandma's house.
And that was it, the end of a very busy and fun day. We will miss having the bus but it will be fun to see how this tradition evolves in the future.
Thank you for documenting this, it is the one tradition I really miss.
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