Christmas in Cali

Since we were in LA, we decided to have lunch at Bob's Big Boy.

Brandon, Christine, Bronson, Bob, Mom
Justin, Dad, Jamie









This was only my second time visiting Grandma. I had no idea what to do since last time we did a lot. I was asked every 5 minutes what I wanted to do. My buddy Adam Carolla often speaks about the La Brea Tar Pits. I was dumb enough to think they would take it as a joke to go see the tar pits. This is what I found....tar. And I learned my lesson.

Let it snow!

This year, Mother Nature decided to surprise the Portland area with a ton of snow. It pretty much started on Dec 13th and didn't stop until....well I'm not sure because we were one of the lucky ones who got to leave town for Christmas. I heard they had a lot of snow on Christmas. People were at their wits end due to all the snow. Portland is not ready for 6 inches of snow, let alone a couple of feet. There were not enough plows to clear the roads. The temperature never got above freezing so for two weeks we'd wake up to new snow, the snow packed down during the day, froze overnight, and then it snowed again. The roads were really slick. They were covered so much that ruts started to form in the snow where everyone was driving. I like driving in it, but I wasn't thrilled with other drivers taking it too fast(I had one car coming at me sideways down a two laned road where either he went off the cliff to miss me or I ran into a hillside. Thank goodness he missed me by inches and was able to stop just in time to stop from going off the cliff!) ODOT usually tells everyone to use the buses, but that was hard when the buses were shut down. Brandon was planning on taking the bus to campus to finish his finals. He found out as he was leaving that the buses had stopped running for the day(and it ended up being for the week). The school finally wised up and stayed open a couple of days so he at least was able to drive over and get finals over with. Everything stayed closed as workers couldn't make it in.
All in all, I thought this storm was so much fun! I love having everything covered in snow. The trees were gorgeous. I had to go to work so we chained up Brandon's car and I drove in. I really enjoyed coming home. One road was uphill, and with all the snow frozen over on the roads the ruts in the snow made me stay on the road like a roller coaster track. With being bumped back and forth and the chains on, it truly felt like I was headed up on the Colossus.
We weren't sure if we would be able to leave for Grandma's in Southern Cali. The roads had been so bad on I-5 south, the way we were headed. But we had to leave on the 23rd. There had been a bad accident they were clearing as we left the house. Traffic was backed up, but once we got on I-5 we didn't move. It took a while but we finally found out that ODOT decided to close I-5 to scrape and de-ice the bad areas. BAD TIMING!!! Everyone was leaving town for Christmas. It took us 5 hours to get to Salem, which normally takes 30 minutes. Our plans to hit Medford at 9 obviously did not happen. We hit snow in the mountains, which we would have missed if we hadn't been stuck on the freeway. 3am we drove into Medford, totally exhausted. Brandon was such a trooper - he drove the whole way, though he tried to talk me into turning around to sleep in our own bed. But we made it safely to Grandma's and had a great time with the Hignites.

We're Here!!

I figured since all our friends have a blog keeping me updated, maybe it was a good idea to have a blog too. Of course, they all have kids so life is more interesting.

Brandon and I are settling into married life. Everything went well for the wedding. I was so afraid it would rain, but it held off and the sun even showed up for the reception. I'm just glad that it wasn't stressful. My friend told me it was the most comfortable and relaxed reception she had been at in a LONG time. That was my goal... :) Plus I had all kinds of help (Thank you Mindy for the cake flowers) We waited a few days to head up to the San Jaun Islands in Washington for our honeymoon. I started to freak out our second night on Lopez Island. The only way to and from the islands is by ferry(if you don't have a boat), and I was afraid we wouldn't get on the ferry to leave the next morning. I wanted off the island!! While there is lots of hiking on Lopez, I wanted to walk through little towns and window shop. You can't do that when the only 'town' you could walk through in 15 minutes. Luckily we got on the ferry and were able to head to Seattle to sightsee that day. It was nice to get away from everything(on the islands). I kinda wonder why people live there. There is nothing there as far as employment. It used to be huge when the fishing industry was huge, but now it's just touristy. It will be nice to go back for a visit in a few years.

We headed to Cedar City for our Open House over Labor Day. It was so nice to hang with the Hignites. I felt bad it was such a short trip and that it was packed with open house prep. I can't wait to go back at Christmas.

There have been lots of issues with our apartment, but hopefully they have everything taken care of. We came home from our honeymoon to find ants had taken over our apartment. It was a good thing we hadn't finished moving all the food in. At least that has been the worst of the problems. It is so nice to have a home, even if we don't own.

Brandon is working so hard with school. He's 1/4 of the way through his last year. Then he has to study for the bar. I don't think I'll see him until next August sometime. But I can handle it as long as it allows him to study and do his best. I'm still at Home Depot. I look forward to knowing next year where Brandon and I will end up. Then I will know when I can quit. I really want to go back to school for my Masters. We'll see...