December Part 1

December was a crazy but fun filled month so I'm splitting it into two posts.

I love giving gifts (yes, its my top giving and receiving love language - although to me gifts come in many forms). One of my favorite "gifts" at Christmas is spending time with a friend doing something. Every year (I think we've been doing it the last 3 or 4) my friend, Shannon, and I pick something to do as our Christmas gift to each other. This year we were able to find $20 tickets on Goldstar (http://www.goldstar.com/home) to How the Grinch Stole Christmas Musical at the Pantages. So we checked out a new Italian restaurant near the theater and then headed to the show.

If you've never checked out Goldstar, you definitely should. As I mentioned, we got $20 tickets in the second level but were upgraded to Orchestra and were seated fifteen rows from the FRONT!!!! The musical was so whimsical and cute. It's my mom's favorite Christmas cartoon so it brought back alot of fun memories of when I was a kid and my mom and I would watch it.

The next morning I headed to Portland for a few days to visit Gail (best friend from high school) and have a girls weekend with Ellie and celebrate Allison's birthday. I unfortunately didn't get any pics of Gail and I but we had a great day just having some girl time and hanging out which she doesn't get to do much of with 3 kids. Did a little catching up, exploring, shopping and lunch. Then connected up with Ellie for some dinner and then picked up Nickki and Allison from the airport later that night.

The next 3 days were a whirlwind of activity. First we went to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Let me just say right now - in case you didn't know - I LOVE CHEESE - creamy cheeses like St Andre, drunken goat cheese, swiss, cheddar, jalapeno jack, parmesian, mixtures of cheese (mexican cheese blend, italian cheese blend), smoked, feta, and especially nacho cheese so needless to say I was really excited to visit a cheese factory.

Random displays like this. Do you remember the one that we had at Ellie's going away party with the Princess and the Armoured guy.



The production process...

The best part - tasting the cheese. I tried the Squeaky Cheese but it really didn't squeak. I was a bit disappointed.

We took the coastal route back. The weather over the weekend (except Sunday) was beautiful. Cold and sunny - my favorite.

Saturday (Allison's birthday) we went to Mother's for breakfast. Super cute place (kind of decorated like Anthropologie) and an amazing menu. A definite place to go if you're ever visiting.

For years Ellie has been talking about Dragon Tree - holistic spa that specializes in foot baths and massages. So that was the next stop for the day.

This lady was the best neck/shoulder and foot massager in the world. She did this funny thing where she was slapping my feet which was kind of odd but oh well. So sad I live so far away from Dragon Tree.

Nickki and Allison relaxing.

Dinner at Portland City Grill. Beautiful night time view of all of Portland. We were planning to watch a boat parade but realized that the boats weren't going to be floating by. What did these four girls do with that info and an iphone. Decide to go to the boats of course!!! Did I mention that we had to go to Washington state.

A little goofing around...

while Allison became the photographer for a family reunion. It actually was really cool because the whole family hadn't gotten together in many years so they got a fun family photo in front of the Christmas tree in the lobby of the building. She's looking pretty professional.

After the photo taking, we continued on our adventure to find the boat parade. So we headed over some river and into Washington state. 30 minutes later and a trek down the dock we found the boats (just as they were pulling back into their docking area). No we're not really far away, they were just really little boats. Luckily this was my first boat parade so I didn't have anything to compare it to and it was of course a fun adventure.

Ellie and I being silly at Powell's books. This is the largest and best new and used bookstore I've ever been too. I was a bit overwhelmed and got lost a few times. I did buy a few books, just a few...

Sunday morning before we flew out we decided to go on a hike at Multnomah Falls. It doesn't look like it from the picture but its about 25 degrees and looks like its ready to rain.

It was super slippery...

Such a fun girls weekend and it was so good to spend time with Ellie. I think we all fell in love with Portland.