The end of 2011, and our trip

We spent the remaining 4 days of 2011 in Keizer with the Casqueiros. It was such a blast, and I am such a bad picture taker. It should now be obvious how much I rely on my sisters' blogs because when I'm with the other family I have no pictures to post! Anyway, here's what I do have :).

On the 29th, we were trying to think of something fun to do in the very Oregon-esque weather, so we went to the Salem Carousel at Riverfront Park. I'd never been there before, and am excited to go sometime in the summer when we can walk around outside as well, but the carousel was awesome! It was beautiful, and all the horses are hand-carved by craftsmen in the area. They each had a name, and some are traded out for the different seasons. Olivia rode on a couple Christmas ones; she was very fond of their curly manes and the bows in their hair. It will be fun to see next time we go, since she now recognizes horses and likes to talk to them (her whinny sounds more like a scream, but we take what we can get around here). Anyway, the rides are pretty cheap, and it goes fast enough and long enough to be fun for adults too - at least I had fun. There was a good sized park right outside, but this day was too wet to play, so we stayed inside and explored the gift shop in between rides.

I've never made a video in Picasa before, but I had too many pictures, and my camera wasn't working great that day, so I made a video of all the frame-by-frame pics. You can see that Olivia definitely liked it more towards the endm after she got used to the speed and going up and down.

I'll admit, I'm a sucker for hand-holding pictures :)

The next morning we headed out to Silverton to see Grandma and Grandpa Wellman. Olivia always has fun at their house, and enjoys exploring while the grownups talk. This time she found Ruby's chair, and was really excited to be able to get on it all by herself! I missed the proud 'look at what I did' face, but I did catch the awkward feet shifting beneath her, followed by the 'just loungin' after she got all situated.

Olivia is always more hesitant around men than women, so I loved that when Grandpa started dancing she went over to join him. Together they shuffled their feet...I wish I had a video :)

We had a traditional Casqueiro get-together that night (no pictures of course...lame me!). It was a blast, it's always fun to catch up and have a little time to hang out when we are up. I especially love to watch Olivia with her older cousins, and how patient they are with her. Tyler and Aiden are awesome at running just a little slower and watching out behind themselves so she doesn't get too trampled.

We relaxed on New Year's Eve, I actually can't really remember what we did, except I do remember winning a mad Cranium game or two just before midnight...it was quite a wild party! It was a big improvement on last year, however, when none of my little family was up to see the ball drop. The next morning we packed up and headed out for one last night at my family's house before the drive back. This was really just to cut an hour off our drive the next day, and I was very glad for every minute that we didn't have to be in the car, so it all worked out.

Everyone had pretty much left my parent's house, so it was quiet enough that Olivia had to find her own entertainment for part of the afternoon. Imagine my delight and surprise when I heard wonderful piano noises coming from the living room! Olivia isn't tall enough to pound when she is standing, so it's perfect! After a few minutes, however, I took pity on her and sat her up on the piano bench. She LOVED being able to see all the keys, and did get a little more rowdy with her playing :). I stopped her after she started standing on the bench and climbing onto the keyboard...it just looked a little too dangerous, but I love that she is so into the piano, and can't wait for the someday that we will have one of our own.

Whew! That pretty much sums up our trip. I'll leave out our trip home, mostly because it was a very hard, miserable car ride that I'd rather forget. I get carsick on a good day, so adding in 7 weeks pregnant and a 15 hour day makes for major yuckiness and multiple emergency bathroom trips. I was very sad to leave our family, and felt it even more after all the laundry was done and gifts put away, and we had a totally quiet apartment again. Living away from family will always be the hardest thing for me, so I'm so glad that we get multiple opportunities each year to visit.

Christmas at the Coast

After a fun-filled and quite exhausting Christmas, my family packed it all up and headed to the Oregon Coast for 3 days of extended family shenanigans. We spent two days with them, then headed back to Keizer for some more Casqueiro craziness, but the time at the beach was a blast, and will surely be repeated in future years.

We started our trip in Newport, with lunch at Mo's (where else?) and some candy fun at Belinda's at the historic bayfront. O had a majorly problematic diaper, so we missed the group picture at Belinda's, but I was able to snap one of Jenaye playing on a statue :)

Our beach houses (yes there were enough people to require two) were in Lincoln City, so we drove up the coast. It was really beautiful, and the ocean was nice and stormy. HWY 101 is never my favorite, for car-sickness reasons, but I love to watch the ocean in a storm, so it balanced out. We stopped again in Depoe Bay to look at the spouts and play a little more. I stayed in the car to sleep with Olivia, but Alex was able to get some picture time in, including the GQ pose with Dan. I think that picture came from Amber, but it was a pleasant surprise :) what manly men!

This is the beautiful house that the Johnsons and Stays stayed in. All of the Romrells (Gma&Gpa, Chris&fam, Kelvin&fam) stayed in a house just down the street, so we were able to be together most of the time. By the time we got to the house, it was pouring down rain and getting dark, so we hurried in and tried to decide who would get which room. Our particular families are growing both in number and age, so we now have just as many grown-up couples as we do kids. In any other house this would have been a problem for sleeping space, but this amazing rental had 5 master suites (each with a private bath), another bedroom with 2 twins, pullout couches in the bonus room downstairs , and some more couch space upstairs. I honestly think that everyone who wanted a bed got one, and even our little family was able to have our own master suite on the middle floor, which stayed a little quieter for sleeping babies. Overall, I can't say enough about this amazing house. We were totally comfortable staying inside most of the time because the weather was not-so-lovely, and we were rarely hip-to-hip because of lack of space.

Everyone got together that night for pizza, and we had a blast. I was able to catch up with Laura and Sam, who were there for a few days and I hadn't seen in way too long.

We didn't stay up too late the first night, I think everyone was just slightly beyond exhausted. After some game time (including a Grover v. Casqueiro ping pong tournament) we settled in for the night. I'm pretty sure I was one of the first people to go to bed, but I was glad for the extra sleep because Olivia was having a hard time adjusting to the traveling and craziness of our vacation, so she didn't sleep as soundly as usual.

The next morning we got up, ate, and got all bundled up because we were determined to spend some time on the beach. It was still windy and rainy, but was calmer than the night before, so it worked out. You can see the girls a little hunched over to protect themselves from the cold, but everyone enjoyed it.

Elli and Olivia were great friends, and Elli was very sweet and kind to stick back and run around where the water wasn't reaching. Olivia loves to chase her bigger cousins, and I'm glad she has such great and fun examples of kindness from them every time we visit.

Not at all worried to wander away from Dad, she was just having a blast exploring.

The bigger kids went out with Dan and Grandpa to chase some waves. Elli wasn't sure she wanted to, and I was glad she didn't because that made Olivia okay with staying back a ways as well.

We were determined to get a complete immediate family picture before our numbers change again. We are 18 strong in this picture, but that's only going to be a compelte family picture for a few more months, as our family seems to grow by a couple each year. It was so fun to be all together for a good chunk of time, and we really enjoyed our time at the coast. I'll always feel like a kid when we go home to Mom's and I get to run around and play with my siblings again. Luckily mom is around to keep an eye on the kiddos so we can get our play on :).

We took some grandkid pictures as well. I love the first one, because it was just before some said 'Mom, you have to make a normal face, the kids can't see you'. My mom is just so used to being behind the camera jumping and making gorilla noises to get the kids to smile :).

What a great looking bunch of kids!

After lunch Candy pulled out her gingerbread making stuff for a major party for all the kids. Everyone had a blast, and I saw quite a few grown-ups 'teaming' up with the kids in an effort to get in on the action (and perhaps raid a candy bowl or two). I'm still staring at this amazed at all the preparation Candy put in. She is very crafty and makes such cute things. In this case, the gingerbread was all homemade, but that's nothing compared to the handmade ornaments, little stockings for the kids, and other things that she made and brought this year. I'm blessed to have such an amazingly crafty sister to learn from!

This is a poor quality phone picture, but we were all laughing at Olivia's possessiveness over 'her' Grandma. Mom was just sitting feeding Kylie when I brought olivia upstairs after her nap, but Olivia didn't want to share Grandma, so she just walked up and wriggled her way onto the couch and Grandma's lap. Nobody seemed to mind very much, and Olivia was happy to just sit with Grandma and watch baby Kylie eat.

After all the kids were in bed, the grownups decided to have some kid time and all go out to the beach. To say it was stormy would be an understatement, as the rain was pelting our skin and the wind was strong enough that we had trouble standing up. However, that didn't stop us from all grabbing sweatshirts and going down to the beach. It was dark enough and stormy enough that we were all a little worried we would lose someone, so we did headcounts about every 10 seconds. Before we left the house, I thought we would be down on the beach for maybe 2 minutes, but it was really fun, and we just kept playing until we were all too freezing to continue. We had races against the wind (very slow races), and with the wind (more like leaping contests, the wind carried us most of the way). Bryan, Candy, and Jenaye even went down to the water, but I'm not that brave, so I have no picture evidence :).

In this first picture is Alex, me, Ben, Tasha, Emily, Bryan, Candy, Amber, Dan and Jenaye. Zach (representing Ali, Jon, Nikki, and himself) was taking the picture.

After the beach, we had to find a quick way to warm up, so we all went to Grandma's house and got in the hot tub. yes there were 9 people in there (Alex and I elected to just sit around the side), but it was all fine and good until someone decided to have a contest to see if the boys could correctly identify the girls' feet without looking...I would explain that except every explanation I can think of just sounds worse than none at all, so I'm leaving it at that.

The next day was Emily Day (AKA Emily's birthday), so we started out with our typical German pancake birthday breakfast before packing up to go home. Everyone else was spending the day in Newport before heading back to Philomath, but Alex and I left Lincoln City and went to Keizer for some more time with that family. This meant that we had all our stuff, as well as all our gifts, in the car. It was quite a tight fit, and Alex had a lovely time packing it all back up in the pouring down rain, but it was well worth it. We had a great time at the coast, and were all ready for the slightly (and only slightly) less chaotic Casqueiro house :). We love our family, and even just looking at these pictures reminds me of how blessed I am. I can't wait for the next all-family get together!

Christmas Day in Philomath

Yes I know, I'm getting further and further behind. I'm pulling the sick card, as I've spent the last half of this week mostly in bed. I really want to get caught up before going on our next big trip (Vegas on 3/6), so I'm looking at 1+ post per day...we'll see, I say that a lot.

I'm giving photography credit in this post to my two wonderful sisters Amber and Candy, from whom I stole about half of these pictures. One advantage of waiting so long to post is that they are already done and I can pick through their pictures!

Christmas started bright and early in the Johnson household this year. I honestly don't think I've ever been up before 6 on Christmas, but due to the fact that church was at ten and we had people coming and going to visit other family throughout the day, we had to get a majority of Christmas done before 9, and we had 16 people (to become 18 that evening with the addition of Ben and Tasha), so the sheer number of gifts was pretty amazing. So here is a visual of tired eyes as the grandkids get to push Grandpa out of bed. Amber is assisting, and I appreciate her help to keep Olivia on the bed :).

Almost success! Grandpa is the purple and khaki blob beneath the big kids (yes he slept in full church clothes...that's my dad!).

The next tradition (ya we knocked out two before 6:30 am, that's got to be a record of some sort) is the pre-present stair picture. We are in age-ish order, and the white background includes Candy, Amber, Grandm, and Grandpa. You'll notice that I am still young enough to be seated on the stairs :).

These next pictures are of Olivia exploring her gifts from Santa. He brought her a little people zoo and farm, as well as the animals and people that went with it. A princess tent tops it off, and she was very excited. I think she would have been happier without the tent, it took her a few days to get used to crawling into a place with no visible exit. I'm also happy to report that two months later I still enjoy hearing the noises that came with these toys, including a bird song (which Alex and I can both whistle perfectly), and some monkey laughs, as well as the standard zoo and farm animal noises.

You can also notice the front window in the background of this picture. Floor space was a hot commodity with so many big gifts, and since we arrived pretty late (10ish), we were relegated the front entryway for Olivia's Santa gift. Technically not even in the same room as the tree, but we were glad for any space at all :).

The other gifts proved more exciting as soon as O heard the *zing* of Kade's new self-powered race cars. Here's a few pictures of some of the other gifts from Santa.

Santa's gift to Alex and I was a new desktop computer that I LOVE! It arrived just before our trip, and is a great addition to our house. I don't know what it is about having a computer desk that makes me feel like a grown-up, but I really like coming over to sit down and do computer-y things.

After I made her sit with me to explore her stocking, Olivia wanted nothing to do with mom on Christmas morning. All she wanted to do was sit with Grandma, and you can see her giving Kylie the stink-eye in this next picture. She loves her baby cousin, and I'm sure they will grow up to be great friends, but she was beyond tired (we woke her up about 3 hours early and moved her in the middle of her sleep), and didn't want anyone else taking "her" grandma.

One of the favorite overall gifts year was a "scoodie" and face mask from Jenaye to my mom. It was made with true Beaver-ness, even including beaver teeth on the mask. I'm sure this new set will get plenty of action at 2012 OSU football games.

During our post-church present opening session, I discovered a good way to get Olivia to come sit with me to open her presents. I came across this knowledge accidentally, as I was simply trying to help out Candy while she was opening some gifts and juggling Kylie. I took Kylie from her, and in about two seconds Olivia was off grandma's lap and squeezing herself between Kylie and me. Apparently she isn't quite ready to share her mom yet, especially on this crazy early day.

After Grandma and I switched babies, both were a little happier. Olivia was a bit territorial the entire trip, but hopefully she will get better with age, and I'm sure with our new addition she will learn to share her mommy quickly.

This isn't a good picture at all, but Olivia and our cat Psycho have a special bond. This cat, who won't sit still for anyone, is very patient with Olivia when she pets her, and Olivia will come sit by this window and just stare for a while, looking for the cat if she's not in her spot near the door. Later in the trip Olivia even brought a book over to the door to read to the cat...so sweet!

When everyone got changed after church, we noticed that all the grandkids were matching quite wonderfully, and we had a mini photo session. This isn't the best picture, but it has the best faces. I love all these kids!

My gut is telling me that this should be the end to our day. My body was telling me the same thing on Christmas. We had been going for nearly 12 hours when we headed out to Grandma Bonnie's for some Christmas evening fun. I wish a picture could show the insane happiness that occurs when we gather at Grandma's, but no picture could show that. We had a full-but-not-busting house, as some of the Portland family came later to the coast shenanigans instead of driving down Christmas day, but I always forget how many bodies can fit in that space! Personal space is limited to the 1/2 inch that surrounds your body, but I love to watch all the kids immediately start to play together and form their little age groups of friends. I'll admit that I felt like I had to be one of the grownups this year, both because I was watching my own toddler run around and because my age group playmates, Ali, Nikki, and Laura, were all unable to come for Christmas. So I settled in to my space on the floor in front of Alex's chair (how did he get the man chair? I'll never know) and chatted while the night unfolded. Yes there are plenty of tired eyes in these photos, but all the kids held up very well; better, perhaps, than their parents, at least in Olivia's case.

These matching leg warmers were a gift from the Stays. They were so cute, and it was so fun for me to have Olivia matching all of these bigger girls and running around chasing them. Maggie and Paige especially were quick to include her in their play, and to help her figure out whatever toy she had found and commandeered. Olivia is blessed, as I am, with many wonderful cousins.

Early the day after Christmas we were headed to the beach for a few days, so Christmas evening was the only opportunity for us to play with our new toys before packing them up for the drive. Alex and Dan used this chance to open up his new tabletop pool set. I think Dan beat Alex both times, but when us wives joined to play doubles it was a much closer game. I had some major improvement, and even sunk two balls in a row to give us a chance to win! We were sad to give the win up to Amber and Dan, but have to imagine that their much increased "wisdom" and "experience" will catch up to them before we battle again :).

Whew! And that ends Christmas...the Romrell Beach Excursion is next!