Memories are made of this PART 2

We traveled down to Newberg to arrive the night before Sarah's 16th birthday.  JJ and Brittany got to have their own little "cottage" out in the camper and Dad and I took up the office.We enjoyed visiting and on Friday John JJ and Brittany went to the Temple while Hope and I did some errands to get ready for Sarah's party.  We snagged a few burgers and shakes at Burgerville (yummy Peppermint chocolate!) since it is a restaurant we truly miss.  Seth and the girls came over for the celebration withan ice cream cake from Baskin Robins!

Sarah opening a gift with Mercedes

Sweet Sixteen

I can't seem to get the video of her blowing out the candles to load so I will suffice it to say that she did an excellent job with only two poofs!  After we had the yummy ice cream cake we went outside for pictures:

On Saturday we went over to the farm and took JJ and Brittanys official "door" picture.  Papa and I decided we should have one too and so we waved goodbye to the property.

 Saturday night we had our Christmas Eve time and Sarah "played" Papa's night before Christmas.
On Christmas morning Sarah awakened us all at 6 AM and we watched as she rejoiced over her CELL PHONE!! It was great to see her so excited...she had gotten and IPOD Touch the day before so she had a great two days. After the present festivities we went to church and were able to see many old friends and listen to a nice Christmas program.

After Church we ate a bite of lunch and then headed for Lincoln City!!!  Here is the view from our house that we rented "The Victorian":

 We had a wonderful time doing the nativity play:

Just talking, playing the family card game and enjoying each others company:

We had great meals, wonderful conversation, fun times and some even actually went on the beach!  Through Hope's magic with her tripod we got wonderful family pictures!

Tara and her Fiance Mike

The Whole Clan

All the Grandchildren

Emilie and Logan's Family

Christy and Ryan's family

Seth and the girls

JJ & Brittany

Hope & John and Sarah

All the children

Children and Spouses

We had such a marvelous time...it is a mothers dream come true to have all of her children and grandchildren around her.  This is our little slice of Heaven to last us for awhile.....sigh

I love my family and am so grateful to Heavenly Father that he made all of this possible!

:

Memories are made of this PART 1

The trip is over and the jet lag is leaving but the memories will always live on! Thanks to the magic of photography, my great Ipad and Hopes photographic skills we have the pictures to make that happen!

We decided back in the summer that we wanted to have our whole family together in Oregon for Christmas this year and with the help of a kind Heavenly Father we were able to do it.

We flew to Seattle with JJ and Brittany, Emilie, Logan, Tommy, Jack and Anna where we got separate cars and headed off for family.  Emilie and Logan to Logan's parents (we love you Connie and Tad!) the rest of us went to Christys arriving at around 3 in the morning (their time!)

After a brief period of sleep and some relaxing we headed into Seattle to show Brittany Pike Street Market. We parked at the bottom of the hill and walked up to the market...enough said! We didn't have a lot of time to look around but had an intriguing lunch called a Hombow  (click here) which we could eat on the run.  We sampled apples and other fruits, chocolate noodles and we watched the fish fly!

We then headed to the IMAX theater so we could see Mission Impossible, 7 stories high, and see the trailer for the new Batman movie (real reason for going to the IMAX) We got there just under the wire as they were ready to close the doors...we ran DOWN into the theater.  Trailer was great (according to JJ) and the movie was OK (got a little airsick in the 130 story hotel in Dubai- way too clear). Boy that Tom Cruise can do amazingly impossible things!

The next day we headed over to Goldendale Washington to visit our friends Pete and Joy and JJ and Brittany headed down to Newberg.

We had a beautiful drive and  a great visit.We had lots to talk about since we have been friends for over 30 years!
A view going across the mountains:

Snoqualmie Pass

 We saw LOTS of Wind Farms.. They make the landscape kind of eerie looking and they are HUGE.

 John with Pete: They have known each other a LONG time.

 After a wonderful nights sleep and a lot more conversation we traveled to Hood River to put flowers on John's parents graves and then hustled down to Newberg for the second leg of our trip...