Christmas In The Pacific Northwest

A lot of people don't like the rain. The fact of living in it for 8 months straight makes them sick. But I just love the rain! And more importantly, Christmas isn't complete without a good dumping of rain. And that's what it did this year, the whole week long. We had so much family and so much love, and it was the last Christmas of its kind. Within the next 6 months I will be married and Alex off on a mission, so we both don't know where we will be next Christmas. But we made the best of this one.

My Christmas break started off with a little bit of a surprise. I went in to Dr. Alder for my routine teeth clean and came out with an appointment for later that day to get a root canal done. Even though I was in no pain at all, apparently I needed one done ASAP. I was so blessed that they found it before it got painful. Since I am leaving to be with Luke's family right after Christmas, they needed to squeeze me in and that same day worked best! So a few hours later I was in for my first root canal. Check!

Then the family started rolling in! My grandmother was the first to come, and a day later my other grandparents from California. What was extra special this holiday season was that my aunt an uncle along with my beautiful cousins moved to Felida (only 10 minutes away from us!!). Almost too good to be true. My cousin Bri and I are 6 days apart and Madi and Alex are only a month apart. It was so much fun catching up with them! It has seriously been WAY too long. Last time we had seen each other, Bri and I were eager to get our drivers licenses. And now I'm engaged and she's moving off to Portugal. I'm so excited for her!

Downtown Portland shopping is always a must. I had a wonderful time with my mom and grandparent shopping at Pioneer Squarer.

Christmas Day was beautiful. With us all being older (seriously we're all over 18 now, wow) we didn't actually open presents until 11. Presents are always a great part to the day of course. Then the rest of the day we lounged around. The perfect Christmas in my opinion. Just a nice and relaxed day together. Lots of games and reading done. It was a wonderful Christmas with family.

And tomorrow I fly across the country to be with Luke and his family, and head to Mexico fro the cruise! So excited! Even though we didn't get to spend Christmas together, we did get to Facetime.  What would we all do without modern technology?