Mother's Day Part 1 -- Florence, Oregon Adventures

Wayne's mom is a simple woman who is always making sure everyone else is taken care of. We give her grief from time to time because it seems like we are never able to do anything special for her because she only wants to do what ever you want to do. She is fine with eating what ever you want to eat. Sounds like the perfect wife, and mother! WELL on Mother's Day. It is your day.. She mentioned taking Kola to the beach. When we got Kola, her previous owner told us that she LOVES the beach and went often. This was our first chance to see how she reacts to the ocean. The poor girl is scared of baths, and the hose.. So naturally you would think she would be scared of the ocean. NOPE! She ran right in!
We have driven through the historic old town part of Florence, Oregon before but never got to stop and explore. We knew that was a MUST on the agenda! We found a lot of businesses to be closed on a Saturday though.. I thought that was strange. Old Town is a must to visit though. Cute shops, cafes, and restaurants. We ate at the famous Moe's for lunch, checked out a ton of antique stores, got ice cream, coffee, and sushi (her favorite) to-go for dinner!

I love celebrating Mom's, and in doing that we get to explore and visit new places! Thank you to both of our Mom's. Next week is my mom's adventure weekend! Can't wait! 

♥♥♥♥

Thanksmas 2013

My family came up with a between holidays- holiday quite a few years ago. Everyone has their own family functions on major holidays, so we  created a tradition for the extended family to all get together once a year on Thanksmas. Our Thanksgiving/Christmas. This year it was at my sisters house. She changed things up on us with an ugly sweater contest! Which I won 3rd place. I knew we had to have a photobooth with all of these ugly sweaters around. I sent my sister some photo props, and started sewing up glittered scrapbooking paper for the photo backdrop. I used a 2 1/2 inch circle punch to cut out the circles, and sewed them together to make 3-4 foot strands. I wrapped the thread around the small cedar wood rod I magically had laying around, and taped the thread on the top and back of the rod holding it in place (obviously not a permanent solution). Everything worked out the way I had planned, except some people are missing!
I went home and made a hilarious animated gif of my niece and I dancing the night away. Check that out HERE!

It was a good time as always!

The ugly sweater contest rule was if you don't wear one, then you have to bring a prize. My aunt thought that the prize should be ugly also. This horribly scary Christmas caroler doll was the perfect trophy(photo below on the left). The camper ornament to the right is the ornament I brought for our annual family ornament exchange. It was a hit! 

We are already making plans for next year! Can't wait.. 

♥

Our First Snow

Today was our first snow in the new house! First house, first tree, now first snow! This was Kola's(our dog) first experience of snow also! I thought she would be a little scared to touch it. Nope! She sprinted through the yard with her mouth open trying to eat all of the flakes falling. She also digs her nose as far down into the snow as she can and pulls all of the snow up to eat. Nothing short of entertaining.
Wayne snowboarded down the yard, and I sat on it and sledded. Kola chased us and barked at the board for taking us for a ride.. She is very protective, and packed full of hilarious personality.
My new saying has been, "It's a Christmas miracle!" for just about anything. Our shower water pipe froze sometime yesterday so we had sponge baths out of a giant canning pot. The prepper in me said, "Thank you for this experience". The little lady in me said, "Holy, really? A shower out of a bucket. NOT a Christmas miracle"
Being our first winter in the new house.. We are happy to experience anything that we might need to know about living here. Now we know we have to keep the water flowing periodically when there is freezing temperatures. This is a learning process, and we ARE taking notes.

Let the Festivities Begin!

I have never seen a Christmas wonderland like this before! Hold onto your knitted socks! We found what has to be the best Christmas Tree Farm in Oregon. Northern Lights Tree Farm is 162 acres and 15 minutes from Eugene. The gift shop has a full cafe, and if you want to cut the tree yourself you get to hop on a hay ride out to the location. All I know is I adore this place, and we will be back!

 

We are very excited about our first Christmas in our new home if you couldn't tell.

♥