Christmas 2017 (Morris Family)

After spending the beginning of Christmas break with my family, the next days would be with Ben's family. On December 22, we attended a memorial service for Aunt Julie, who passed away from cancer earlier in the month. It was a beautiful service and Seth and Sam couldn't stop raving about what an amazing woman Aunt Julie was after hearing her eulogy. Seth kept saying, "Wow! Julie really lived a great life!"  She really was an amazing woman who will be missed dearly.

December 23 we celebrated Christmas with the Luscombe side of the family. It was a bit subdued, as we were all missing Julie. However, a highlight of the night was "Christmas Song Pictionary," in which the young folks team + Aunt Joann won a clear victory with absolutely no cheating...well, that may not be all true, but we did all laugh a lot. 

Cool new book from Uncle Bruce, Bryan and Kelsey

 The boys hanging out with Uncle Levi 

Cousins stair picture

Nate, Holly and kids came back to our house for the beginning of a two-night sleepover (Ellie and Josh were thrilled). We all went to church together on Christmas Eve morning and exited the service to a winter wonderland. We still can't believe that we got the blessing and surprise of snow for Christmas! It ended up snowing three inches!

Family pictures in the snow! (Yes, I have a tank top on...it was a sacrifice I was willing to make for a cute picture)

Holly, Nathan and girls (in their cute Christmas dresses!)

Isn't Hailey just the sweetest?

We grabbed a quick lunch and the twins quickly bundled up to play in the snow. (Sam)

The did a good job shoveling the driveway for their grandparents.

Seth

Josh and Ellie

Snow balls!

Making a mini-snowman

I don't know who had more fun throwing snowballs: the adults or the kids

Football in the snow

Josh and Ellie decided to claim the fort as their hideout for the snowball war

Josh

I sure do love and miss this yard! 

Nate and Holly

Ben and I

Getting ready to ambush Grandma and Grandpa, Caleb and Levi

Uncle Caleb joined the fighting

I love this picture! We were all just so happy about the snow. 

We finally took a break from the snow and came inside to take pictures and then open presents.

I love this picture: there's just so much joy when we're all together.

Great picture of Grandparents and Grandkids

It's hard to get all the "kids" to fit in front of the tree now! 

And even harder to get the little ones to smile for the camera

Hugs for brother to say "thank you"

Holly and little Hailey Rose

The big excitement of the night was Sam and Seth's BIG gift.

We really wanted it to be a surprise that we bought them violins. Diane had the idea to wrap both boxes as one big package so that they couldn't see the shape of them individually. Violins were the only thing that the twins requested for Christmas and we led them to believe that we would be buying used ones in Mexico upon returning from Christmas. It was such a joy to buy them something they were so excited and surprised by!

Sammy

Seth

Once the violins were unwrapped, we had the problem that no one in the family is at all musical: we couldn't tune the instruments. So, we had to settle for watching cool videos of violinists playing and wait for the boys' violin teacher to tune them when they returned to school.

The whole family spent the night at our house on Christmas Eve and we had a slow, fun Christmas morning together. Then we headed to Aunt Tani's house for Christmas dinner with the Morris side of the family. It was a small crowd this year: only about 45 (yes, the family is that big!). The kids had an absolute blast with their cousins. 

This year for the Christmas skit Seth and Sam were the wisemen and they recruited Deedo and Daddy to be camels. 

They made a grand entrance

I feel like the quality of the skit was really top notch, especially with the addition of costumes this year.

That's a whole lot of cousins!

Christmas dinner at the almost all boy table...it was not a quiet affair.

A thus ended our eight straight days of decorating, partying, family, friends and none-stop fun. December 26th we stayed home all day in our sweats with absolutely no plans. We let the kids open their stocking and just hung out and played games and read. It was a great day.

Little did we know that the next day we would be doing much of the same thing, as Seth got a fever. Not long after, Sam got a fever, and then Ben got sick as well. Unfortunately, we spent the rest of our Christmas break recovering from what we think was probably influenza. Not ideal, but we were so grateful for the first week where we partied hard! 

We flew home early on January 1, so on New Year's Eve we shut down the house and headed to Ben's parents to spend the night. They live really close to the airport and it would give us some more time to spend with them before leaving for Mexico. 

 The boys love hanging out with their uncles; I have a fond memory of Caleb playing "crab tag" with the boys. He's such a great uncle. 

Unfortunately, when we decided to spend the night at Jeff and Diane's, we didn't factor in that the boys' influenza was at the "coughing" stage and that they would cough basically all night (we were all sleeping in the same room). Overall, between coughing kids, New Year's Eve fireworks, and getting up at 4:30 for our flight, Ben and I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. Thankfully, the Lord granted us a very merciful travel day and we were able to basically sleep walk through the airports and flights without a single hitch. When we arrived in Monterrey, it was 34 degrees...the same as Portland. We were freezing! But, it was good to be back to our Mexico home! 

We left all our winter jackets in Portland, so the blankets were used for warmth! 

Christmas 2017 (Ruda Family)

With all of our flying in 2017, we hadn't had an "interesting" travel day...until December 17 when we left our Mexico home for Portland home. Perhaps the dense fog on the way to the airport should have tipped me off that our flight might be delayed, but I was blissfully unaware. Overall, it just wasn't a smooth travel day. First, while we were in the middle of filling out our five "exiting the country" forms, the visa worker left the office before we had finished our forms, and put a "will return in 15 minutes" sign on the door. Who does that? I was completely indignant, not to mention stressed about time. However, it soon became apparent that time wouldn't be an issue, as our flight take off time kept being delayed because of nublina (fog in English...a word that has been solidified in all our brains thanks to this trip). Thankfully, as soon as we learned that our flight had been delayed, we preemptively decided to try to get our flight from Los Angeles to Portland changed, not wanting to risk a fast connection, with customs and three kids. A miracle of miracle: they had 5 seats left on a later flight and we were able to change our flight to make it to Portland that evening. We finally left Monterrey for LA four hours late. The only other hitch was that the airline had trouble printing our new tickets: first in Monterrey, then again after 45 minutes of waiting at a ticket counter in LA (remember, this was already after 4 hour delay in our first airport...there was a lot of waiting for us that day). They finally got our tickets printed, but when we reached our gate, they wouldn't work. So, we waited again and were literally the last people on the plane as the airline attendants finally just let us on without proper tickets. Very stressful, but thankfully all worked out.

During our four hour delay Ben and the boys discovered the game of risk on his phone, and I marveled at how fun the boys' complicated colored dot-to-dots are. 

But, at the end of it all, we were home. We were greeted by Ben's family, including Josh's best friend and cousin Ellie who sprinted across the airport to give him a big hug. The rental car upgraded us to a van for free (there was no way all our bags were going to fit into a standard car) and then all headed out to pizza. What a long travel day, but well worth it to be home!

Ellie and Joshy

Our first full day at home was packed full of fun and family. In the morning, I grabbed us groceries and we all got reacquainted with our home. Then we were ready to go out and get our Christmas tree. Apparently the Pacific NW had a shortage of Christmas trees this year, and we could only find one Christmas tree farm open for u-cut. However, it ended up being a pretty neat place and not too far from home. 

 It wasn't even raining as we headed out to find the perfect tree.

 There is it! And yes, it was enormous.

 We've always been known for getting trees a bit too large

 We continued the tradition of the kids getting a smaller tree for their room as well.

Two trees in the car, we headed home and my parents arrived there shortly afterwards to stay for the next four nights. Reunions with family are so sweet. Late that afternoon we all drove together to meet my sister and her family at zoo lights. 

 Titi and Papa at zoolights

 Zoolights are so awesome!

 Such a good daddy

 The elephants were in a playful mood and were chasing each other and balancing on logs. That was pretty special to see. 

Blurry, but I was so happy to be reunited with my sister! I sure do miss living close to my best friend!

 The whole group (minus my mom)

 Cousins back together

 That's a whole lot of grandchildren!

 The cousins

 The Morris family

 The Plato family

Our day wasn't even done yet: we grabbed some take-out Thai food for dinner, then headed back home to decorate the tree. 

 It was quite the tree...our best yet! In fact, it was so heavy that Ben had to drill the stand into a piece of plywood to keep the tree from tipping over. 

The next couple days the kids and I laid low at the house with my parents while Ben went to work at the Portland office.

 My dad joined the boys in our back yard for some hoops.

 My mom helped the boys make Christmas crafts. 

 One evening we met Ben's parents in downtown Portland for pizza. Afterwards my mom, mom-in-law and I headed home for a Christmas movie and wrapping presents. 

Meanwhile all the men headed to a Blazer game.

It was special to have both grandfathers there!

The next day we celebrated Ruda Christmas. My sister's family came to our house to open gifts and have a Christmas meal together.

 Grandparent picture: it wasn't until later that night that we realized Aidah is not in the picture. Major photo fail. 

 Morris family picture

 Plato family picture (Aidah included) 

 I love how the twins still wear their Santa hats during gift opening. The twins got new Seahawks jerseys and Josh a snoopy shirt from Papa and Titi. 

Great picture of my dad!

The twins also received watches. Now they don't have to ask me the time constantly now!

 Uncle Tom and Aunt Julie got Josh and Edmund cars, and they immediately ran into the kitchen to play with them. Josh and Edmund had a blast playing together and spent most the evening running around the house with pretend guns shooting things. It was so cute.  

 Christmas craft with the kids. Edmund and Josh were too busy playing to participate.

 I know it is blurry, but I love the joy and laughter on the kids' faces.

Showing off their completed trees. I love how each one is so unique!

(Miriam 11, Clara 7, Aidah 9, Sam and Seth 8)