Thanksgiving in Oregon Recap

Hope that you all had wonderful Thanksgivings! As usual we went to Oregon to spend 3 days with the Mr's family.

Thanksgiving itself was pretty low key. As usual, the Mr. and I were in charge of the mashed potatoes.



I ate so so much! We had all the traditional fare -- turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green been casserole, sweet potato casserole, and lots of pies!

The day after thanksgiving we went to Mike's U-Cut Christmas Tree farm and cut down trees for my in-laws and brother in-law's homes.


The Mr's family has gone to this Christmas tree farm for the last 15 years, because it's seriously a great deal. You pick your own tree and cut it down for just $10. But I guess pine trees are pretty easy to come by in Oregon. Ha!

As usual the Mr. and his brothers were up to all kinds of mischief at the Christmas tree farm. I love this picture of him laughing.


Speaking of pictures I like, I took this at the Christmas tree farm and liked it so much that it's my new computer desktop background until Christmas. I thought it was festive for December.


Saturday we flew back to LA and watched USC beat UCLA 50-0. Take that bRuins!

(source)

Sunday we decorated our house for Christmas and did Christmas cards! More to come on that.

Thanksgiving was fun but Christmas this year is going to be seriously amazing! More to come on that too!

Summer Fun (aka Weddings and Travel)

I can't believe we're already a week into August! Summer always flies by, doesn't it?

And time is really flying for me because I'm waist deep in my new project at work and with all the travel/weddings that I told you about.

But I wanted to let you know what we've been up to lately before Summer becomes irrelevant...

Two weekends ago the Mr. and I attended his fraternity brother's wedding in Glendale (North LA). It was an Armenian wedding (think Kardashians). It was a beautiful wedding and we ate SO much! I've never seen so much food at a wedding in my life.

I happened to get my hair cut/colored beforehand that day, so my friend Carey who does my hair also did an updo for me so I'd look pretty for the wedding. Love her!


Here's the happy couple with their cakes. Also check out those huge centerpieces.



And finally, last weekend we went on our annual family camping trip to Ft. Stevens.

The Mr.'s whole family was there. Here we all are (minus my brother-in-law's wife who couldn't make it)...

Note: this picture angle makes me look extra short. I'd said it before, I'm not short. I'm 5'8"! But the Mr's family is so tall, even his Mom is just shy of 6 feet.

In Ft. Stevens I did lots of sitting by the campfire and reading...

Which reminds me that I should post some book reviews!

And we played a lot of board games and lawn games, like Bocce Ball.


We have spent a bit of time at home in Long Beach this summer. A couple of weekends ago we hung out with some friend who live in an apartment on Naples Island in Long Beach. Love this view from their "backyard."


Tomorrow we head to Missouri to see my extended family and go boating/boozing on the Lake of the Ozarks, so I'll be back with more pictures and travel tales soon!

Newlywed Survival Kit & Surviving the Portland ER

I'm still working on getting together the wedding recap post from my Brother-in-Law's wedding. But I wanted to share a couple of things first...

1st - The gift!

Thanks for all of your advice on what to add to the Newlywed Survival Kit wedding gif!

I ended up adding a couple of games that I knew they wanted to add a little more fun to gift! I wanted to add a bottle of wine too, but I know she's not a big drinker so I skipped that.

Here's the final contents of the gift:

Cookbook, devotional, Dave Ramsey book, Bar Keeper's Friend, Skip-Bo, Phase 10, and Calphalon dish towel.

And here's how it looked all packaged up in a very functional gift bag (a cleaning bucket!)


I wrote out a explanation of the gift that you can read here. I hope they loved this gift as much as I did.


2nd - My trip to the ER.

As luck would have it, it turned out that a friend of the Mr's from High School was also getting married on the same night in Portland as his brother! Since Brother-in-Law's wedding ended early we had time to visit the other wedding, which was so much fun!

Well, toward the end of the night my feet were really hurting, so I decided to take off my shoes to dance (dumb!). I guess someone had broken a glass and I ended up cutting my foot really bad on the broken glass. It just kept bleeding and bleeding (so gross), so we decided to go to the ER to see if I needed stitches.

So two hours and several hundred dollars later, I left the Downtown Portland ER with seven stitches in my big toe. :(

The worst part was that I didn't get to go skiing on Mt. Hood because my foot hurt too bad and I didn't want to injure it more. Giant bummer!

The moral of the story -- always bring sandals to change into!

Portland Trip Recap

Last weekend we traveled to Portland to attend the Mr's 10 year High School Reunion and see a bunch of his friends and family. The reunion was a lot of fun, but the stuff we did with the Mr's friends surrounding the reunion was even more fun.

On Friday we went wine tasting in Dundee Oregon. We tasted a lot of great Pinot Noirs and some other pretty good Pinot Gris and Blancs. It's definitely a Pinot region up there.

The landscape there is beautiful up there!

Here we are at Bella Vida.


One of our favorite places was Torii Mor Winery. Here we are at Torii Mor with some of the Mr's HS friends who came tasting with us.


Another vineyard that we loved was Winderlea. In fact, their Pinot Noir was our favorite. And they have a gorgeous view off the back deck of their tasting room.



We visited at total of 5 vineyards/wineries in Dundee. Bella Vida, Erath, Torii Mor, Lange, and Winderlea.

Our favorites by far were Torii Mor and Winderlea. The rest were good, but those were great!


Friday night 12 of us went out to dinner at the Mr's favorite Portland Restaurant, Ringside Steakhouse. So good and so fun to really get to see people and connect! In fact, it was such a great time that I forgot to take any pictures at dinner.

Saturday morning went on a hike with the Mr's Mom and Dad and we then met up with the Mr's brother and his fiance, Katie, for lunch. At lunch Katie asked me if I'd be in her wedding party! I was so touched and honored!

So after lunch Katie and I headed over to David's Bridal. Here we are, all smiles!


We tried on a ton of dresses. This is Katie's sister and me in a couple of our favorite chiffon ones.


Then the Mr. and I headed to The Nines hotel to get ready for the reunion.

We took a couple of pictures by the elevator and then my camera battery died. So I didn't get pictures at the reunion (sad!)

Dressed and ready for the reunion...



The reunion was at the Jupiter Hotel. The Mr. and I agreed that Facebook has made reunions a lot less climatic, but it was a lot of fun nevertheless.

Have any of you attend your 10 reunion? How was it?

Portland Bound!

We're heading out this afternoon to spend a long weekend in Portland, Oregon.



The occasion?

The Mr's 10 year High School reunion!

We'll also get spend time with his family and friends, as well as go wine tasting out in Dundee and eat dinner at an amazing steakhouse in Downtown Portland.

Full recap when we return!

Everything smells like campfire smoke...

We're back from camping in Ft. Stevens, Oregon and I feel like my whole life smells like smoke.

I've shampooed my hair now twice since camping and I can still smell the campfire in it. I laundered all my clothes, but a few still have a faint smoke smell. Ahhhh, the joys of camping!

The trip was super relaxing and fun.

We played a lot of games and sat around the campfire a lot...


And played Bocce Ball on the beach again...


We also did some great bike rides...


Family bike ride picture! Notice the newest female on the right. Yay, the number of girls is sloooowly catching up with the guys...


Silly family photo in a WWII jeep!


I love the family camping tradition, but I must say sleeping on my plush mattress back at home last night was pure heaven!

Oh and I don't miss the mosquitoes.

Or having to choose between walking 1/2 mile to the restroom or peeing in the woods when I wake up in the night having to go to the bathroom.

But I do love camping.

Just once a year.

Gone Campin' Again

It's that time of year again....

Time to go to Oregon for the Mr.'s annual family camping trip! Can you believe it's their 28th annual trip?

It's time for fresh air, family fun, and and no technology for 4 days!

In case you want to picture what I'm up to for the next few days, here are the snapshots from last year's camping trip that I never shared on the ol' blog...

Biking...


Bocce ball on the beach...


Playing games at the campsite (I'm very serious!)...


Enjoying the warmth of the fire...


The whole fam together...


Notice how there are only two women in the above picture? Just me and my MIL?

Well this year my brother-in-law is bringing his new girlfriend! I'm excited to meet her and have more gals around!


Talk to you all next week!

2nd Annual Newlywed Thanksgiving Pilgrimage to Oregon

When I first started my blog a year ago, one of my first posts was about Thanksgiving in Oregon.

Well, here we are again!


Although this is my second Thanksgiving in Oregon as a Newlywed, it's actually my fourth Thanksgiving with the Mr's family up there and I'm really starting to feel like a part of "the crew".

There are several great Thanksgiving traditions that we do every year.


Tradition #1. Thanksgiving Day (duh)

Lots and lots of eating amazing food prepared by my Mother in Law. As well as drinking delicious wine that the Mr. and I provide.


Playing games together.

(That's the Mr. and his three younger brothers. Aren't they so cute!? Attention ladies, they are ALL single.)

More eating.

And watching a movie at home as a family.


This year's movie was Julie & Julia which I was so happy about because we usually just see "guy" movies. I really liked it, especially since I'm a blogger.


Tradition #2: Christmas Tree

Every year we head out to a giant Christmas Tree farm to pick a tree.


Then we chop it down, bring it home, and decorate it!

I always laugh and say that we could just get a tree from someone's yard, because there are millions of pine trees in Oregon, unlike Southern California where we actually need Christmas tree lots and farms.



Tradition #3: Movie

Every year my in-laws treat us all to new release in the theater that we see as a family.

This year we saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. I loved it! Such a fun, quirky, and insightful little movie. It is really great for all ages.


How was your Thanksgiving? Any special traditions that you do every year?

Gone Campin'

By the time you read this we'll already be up in Oregon for a 5 day camping trip with the Mr.'s family!



We'll back on Monday with pinecones and pictures!

Mishmash of Summer Vacations Planned!

While I sit in my cold office while it rains outside, I'm dreaming of of sun and summer.

For this Summer we've have FOUR exciting but random mini-vacations planned. I just finished booking two of them today!

Kicking off the summer - Chilling, tanning, and floating at the Squaw Peak Hilton in Phoenix, AZ. Just the two of us.

Can you say laaaaazy river?

Next Up - My Family Reunion in Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri at my Uncle's Lake house.

I heart boat-up bars.

Next - His family camping trip in Ft. Stevens, Oregon.

This is posh camping with hot showers. What else would expect from me?

Finally - Anniversary Weekend at the Hilton San Diego Resort (where we got married)!

I can actually enjoy the amazing property we got married at without the wedding stress. Amen!

None of these are too long or too pricey. The current economic conditions can't support our dream trip to Greece, but I'm really really excited about all of our cool little trips!

(Actually, now that I look at it all, I see one unifying theme in these trips -- water. I've always loved being near water. Too funny.)

What fun trips do you have planned this summer? Is the economy impacting your plans at all?

Newlywed Annual Pilgrimage: Thanksgiving in Oregon

A couple of years ago (before the Mr. and I were Mr. and Mrs.), we faced the decision that every couple makes about how to divide the holidays. Luckily for us, it was easy. The Mr's favorite Holiday is Thanksgiving, so he asked to do Thanksgiving in Oregon with his family. Which worked out great, since Christmas is WAY bigger deal for my family.

So for the past couple of years we've been doing our Annual Thanksgiving Pilgrimage to Oregon -- but this is a our first year we've done Thanksgiving as husband and wife (bonus: we finally get to sleep in the same bed!) and I really now feel like I'm a part of his family.

Thanksgiving is Oregon is always a wonderful time. I'm really blessed with great parents-in-law and brothers-in-law.

The Highlights

Thanksgiving Dinner:The food, the coziness, and the annual "what I'm thankful for" round table.

Some of the table decor



Chopping Down the Christmas Tree: Growing up in Southern California there isn't exactly an abundance of Pine Tree Farms around. So going out in the cold with the whole crew to chop down a tree at "Mike's U-Cut" is an awesome experience.

The boys and me with the fresh cut tree


Hanging out with the boys: I'm an only child and the Mr. is the oldest of four -- so having "siblings" a whole new experience. When him and his brothers get together (ages range from 18-26) it's like they're kids again. The wrestle and pester each other like baby lion cubs or something. We also got to watch USC destroy Notre Dame at his brother's new house, which was great.

Here's the Mr. attacking his youngest brother with a pine branch


Game Nights: Even though I'm horrible at Settlers of Cattan - I still had a great time playing all kinds of games. A big family is cool because most games are best played with more people.

Me and the boys playing "Liar's Dice"

(The Mr. is participating in No-Shave November, so forgive him for looking like a grungy tree-dweller. He shaves tomorrow.)

What are some of your Thanksgiving highlights?