Happy Holidays!!

Great Wolf Lodge

My nephew Sam just had a birthday in December so my sister-in-law decided to surprise him with a trip to Great Wolf Lodge. She invited us to come along and honestly I think I was more excited to go than Camo or J. I love water parks and I knew they had a really cool indoor water park. It was a lot of fun and I think Camo and his cousins had a blast. We started the day off with fun at the water park. Then that night they had a story time for the kids which was super cool. The next morning we had an awesome breakfast buffet and finished our stay at the water park for one more day. J and I were definitely exhausted after the couple days we were there, but it was a lot of fun.

Murder Myster Party-Circus Style

For the past few years that we have been here a very good friend has been planning these Murder Mystery Parties. Each year they just get better and better. I think it's more my attitude. I was a little shy the first one that we did and I couldn't really get into character very well. J has never had a problem with any of the parties. He is great at acting. I will say each party I have done better and better and I am slowly getting better at staying in part. The first year I was Dorothy from Wizard of Oz. The second year I was a saloon girl. This year I was a trapeze artist along with J being my trapeze artist partner if you could imagine. I was able to pull out my old leotard from high school gymnastics and it was perfect for my costume. J also found a leotard at goodwill. I can't believe he was actually brave enough to wear it. I have to admit that this has been my favorite murder mystery party. Everyone had such great costumes and the food was so delicious. I was the victim in the party so halfway through I died and we all tried to figure out who had murdered me. In the end it was Ruby, the clown. Here are some fun pictures from the party.

Dorothy and Bob Marley

Sheriff and Saloon Girl

School Gala

J and I had the opportunity a few weeks back to go on a boat cruise on the Willamette River. The occasion was J's school's holiday party. We weren't going to go, but the tickets were very reasonable and it would have been the last time a lot of us got together for a night out before everyone graduates and moves on. I am so glad we decided to go because it did not disappoint. The only downfall was that it was super duper crowded inside because nobody wanted to be outside on the top deck. The night was filled with unlimited amounts of finger foods, hot chocolate, and lots of dancing. Yes I will admit we did a little bit of dancing. Overall it was an awesome night and we had a great time with all of our friends. To end the night J and I went to a favorite little restaurant of J's called O'Connors. J has been raving about this place since we have been married. He said that it's a restaurant where he used to take all of his dates. The big hype of it is the dessert called the bananas foster's. It was so delicious and we will definitely be going back just for dessert. Here are some pictures from the night.

Seattle Trip...A Long Time Ago

T has been on my case since August to write this blog. As you can see by the many post she has written and the few I have written that life has been a little busy for me and I haven't had much time to dedicate to writing blogs. Hopefully that will change soon as I am coming to the end of my graduate program and my life should assume some normalcy and order to it.

We took a trip to Seattle, just the two of us, while my oldest sister and her family watched Camo. It was way back in August as birthday gifts to both of us. We spent three days and two nights living it up and seeing it all. We both purchased a CityPASS which was a little expensive but well worth it since you were able to see so much for half the price as it would normally cost. Many cities have a CityPASS so "google" it and check it out.

Here's what we did:

On Friday we drove up early in the afternoon and went straight to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was hot but we were impressed with the amount of shade the zoo had. I felt it was comparable to the Washington Park Zoo here in Portland, though T though there were more opportunities to see the animals at Woodland Park. The highlight for me was feeding the Giraffes. I am a huge animal lover (always have been) so any contact with animals is awesome for me. It was a little embarrassing since most the people in line were parents with their kids then there was T and I, all by our lonesome, with no kids.

After the zoo we checked in to our hotel then ventured out for some delicious Italian. Once it got dark we hit up the Space Needle to get our first of two chances to go to the top. Our CityPASS allowed us two trips up the Space Needle, once in the daylight and once in the evening. The view was pretty awesome, especially seeing all the light below us.

Saturday, we took the first opportunity of the day get our daylight version of what we saw the night before at the top of the Space Needle. We wanted to go early to beat the weekend crowd. Next we went to the Pacific Science Center and watched a really cute 3D iMAX movie called Born to be Wild about two women, one that took care of orphaned elephants and another which took care of orphaned orangutans. Once again, since I am such an animal lover, I thought it was super good. Later, we went to the EMP, Experience Music Project. I had been before during the grand opening but it was crazy then and a little disappointing. This time it was less busy but still disappointing; there doesn't seem to be any logical flow to the exhibit and I'm a little impatient to read the history behind every guitar ever made. We spent less than an hour there and called it good.

The main event and the reason we scheduled a trip to Settle in the first place was to attend a Seattle Mariner game, a tradition I've participated in almost every summer that I've lived in Oregon since my 12th birthday. We went Saturday night against the Chicago White Sox and it was Felix Hernandez bobble head night...it's my third bobble head in three years since T and moved here for school. The Mariners are terrible so of course they lost but it was still fun, nonetheless, and an absolutely beautiful night.

Sunday, we spent the morning at the Seattle Aquarium, which again, was similar to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We had planned to go on a Argosy Cruise around the Seattle Harbor and Sound but there was a low lying fog that had engulfed the piers and part of the city. I was nervous it was going to stick around all day and we would have to head home before it cleared, missing our opportunity to cruise the harbor. We decided to get our tickets anyway since we had already purchased them with the CityPASS. We booked for the 1 o'clock departure and as we were walking to the pier to get in line the fog lifted in a matter of 5 minutes and the whole sound and city were complete clear and beautiful...what timing. The cruise gave a really nice perspective of the city that I had never seen before.

Here are some pictures or our trip:

Pumpkin Carving

We went to the pumpkin patch a week ago and decided to carve the pumpkins we bought there. J and I havn't carved pumpkins since we were married but thoroughly enjoyed it. We were actually surprised at how much fun we had carving pumpkins and wondered why in the five years we have been married we have never done it. J was quite handy with the knife. We didn't have any type of pumpkin carving utensils and I was quite surprised at how awesome they turned out. We will definitely be buying some utensils for next year. Here is the evidence. Please excuse how awful I look. Ha.

Can you guess what all of the pictures are?

Pumpkin Patch

We decided this year that we were going to start the tradition of going to a pumpkin patch, picking out our own pumpkins, and then carving them. We wanted to go to one that had a train because we knew Camo would love it. We found one in Canby, Oregon which was perfect because it happened to be on the same street of J's parents. J's parents were conveniently able to go. Camo was super excited knowing that they were going to be there. Camo and J did the train tour while J's parent and I went to find the perfect pumpkin. While on the tour Camo and J saw farm animals. J thinks Camo was a bit scared of the donkey and wasn't super excited about all the animals, but he sure loved riding the train. He still talks about riding choo choo train with daddy.

Family Photo

Isn't that pretty cool?

Tunnel underneath the hay stacks.

Love him.

Chasing the chicken

Handsome man

Getting ready to depart.

My two favorite boys!!

Looking for the train.

Grandma and Camo

We will definitely be doing this again. This was actually my very first experience at a pumpkin patch. They didn't really have those in Texas.:)

Random

Here are some recent pictures of Camo.

He loves his noodles.

Looking Handsome in the bath

I was trying to sleep and he climbed up on the couch with a blanket and put it over us.

We just love him to pieces!!