Birthday Escape

Last Saturday we finally were able to celebrate Jeff's birthday. They had a party planned for the first Saturday of the month, but had to cancel due to snow. We began by meeting up with everyone at Trap Door, an escape room in Eugene. I hadn't ever done an escape room before and it was a lot of fun. As you can imagine, they don't allow pictures inside the room, so the only picture I have is the group picture they posted on Facebook. For the same reason, I won't talk too much about the specifics of the room. But the basic idea is that we were locked in a room and had to solve puzzles to escape. Don't worry, there's a panic button so if you need to leave you can push the button and the door unlocks.

This room was themed as a mystic's lair and it was well done; there was a whole story to go with how we got into the room and how we were trying to get out. The decorations and theme were put together well and looked good. The puzzles we had to solve were interesting and engaging. It was challenging, but we were able to figure everything out and unlock the door in just 45 minutes (we had an hour), so we felt like it was maybe a bit too easy. But we did have a large group, which was helpful in this situation. Overall, we had a good time and I would like to try another escape room sometime.

After we finished escaping from the mystic, we headed for Jeff and Lauren's house for dessert and games.

Cranberries

 While we were in California, Dave asked if we wanted 10-15 lbs of cranberries because someone had donated a bunch and the church didn't need all of them. Joshua passed along the question to me while he was on the phone with his dad and I said something like, "Are you really asking me if I want fruit?" Well, be careful what you wish for because Dave came back with 50 lbs of cranberries for us. Somehow, Joshua managed to find room for them in car along with all of our stuff, a couple bulky Christmas presents, and bags of citrus that we had picked with my parents, his parents, and Grandad.

So we arrived home with 50 lbs of fresh cranberries. Thankfully, it was the weekend, so I got right to work and kicked things off with cranberry coffee cake. This morning, I pulled the last of the cranberries out of the dehydrator, so now all of the berries are safely preserved and we are looking forward to enjoying them.

We ended up with a few bags of portioned, chopped frozen cranberries, a couple quart bags of dried cranberries, 11 half-pints of cranberry-orange vinegar, and 22 quarts of cranberry juice; plus, of course, the baked goods with cranberries that we made in the meantime. Yum!

Snow

It snowed at our house last weekend. When we arrived home Friday night, there was snow on the ground from earlier in the week while we were gone, but then Saturday morning it started snowing again. It wasn't a whole lot of snow, but it was enough to keep us home all weekend since they don't usually plow most of the roads in Eugene because it only snows here occasionally. The roads were actually worse on Sunday because it got warm enough Saturday afternoon that things started to melt, then everything froze overnight and stayed frozen all day Sunday.

But anyway, the snow was pretty and we were excited to finally have it snow while we were home.

The pumpkin in our yard looked so pretty in the snow.

Later in the morning, it started snowing harder and for awhile it was coming down pretty fast.

These pictures were taken right as the snow turned to icy rain, and so show the thickest the snow got. You can see that our pumpkin disappeared.

Here's a video that Joshua took of it snowing:

California

During the week after Christmas, we took the kids out for our annual hot chocolate outing. This year, Emery was old enough to join in the fun.

We enjoyed playing a version of Charades one evening with the kids acting and the adults guessing. On Christmas and New Year's Eve, we played Reverse Charades where one or two people guess while the rest of the team acts. That was a lot of fun. 

I had drawn Natalie's name for Christmas and part of the present was a special outing to have dessert together at the Vintage Press. We enjoyed dressing up and having an outing with just the two of us. 

Mom and I were carpooling, so she took some pictures of us outside as we were going in.

We ordered the small dessert sampler, not knowing that it would be three whole desserts. Needless to say, we didn't eat it all, but it was delicious. We agreed that the cheesecake was our favorite. 

New Year's Eve we had our traditional party, but this year we played Reverse Charades before starting the dancing and other video games. 

Dad gave everyone this puzzle for Christmas and we all enjoyed working on it during the party. It was difficult with a lot of similar colors and patterns. We made quite a bit of progress that night and the next morning, but weren't able to finish it before we left. 

Everyone except Ezra made it to midnight to toast the new year with sparkling wine and cider.  

The next morning we had quiche, bacon, and orange danish rolls for breakfast and relaxed around the house. Natalie and Emery helped me pick some grapefruit. Joshua and I left around lunchtime to head back to Modesto for prime rib dinner with the family.

During our time in Modesto, we enjoyed multiple family dinners, breakfast with Jim and Jayne at the Black Bear Diner, playing a new card game, eating shortbread, looking at heirloom seeds, setting up computers, and various other activities, as well as some relaxing. We left Thursday morning to drive to the coast and visit Bethany and Laura and see their new house.

Bethany pulled out an impressive pile of game options. We didn't actually play all of these games, but we did enjoy playing games most of the day while we visited.

 The next morning we had breakfast together, then we began the drive north. Since we were already at the coast and were worried the passes might be closed because of stormy weather, we decided to drive up the coast instead of returning to I-5. It was a beautiful drive.

 We stopped in Winchester Bay to take pictures of the snow. We knew it had snowed earlier in the week, but we weren't expecting so much to still be on the ground. It is quite unusual for it to snow at the coast and we certainly had never seen it like this.

We made it the rest of the way home and arrived in good time around 6:30pm. It was still snowy at our house too and quite cold. We quickly turned on the heaters to start warming things up. Despite the cold, it was good to be home after a great time with everyone in California.

Christmas 2016

 Joshua and I drove to California the Wednesday before Christmas. We spent the next couple days visiting, seeing Joy and Lamar's new house, and finishing Christmas preparations. Of course, that included making shortbread cookies.

We celebrated together on Christmas Eve with snacks, hot spiced cider, presents, and Christmas dinner. 

Since we had the whole group together and had a new baby join the family since our last family picture, we had a brief photo shoot.

After a great day celebrating with family, we attended the Christmas Eve service at Trinity.

Christmas morning we drove to my parents' house and discovered that Mom and Dad had put together baskets of goodies for each family.

We kicked off the present opening with a picture of the cousins in front of the tree in the matching pajamas Mom made for them for Christmas.

After opening presents, we enjoyed an afternoon of games, playing with presents, and a walk.

Dad and Natalie tried out the Kinetic Sand, which is apparently a big thing right now and was really cool.

We finished the day off with Christmas dinner and peppermint ice cream. What a wonderful weekend of celebrating the birth of Christ with our families.