Christmas in Eastern Washington

The first stop on our Christmas trip was Wilbur, WA.  We had a yummy lunch at the Billy Burger before we went to see Grandma.  Who knew the Billy Burger could make delicious cream of tomato soup.  I must find a recipe and make some myself.  I believe Paula Deen has a recipe for it in Alyssa's new cookbook. 

We had a great visit with Grandma. She showed us the new research she's compiled about her family's history.

After Wilbur we made our way to Loon Lake.  Christmas Eve is the big event in Forrest's family so we were a big group on the 24th.  Eighteen people opening presents makes a big mess. I had to hand off the camera to get myself in a photo.

Forrest puts on a cheesy grin for this photo with his mama. We persuaded all the cousins who were present to pose for a shot.  We were just missing Alan.

The ice on this shallow end of the lake was 6-8 inches thick.  The kids walked out quite far.  Alyssa and Savannah are great friends. Kris reluctantly posed with Noah.  He just turned 17 and said he felt very short next to this 13 year old cousin.


On our way home we stopped for a visit with the Presho cousins.  Margaret fed us a yummy lunch.  We had to take our traditional photo without Ryan as he was out with friends playing paintball.  In this photo the kids lined up by height:  Noah  13, Nicole  17, Mikala 14, and Alyssa nearly 18.  She's been the shortest in our photos for a couple of years now.  Noah is 6' tall so 19 year old Ryan who is 6'4" is still ahead of him.

Christmas at Warm Beach

Since we're heading east to spend Christmas with Forrest's extended family Mom and Dad came up and celebrated Christmas a few days early with us at home.  The children begged to open their presents first thing Saturday morning.
Dad got coffee and Mom got jewelry.
Noah loves the Hollister t-shirts Alyssa bought for him.

Forrest is smiling, but he was battling a bad bought of bronchitis.
Don't look too closely, my eyes are closed in this one, but at least Alyssa looks beautiful as always.  We ran a few errands after presents and then we were off to Oak Harbor for Noah's basketball game.    His team clobbered Oak Harbor by 40 points.  The bench players got to play lots of minutes, but Noah still scored ten points in limited playing time.   Then it was off to Applebees for a post-game celebratory dinner.  We were planning on going to Mitzel's, but it has closed and is being remodeled to be a Chinese restaurant. Drat!  The service at Applebees was slow, but we were a table of 11 so it really wasn't that bad. 

All that running around was too much for Forrest so he spent most of Sunday in bed or his recliner.  He was able to return to work on Monday and sounds much better.  It's off the grandmother's house we go tomorrow.  

Searching for the Tree

A trip to our favorite tree farm above the town of Silvana, Point Valdimar. 
Great trees and awesome prices.

Our 9' tree was only $25.00.  It was a cool, frosty day, but Noah of course wore shorts.

Alyssa did most of the decorating.  It's amazing she didn't fall and break her neck.