And the stockings were hung....

......by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there!

A visit to The Pittock Mansion!

With Christmas only 31 days away (but who's counting????) and a large list of places to visit, people to see and tasks to be done, we decided to take the family to Portland and tour The Pittock Mansion! You can find out information about the mansion at http://www.pittockmansion.org/. If you click on the photos below, they will enlarge and you can see more detail!

Ryan, Tyler, Tori, Sarah, Brandon and Ryley in the circular driveway.
Front of the Pittock Mansion.
Our favorite room in the house was the "Library"! Each of the 23 rooms in the mansion were decorated in a "Fairy Tale" theme. The library's theme was Beauty and the Beast.
Entering the "Music Room". They had 3 people playing instruments. Aside from the flute and guitar, they were instruments we'd never seen before, and are not sure what they are (if you know, leave us a comment).

The ceiling of "The Smoking Room"
The formal dining room, decorated as Alice in Wonderland.

The back of the Pittock Mansion.
The view from the back yard of the Mansion. It overlooks downtown Portland, and in the distance you can see Mount Hood.

A great week!

Just an update from our family! We have had another great week. The kids were home from school for the entire week ~ much to our delight. It is so nice to have them home all day! My parents came up on Wednesday and stayed through Friday to celebrate Thanksgiving. We all played a mean game of pictionary and ate way too much! Unfortunately I didn't think to get a group photo, so we will have to try and remember next year.

The kids wrote their last letter to Santa last night (Thank you for the letter writing kit cousin Malachi!!!)
On Saturday, Matt's mom stopped by on her way home from Matt's brother Justin's. We celebrated an early Christmas with her, since we won't see her during the holidays.
Sarah opening her Xmas gift from Omie!!

A teary goodbye to Odin

With the upcoming sale of our home and relocation, we decided it would be in Odin's best interest to find a new family for him. We put him on Craigslist on Thursday and Friday night his new family came to pick him up. It was a very tearful goodbye, as we have raised him the last 9 months. Below are photos we took that evening before the new owner and his sons came to claim him. The good news is the new owners live in Camas, Washington (where we will be relocating). They have a large fenced yard for him to run in, and 3 boys (ages 9,11, and 18) that are very excited to make him a part of their family. They invited us to come and visit when we move up north!

Christmas Cards for our Soldiers Overseas

Something cool that Xerox is doing....

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq . You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

How AMAZING it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! This is a great site. Please send a card. It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Whether you are for or against the war, our guys and gals over there need to know we are behind them...

We LOVE Halloween!