Christmas in Oregon

So, our Christmas break really started back on December 13th with a week long stay in the beautiful and warm tropics of Hawaii...then we took an over night flight home and we got stuck and could not fly into the Portland Airport because of all of the snow and ice that they were constantly getting in Oregon. With all of our flights canceled from Salt Lake to Portland and the next flight out of Friday (the day after Christmas). Blake and Savannah called us up and proposed the option to drive....so we took it and left Monday night at 8 pm. We arrived home after a long, snowy, and scary drive on Tuesday morning at 9 am.
We were all so happy to be home together. This was our families first year to have everyone together in over 7 years...we have had a missonary out for over 7 years straight...and now we were finally all home together again.
Blake and Shawn got the old snowmobiles running and spent the rest of the day riding around the farm, i finally found them so I could go on a ride too and I went with Shawn and he tipped us both off the snowmobile-I was not very happy! Tuesday night we met up at the church with all of our cousins and aunts and uncles and made gingerbread houses while the bigger boys all played basketball.
This is me with cute little, Charlie, the youngest of all the Nelson cousins and he is the cutest and sweetest baby ever, I spent the rest of the trip holding and playing with him.

Here is everyone making their gingerbread houses...

Shawn, Brock, Brandalyn, and Kyle after playing some basketball

We have a family tradition of opening up a pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve, this year we all went into Jareds room and piled up all the presents on him and then we opened them all. The girls got fun pajama sets and the boys all got NIKE shorts to sleep in.

Everyone in Jared's room after opening up our PJs.

Christmas morning...we all woke up and sat by our piles of presents and then opened them up one by one in order from youngest to oldest. from my parents/Santa Shawn got some new clothes, a ski helmet, a racquetball racket and balls, church shoes, I Tunes card, and a pistol and bullets. I got some clothes, some kitchen stuff, black shoes, scrapbook stuff, and a Tiffanys bracelet from my dad. And together Shawn and I got a church book about strengthening marriage and a new little video camera also from my parents. I am excited about our new video camera, it will be fun to use and to make family videos with-now we just have to learn how to use it.

Blake and Savannah in their matching North Face jackets.

Here is Kyle trying to set up one of Jared's new toys

Blake and my dad making the Nelson family breakfast tradition of aebleskie (which are little pancake balls that are dipped in butter and sugar-so yummy! On Christmas morning all of the cousins and aunts and uncles and my grandparents come over for this yummy danish breakfast and for the cousin gift exchange.

Shawn and Brock playing pool downstairs

Everyone loves helping Jared play with his new toys, he always gets lots of fun ones at Christmas

Shawn was telling me about a Platt family tradition of eating a grapefruit on Christmas morning, so we made sure and got him one to eat before he ate the aebleskives bacon, and nation eggs with us.....we are just trying to mesh our family traditions.

The day after Christmas we again got together with our cousins, and aunts and uncles and went to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes and then spent the evening bowling. We all had such a good time! Shawn got 2nd place out of everyone.

Here is Brandalyn and Brocky at the bowling ally.

Shawn and I

Bridger, Max, and Shawn

And my dad helping Jared bowl...he did awesome! They have this cool bowling thing that comes right up to his wheelchair and he then gets to push the ball down alittle ramp thing and right down the ally.

We had such a great time in Oregon over Christmas, but of course the time went much to quickly. We loved having all of the snow and yummy food and quality time spent with all of the family. Thanks for another great trip home to Oregon!!!