For MeMaw and PaPaw

MeMaw and PaPaw, this picture is for you. Cell phones manage to bring everyone together for imporant holidays - here is a picture of Kaiti on her daddy's cell phone talking to MeMaw and PaPaw in Oklahoma while she opens her stocking. Thank goodness for technology.......

Cousins, Cousins, and more cousins.....

OK, here is a riddle for you: My mom and her cousin grew up very close so my brothers and I call my mom's cousin "Auntie Rhonda." Mom and Auntie Rhonda (cousins) each had 4 kids and we grew up close. Of the 8 of us, 5 of us have kids. What are our kids to each other? Second cousins twice removed? Third cousins? Who knows. In any case, my kids had the chance to catch up with my cousin Adam's kids whom they haven't seen since we moved to Florida. Here are some pics of my cousin Hillary after she cut Duane's 3 week hair grow out. I think this is the longest I had ever seen it but he had to head up to Ft. Benning, GA at 4am the morning after we arrived home. Obviously, he had no time for a haircut back home so Hills cut it before we left Washington. Also, some pics of my cousin Adam's girls Lizzie and Josie with my girls. They had a great time running around Aunt Rhonda's house!

Washington

We couldn't visit the northwest without spending some time at our old home, Ft. Lewis. We headed up to Washington in Dad's car on the 29th to visit with friends. For any of you that have GPS systems in your car, congratulations, you are infinitely more talented than I am! Dad's car has a GPS system and that thing drove me crazy. While very cool, the little voice every few minutes made me nervous. I think I would go crazy if I had one in my own vehicle - it takes all my effort to listen to the girls bicker in the back seat, much less some woman telling me "turn in 2.2 miles....." Anyway......

Our first night in Washington we met my Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Steve and cousins Whitney and Hillary who were returning from a trip to Spokane. We stayed at their home and I got to catch up with Whit and Hills. Having no sisters, I have always been close them and I miss having them around. :( There is no better friend than one who knows every embarrassing thing you did growing up! :)

The next day we went to our friend's Phil and Juanette's house in North Tacoma and got to visit with all our old crowd - Jen and James, Phil, Juanette, Maddie, and Sebastian, Angela & her daughter Abby, Dave, Rach, Jacob, and their new baby Sophia, Tim, Rob, and Matt (the single guys). The kids have all grown so much! We miss being able to do weekend BBQ's with everyone and we had a lot to catch up on so we stayed pretty late........

We are so glad we got to see everyone in such a short trip! We love the sunshine of Florida but we miss our Washington friends like crazy! Come vacation in Florida people!

Princess Mansion

The day after we arrived in Oregon we went for a visit to the Pittock Mansion. The Pittock Mansion was home to Henry and Georgiana Pittock from 1914-1918. Mr. Pittock was the owner of the Oregonian and had the house built for his growing family. Each year the mansion is decorated in a different theme for Christmas. This year's theme was "Princesses" so of course we had to take Kaiti and Sam. The decorations and architecture were exquisite and the girls enjoyed posing in front of every room. Of course, Duane and my Dad had the most amount of fun in the gift shop where they noticed a bowl of glass candy for sale, labeled "Glass Candy" (duh). Unfortunately, the bowl was turned so that the "Gl" was blocked by other merchandise, causing visitors to see only "Ass Candy" for sale. Needless to say, this was probably the best part of the trip for the guys. It's a good thing we live in Florida because the shop owner did not appear to share our sense of humor.........

Christmas!

This is the first year that Kaitlyn has been very aware of the concept of Santa so we had to work pretty hard to remember not to let anything slip around her. :) At school she received a packet of "Reindeer Food" (basically oatmeal and glitter) that is supposed to be put on the lawn on Christmas Eve so that Rudolph and crew have something to munch on between stops. This turned into quite the production with Cody (of course, much more experienced in the dispensing of reindeer food) supervising the correct technique for covering the lawn with glitter and oatmeal. Kaitlyn worried all evening that Santa might not be able to find us at Mimi and Papa's house and Papa was forced to watch the Santa tracker online quite studiously, providing hourly reports of Santa's progress. Ultimately, Santa did remember where we were and filled the stockings of some good little girls and boys at the Brown House.

Cousins!

For Kaiti and Sam, the most exciting part of our trip was getting to hang out with their cousins. We got to have Christmas with Cody, Reiley, and Alysia which is a rare event considering that the cousins live in 3 different states and on opposite coasts of the USA. We were so excited to get to see the boys and to get to meet Alysia. It was fun to see the similarities that all of our kids share, despite distance. Here are some pics of the cousins together.

The New Woman

Upon our arrival to Portland, my husband took up with another woman. OK, so she is just 3 weeks old and so sweet and beautiful that I can hardly blame him. Of course, he is entirely shameless and resorts to outright lying and manipulation to spend time with her. In case any of you are becoming concerned about the state of our marriage, the mysterious other woman is our new niece, Alysia. When we arrived at the airport and Duane realized that Derek and Heather had brought the baby, he literally plowed over family members and complete strangers to get to the stroller for his first look. He proceeded to spend the majority of our vacation holding Alysia in the arm chair. If anyone else managed to get a chance at the baby, he would tell a baldfaced lie to get her back. For example, "Your mom needs you in the kitchen, here, I'll hold the baby while you go see what she needs........" HA! The only way I managed to get any time with my adorable niece was by volunteering to change her diapers. Duane is widely known as a baby hog among our family and friends but with his nice he is particularly territorial. Here are a few pics of Duane and his new lady love..........:)

Camp Sweet Camp

We have arrived back at Camp Rudder after our trip to the Northwest, exhausted and dragging ourselves through the gates on the last tiny ounce of energy that remains. I cannot believe that we start school in just 3 days - I would panic but I am too tired to do much of anything after unpacking all day yesterday. I have bookbags to organize, homework to do for my class, lessons to prepare for my students, school uniforms to iron for Kaitlyn, and so I have decided to post pictures of our trip instead.......

The girls and I ended school on the 21st and packed like maniacs to leave town on the eveining of the 22nd. With great ingenuity and a little elbow grease we managed to stuff everything into 5 suitcases and head out for the Valparaiso Airport. The ValP Airport is not what you would call large, or even moderately sized. It is tiny. As in 3 people working the ticket desk tiny. As in 1 small snack bar tiny. As in so tiny you can walk the whole thing in 10 minutes. As in last flight of the evening leaves at 7pm and the airport shuts down. And if that last flight is the one you are on and it gets canceled.........you spend 2 hours waiting in line to reschedule for the next day and then have to call your ride to come pick you back up, shove everything back in the van and take back the milk that you gave to the neighbor because now you need it for cereal in the morning. Which is exactly what we did. And the next morning (23rd) we started all over again - shove it all back in the van, call the neighbor to drive us, re-gift the carton of milk, and go through security again. We finally arrived in Portland about a day and a bit late, after a layover in Atlanta instead of Houston. We were greeted by Mimi and Papa, Derek, Heather, and the new woman in my husband's life - more on that in a future post. :)

Despite our rough start to the trip, we had a great time in Oregon and even got to travel up to Washington for a few days to visit our Ft. Lewis friends. In fact, we had so much fun that I realized after I got home that I didn't take many pictures! I guess we were having too much fun seeing everyone to remember to capture it all on film. In any case, I will post a few pics and apologize for not getting everyone on camera! :)