The first Oregon trip: Thanksgiving

In the words of Christi, "You're actually blogging?! ...Do you even remember how?!"

Um, yes, yes I do. It's just become my norm to be extremely behind. (I know, I know Christi. It drives you nuts!).

Anyway, we spent Thanksgiving in Oregon this year at my in-laws' house in Bandon Dunes. Although Nathan and I drove up together, we met up with his parents about and hour and a half south of my parents house to drop Nathan off with them and allow me to head to my Mom and Dad's house for two nights so that I could celebrate Christi's baby shower with her. Christi was super excited to have the boys for a night, and Drew and Collin were excited to spend an afternoon/evening of "boy time" with Poppi and Uncle Ty Ty while we got the shower ready.

Drew's latest game: setting bunny traps. He gathered up the carrots, celery, and roughage (aka: weeds), found a net, made a trap and then would sit and wait...as patiently as a five year old does...for his bunnies to come. When I asked him what he would do with a bunny if he caught one, he told me, "If I catch a bunny, I'll let it go...but if I catch a deer, then I'll SHOOT it!" Hmmm...too much time listening to Grandpa's hunting stories.... :)

The girls and I did a Pat The Bunny themed shower, which we had all sorts of fun planning and carrying out!

Jenn spent Thanksgiving this year at home with her hubby's family so she wasn't able to make the shower. We missed her!

The trip to my parents' house was a quick one. I was basically there for the day of the shower and left the next morning to head to Bandon to meet up with Nathan's family and get ready for Thanksgiving. Before we left though, the boys begged Lala to take them to feed apples to the ponies. So, in true Lala and Poppi's farm fashion, they went and picked a full bucket of the last of the apples off my parents' trees and marched up to feed the horses. Spoiled ponies!

By mid-morning we were off and running. I tried to time the drive so that it was during nap time since I had a few hours to drive and it was just me and the boys. In some small miraculous event, all went according to plan and the boys were out about five minutes after leaving my parents' driveway. They slept soundly all the way until, what to my wondering eyes did appear.....

Elk. ELK! I have never seen Elk and let me tell you, our car went from a warm, cozy, lulling-babies-to-sleep machine...to a screeching to a halt, swerving (*safely* of course, mom) to the side of the roadway, waking-up-babies parked vehicle in about point two seconds. Seriously.  

We used to joke when we were younger that you could always spot a tourist in our hometown because they would pull over to take pictures of the deer (the abundant, pesky, eat all your plants and flowers pests that ran rampant around our hometown as commonly as dogs). Well let me tell you. Somewhere in-between Drain and Bandon Dunes (because I haven't the slightest clue where exactly I was)....I became that tourist. In fact, I'm actually not sure if it was the swerving car that woke my babies up, or the fact that I was yelling, "EEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLKKKK!!!!" at the top of my lungs. Yeah. I was that tourist.

We did indeed eventually pull ourselves away from the elk and make our way over to Nathan's parents' house. While I had spent the day driving, Nathan and his Dad had spent a few days playing the golf courses that Bandon Dunes is known for.

By Wednesday, the rest of the Thanksgiving crew had arrived (my parents and sisters, Auntie Kimmie and Uncle Dana, and Nathan's Uncle Temme and Auntie Toy and their five teenage/grown boys). It was a full house, and our boys ate it up!

Drewski and the lizard he and Collin caught

It was freezing and all Tanner wanted to do was sit and play in the damp dirt...with no shoes on. He was happy though!

Our crew needed three huge tables to seat us all!

Grandma let Drew help set the tables, so he spent Thanksgiving morning outside scrounging up greenery, rocks, and wild mushrooms that he was very proud to set out on the table as his contribution.

A few quick (and by quick, I mean terrible quality) pictures of everyone

Most of the week for the boys was spent wrestling/exploring/setting rabbit traps/playing with "the big boys". Nathan's cousins are all at least teenagers at this point and are such great guys about being silly, hanging out, and entertaining our little guys. We always leave family functions talking about "the big boys" for weeks afterwards.

 On the day before we left, all the guys (including Drew and Collin) woke up early and took Grandpa's boat out crabbing in the bay.

Sleepy Collin

The guys came home with three full buckets of crab, so we were treated to a fantastic crab feed in addition to the birthday prime rib dinner that was made in honor of cousin Peyton, Auntie Christi and Auntie Kimmie (whose birthdays were all a day apart starting with Peyton's) the last night we were there!