Over the River and Through the Woods

Here is our long overdue blog about our Christmas vacation that extended from Dec. 21 - Dec. 31. If it was not for Southwest holding the airplane in Kansas City, MO for an hour we might not have made it! Hope you enjoy the pics.

Here is Kara's grandma with her Build a Bear that she built as her Christmas gift. She collects teddy bears.

Here are the Kara's cousins kids. There are 9 of them! We hung out with them at Kara's cousin's house. We played tag and hide and go seek.

We drove from Portland to Bend, OR (about 3 hours away) in Kara's parent's Jeep. We had such little room in the car due to all our stuff, we strapped the spare tire on top.


We arrived in Bend, OR safely.

Here we are in front of Chris and Ashley's Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. Notice how Matt ALWAYS leans on Kara.:)

Here is our neice Tahlia, who I convinced to wear our Christmas stocking on her feet.

Here is our other neice Mikaela. She really enjoyed the toothbrush we put in her stocking.

Here are Tahlia and Mikaela enjoying their Christmas presents. Notice how there are no pictures of us on Christmas. We got sick and spent the day throwing up. We had to remind ourselves of what we got the next day.

Here is Tahlia peeking out of her pillow fort.

Here are Chris and Ashley. Chris is a police officer in Redmond, OR. Matt got to go on a ride along with him.

Here are Kevin and Danielle in Sisters, OR. It is a little mountain town with cute shops. It snowed while we were there.

Here we are at Smith Rock in Redmond, OR. It was beautiful.

Here are Kevin and Danielle enjoying their bakery treat that they got in Sisters.

Here is a picture of Mt. Hood on our drive up to Seattle. It was taken through the front window of the car while we were moving!

Here is the view from the Kirkland, WA waterfront overlooking lake Washington with a view of the Olympic Mts. in the background.

Here are Kara's parents on the waterfront.

Here we are in front of Pike Place Market in Seattle.

We wish we lived close enough to buy our food fresh at a market like this.

Despite our viral illness (Matt's terminology) on Christmas, we had a BLAST and really enjoyed our time with everyone! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years!

P.S. The Boise State game was awesome!!!