We have had a very busy November and beginning of December. It seems like with it being the age of MySpace, Facebook, Mindsay and the like we have come into contact with more and more friends from the past. Don't get me wrong this is a wonderful thing but it can make a busy life even busier! Between Jack and his school friends, family vacations and outings, work, home and everything in between we have had little time to just sit and relax and be. That will hopefully all turn around after Friday. Matt will be on an extended vacation until the new year! Yay! He didn't realize until he went in to request his remaining vacation time that he hadn't taken a whole lot of time off this year so that means Jack and I will get to have him at home with us and for that we are all extremely grateful. It will give us a chance to catchup on things around the house and more importantly to catch up with each other. The first couple of pictures shown above are of Jack and Lauren hanging out at Kathy's house one night while I was babysitting, the next two are of Jack decorating our mini but real Christmas tree, the following three are of a recent night out with old friends for Ryan my very first roommates husbands 30th birthday. The rest are explained below or self explanatory! Amidst all of this chaos we call life I managed to get my hair cut and colored and to work on a large (it doesn't look it but believe me the time it took!) gift project for the grandmas and grandpas and some other home made gifts for friends and relatives.
Jack and I just returned from a trip down to Oregon on Tuesday afternoon and boy did we have a fantastic time! We went down with my Mom and Dad to visit the Oregon Zoo for Zoolites and wound up having a marathon Zoo day! We started out at 9AM to see the zoo animals during the day and to meet the new baby elephant Samudra. This little guy is really special to me because he was born on August 23rd just 3 days before Jack's birthday. We were actually in town right after he was born but they weren't showing him off yet. I took a ton of pictures of course which I will Proudly display on these pages for you. I have to say I fell in Love. This little guy is such a character and full of mischief. He is tended to by his mother Rose-Tu and his "Aunties" Shine and Chendra. It was immediately apparent how protective all of these ladies were of this little guy. When they became aware of us standing a top of the viewing area the large elephants immediately came over and surrounded Samudra essentially blocking our view. The little guy couldn't be contained for long and sauntered off toward the barns to see what kind of trouble he could get into. It was such a surreal experience. I think I may have enjoyed it even more then Jack! I am fairly proud of some of the shots that I got of the animals this time around, particularly those of the elephants, polar bears and swimming sea lions. By the time we left the zoo in the afternoon it was after 1 PM and we returned that evening just after 5 PM for zoolites! My picture taking skills were not as good that night as it took lots of experimenting with flash on, flash off, automatic, etc. etc. but we had a blast wandering the zoo and taking in the gorgeous lights followed by a moonlit train ride and then back to the hotel to sleep! It was obvious when I woke up the next day how out of shape I really am because boy were my legs sore and tired! It got worse after the 3 hour drive home. But after getting home and getting right back at chasing Jack around it got better.
The next two weekends before Christmas are stretched to the max with Holiday parties, visiting with friends, cookie making dates, visits with Santa and more! We were scheduled to head up to Birch Bay again early next week with my folks but I mad the decision to just stay home as Jack is starting to really miss his Dad on these trips away as am I. So instead we will be hanging on the home front, watching Christmas movies, hopefully going over to Kats once the kids are out of School to hang with them, seeing a couple of movies we all want to see, maybe visiting the local zoo's and really just anything the boys want to do! Matt just made the suggestion of going downtown to show Jack all of the Holiday lights which I have very fond memories of doing when we were first dating. I am sure I will be back on here to update as the weeks go on but just in case Happy Holidays everyone!
turn back time
I know, I know, it isn't anything compared to Colorado but it has been so warm here that I am already feeling like a huge wuss about the cold!
