Merry Christmas Eve!

It honestly doesn't really feel like Christmas right now, simply because I'm sitting at work and it's technically a business today today. So the front Sheriff's Office is open and my boss is here, which they won't be tomorrow. My parents are at my house right now, and tonight we're going to the Christmas Eve service at church, then having Chicken Fettuccine for dinner. Christmas morning we'll get up early, open our Santa presents, open stockings, having some breakfast, then I'm off to work again. After I get off work we'll having Christmas dinner and open the rest of our presents.

Our time in Portland was absolutely wonderful. We're very glad we drove over on Thursday night, it was so great to have the chance to spend two full days there with family and friends. We went directly to Nathan's mom's house on Thursday (we got in around midnight) and had breakfast with her on Friday morning. Then Nathan and Jan ran some errands while I finished up some work on the throw I made for Jan. Once that was done, we went into downtown Hillsboro to pick up some homebrew supplies for Nathan and my dad, picked out some beads for a necklace I'm going to make for Jan, and stopped to say hello to Jan's personal trainer Bruce. When we got back to Jan's house, she and I started on the ham dinner, while Nathan busied himself with playing some classic Nintendo games. Kate and Eliot showed up around 5 or so, we all had dinner together, opened some presents, and then Nathan and I picked up Johnny and Laura for a night on the town.

Our first stop was the Horse Brass, the closest thing you're going to get to a British Pup this side of the Rockies. I literally felt like I was back in London (besides not hearing any great British accents). We threw some darts, had some great beer (they had 24 taps from around the world), and enjoyed the chance to just sit and talk. At around 11:00, Laura and I decided we needed to move the party to Duke's Country Bar & Grill, because I always promised Laura I'd take her there when she turned 21. So we headed out that way, did some line dancing, and didn't get back to Hillsboro until around 3 am.

After sleeping in fairly late on Saturday, Nathan and Eliot went to Panera Bread for bagels for breakfast, then we all trooped out to Ger's house to do our Christmas thing with him. Once again, it was great to have that much time together. Ger, Nathan, Eliot and I sampled some fun beer while Ger and Kate worked on the prime rib dinner. About an hour before dinner was ready, Ger's surrogate daugher Katie showed up and we got to hang out before dinner was ready. After eating dinner, Katie and Nathan did dishes while Kate and I set up the family electric train set underneath the tree. And might I add that we were very impressed with out engineering skills! By the time we got done with that and opening presents, it was about 11 pm when Kate and Eliot hit the road back to Eugene. The rest of us stayed up for another hour or so having pie and visiting before I finally went to bed. The next morning, we got up early and hit the road back to Baker, thankfully arriving without incident.

The other big piece of new is that Nathan and I decided to put all of our Christmas gift money towards a new bed. The one we've been sleeping on is an old queen size we traded one of my friends for, since the full size we were using was just too small for us. Unfortunately, it was broken down and you had to have an egg crate AND a feather cushion in order to pad against the springs. So we've been sleeping horribly for about a year now. While we were in Portland, Nathan decided that we needed to bite the bullet, so my dad went down to the local furnature store here in Baker, did some haggling, and talked them down $70 from their "lowest price" for a queen size Beautyrest Plush Top, including delivery and pick up of our old mattress in the price. The delivery should actually be done by now. The mattress is one of those that has the individual pockets for each spring...it's the mattress in that commercial where the "scientist" drops a bowling ball right next to the bowling pins and never disturbs them...hope that works when Nathan does his usual violent turning in the middle of the night!

Later today, Nathan and my dad will be heading up to my parent's place on Pine Creek to pick up our 4 poster bed frame. In order to fit the large frame (we were using one of those shaky metal frames) in our tiny bedroom, Mom and I had to do some rearranging. I didn't think we'd like it as much the way it is now, but it actually makes the room feel bigger. We'll see how it looks after the guys get the big frame in there!

That's about it for now! Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!