21 Reasons To Be Merry!

We just returned from our trip to Eugene for Christmas tonight. It was my 4th Christmas knowing Spencer, my 3rd Christmas celebrated in Eugene with Spencer's family and my 1st Christmas an O'Neill. In keeping with my blog tradition, here you go....

21 Reasons To Be Merry:
1.) "Non-WoW Day Of Fun"...a fun filled day with good friends!2.) Brothers, who despite how hard they try to beat one another, are STILL the same height!3.) Grandpa teaching Kyle and Colin how to play with fire...4.) Spencer and Gerd decorating the Christmas tree5.) Kyle, Colin, and Chelas baking yummy Christmas cookies6.) Helping Colin read the tags while he put the presents under the tree!7.) Bird watching with Kyle. (This is a scrub jay NOT a blue jay as I learned from my 7 year old bird expert nephew!)8.) Finding Freddie (and other quality time opportunities with our nephews!)9.) Visiting The Cascade Raptor Center to wish some cool birds a Merry Christmas (Kyle has all the pictures!)
10.) Being nice in preparation for Santa!11.) Snuggly Christmas jammies!12.) Lighting the candles on the Christmas tree13.) Snuggling by the fire while singing Christmas carols together on Christmas Eve.14.) Beating Spencer, Stefan, AND Gerd at "Screw Your Neighbor"...oh yes I did! :) (I knew I should've taken a picture of that score sheet!)
15.) Giving and Receiving16.) Building tool boxes and bird houses with Grandpa17.) My first Christmas with the O'Neills as an official O'Neill18.) Adam's birthday!19.) Rockband!20.) Visiting Mrs. K and Uncle Willy.
21.) Learning how to make sushi from my wonderful mother-in-law! (The picture below is my eventual goal! HA HA!)I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Stay tuned for my other blog tradition on New Year's Eve..."Our Year In Review!" Time to unpack, do laundry and sleep in my own bed! Goodnight!

Non-WoW Day Of Fun!

We got to Eugene late last night after a small delay in Las Vegas to San Francisco but its great to finally be here! Today we spent the entire day with Spencer's friends Alan, Christa, and Adam and Christa and I declared it the "Non-WoW Day Of Fun." For those of you who don't know what "WoW" is, I'm not going to tell you...its just kinda embarassing. I will say its a video game and it monopolizes these freinds lives and conversations, hence our declaration for the day! Regardless, we had a really fun day! We started our day with lunch at Sushi Station...YUM!Next we headed to Putters for some putt-putt, beer and video games. Adam won, but I beat Spencer and that's what counts right?After all of that it was already time for another meal so we went to Mazzi's.....YUM! Our favorite!We finished off the night at Alan and Christa's with Rockband, Apples To Apples, and some tasty beverages!What a fun day!

Our Early Christmas

Since we are leaving for Eugene tomorrow we had our own little Christmas celebration tonight. It was lots of fun! I made Swedish Meatballs, Party Potatoes, jello and Christmas cookies before work and then when I got home everything was ready! We ate our yummy dinner first.
I LOVE Swedish Meatballs!Spencer ventured from his usual 3 meatballs to 4 meatballs this year!And poor little Tank didn't get any!After dinner it was time to open presents!Spencer got me a beautiful ring that matches a necklace he got me for our first Christmas together and some earrings he got me last Valentine's Day. I also got some shower stuff, a Beatles address book, and new running shoes! Spencer got an electric razor, a book, a dvd, some clothes, some games, and TONS of Ducks stuff. Tank got a new monkey and a new Ducks collar, and Noelle and Layla got tons of cat toys.We've had a great Christmas so far and it isn't even Christmas yet. Can't wait to get to Eugene tomorrow! Merry Christmas early!