seek, sail, Soar.

The first part of Christmas was spent cleaning up way too much wrapping paper!  And then we left…   

 

    

 

We made it to Oregon! The first night we settled in. We ate at Jack in the box for dinner. The next day we were all sick.             

 

  We took Arabella to the cheese factory but she didn’t get an icecream because she wasn’t feeling 100%… Actually she ended up throwing up. We left the factory and decided to find a place to stay close by so she didn’t have to be in the car too much while she was sick.        We found a last minute steal of a deal online and checked in for the night. Thank havens for the internet…seriously. Arabella was still super sick so we called the nurseline and they said just to make sure she was getting fluids. We kept giving her little bits of pedialite. About 12 hours later she was holding fluids down and asking for food. She slept through the night and we decided to let her have some breakfast if she held it down she could have an ice cream later…    She was a trooper! So we headed back to the factory…        She held down all of her breakfast!         We even took a quick trip to see the Oregon Coast!                  She was very excited!     We had a very busy week planned. Later that night we went and saw some Christmas lights in Colton & went to see Gramps! She met some cousins and I met up with some childhood friends!       

  The day just got bigger and bigger! That night we headed up to Seattle! The next day she was to meet her Uncle Michael (Jason’s brother for those who might be confused).  

   

  She was very shy and clung to mommy and daddy every time she met someone new. The only exception was when she met her cousin Rylee. They hit it off immediately. But I digress… Seattle was an adventure. The main purpose was for her to meet family.  We didn’t see a whole lot but we wanted to make sure she at least saw the space needle.             

     We headed back to Oregon the next day to meet up with family.   

  We left it up to auntie Angel to let people know where and when we could all get together.  

  

    

  

Before we knew it the day was coming to an end. We headed back to the hotel and got some much needed rest!  

     

           We had to take her to the usual spots!

    

  

               We saw as many sights as we could pack into each day.  

       

            The trip involved much coffee.             Before we knew it we were on our way back. We wanted to see a few more people (bummed that we missed out on a few). But A few of us still weren’t feeling that great and we had over 20 hours of driving to do before we would get back to Phoenix.              We ended up stopping in Sacramento the first night back. It was New Year’s Eve. Someone fell asleep before midnight.      We woke up the next day and met up with Amber and Josh (I was lame and didn’t take photos… I think I was just excited to see them). After we met up it was back on the road.    We planned on stopping in Los Angeles for the night. We wanted to catch the Naples lights. We have seen them every year for the last 4 years. We didn’t want to break tradition.                      

  We headed to Grammy & Grampy’s house for the night! The next morning we went to Grinchmas!  

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            I had to steal a few photos off of her dads Instagram because I couldn’t find them in my saved photos.  

  

    We were so exhausted that we stayed another night. We headed back to Phoenix in the morning.      I was excited to see our cat!         And Arabella was excited to see her babies!    Yesterday was Jays birthday! It rained quite a bit. It was nice to be home. I love traveling and we had a great time (despite getting sick). BUT Sometimes it’s just nice to be home. 🙂

Life has felt so rushed lately. I’ve had some mild anxiety because I feel like I don’t have enough time for anything. It sounds silly but it’s true. 

 

 
It was an incredibly busy holiday for us. What is strange is that the holiday went by so quickly that I wasn’t able to do a lot of the things I wanted to. I planned on decorating cookies with the little one and sipping hot chocolate while we read Christmas books. I didn’t realize until it was pretty late that we didn’t even have any Christmas books. By the time I got them it was rush time.

 

    

We were able to do other fun holiday things so it wasn’t too big of a loss but I always build things up in my head and expect them to be bigger and more exciting than what is realistic. Perhaps I have a case of Pinterest syndrome (I’ve had it since before Pinterest existed).

We visited a ton of lights and holiday themed exhibits. 

… And we made time for a few fun playground trips.

     

  We found some new places to visit that we plan on making family tradition. 

  

  

  

  

  

  

We visited the snow and Arabella went sledding for the first time. We even made some special snowmen.

 

  

  

       
  

Christmas Eve we went to church.  For the first time we were paged to the Sunday school room. Arabella had hit her head on a corner and it had left a mark. There was a little swelling but she seemed okay. When we walked in she was drinking water and eating Cheerios.  They said she didn’t even cry. She’s a tough girl.

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On our way back from church we decided to celebrate Christmas early because we made a last minute decision to take a trip…

    

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I didn’t really get many photos. I felt pretty guilty that I didn’t really have any photos of her. I was helping her open her gifts and it was pretty rushed 🙁 but we were in for a long road trip when we were finished. We ate dinner, opened gifts, cleaned up the wrapping paper, showered, and then headed on our journey….