Christmas Vacation

The first thing that I would like to say, is that all you people who are mad because I haven't posted in a while...slow down! I just got back from Oregon last night, and then I had to wake up early to be at work today. So, I have no time for posting until now. But I still love you all.

Ryan and I went to Oregon for Christmas, but the last two weeks were more about Jennifer and her new husband Nathan than anything else. The wedding festivities lasted three whole days. Ryan and I drove up to Portland on Thursday morning really early to pick up Cindy and Mike. That afternoon Jennifer went through the temple for the first time, and then we all went out to dinner for Jack's Birthday. That night we had the bachlor and bachlorette parties. I am not really really sure what all the guys did, but us girls hung out in the hotel room opening Jennifer's presents, playing games, and talking till wee hours of the morning. Luckily Jennifer wasn't getting marred till 2, so we had time to sleep in.

The sealing was wonderful as usual, and Ryan cried like a baby through most of it, but it was really cute. The most exciting thing that happened that day was when Ryan stepped in the reflecting pool even after everytime we had to rearange for pictures about 42 people would say "be careful, don't anybody step in the water". In his defense, if you have ever been to the Portland temple you know, but there are these gradual steps that go down into the water, and the water is really still so you can hardly tell its there and its really hard to tell when the water starts. Anyway, Ryan got his feet soaked up to his ankles and it was like 32 degrees outside so it was pretty cold. Thank goodness the pictuures were basically done at that point so we just went back to the hotel and changed clothes. For dinner we went to this buffet place that don't reccommend to anyone...Sweet Tomatoes...bleck! We went there with basically both sides of the family so there were about 35 people there and t was pretty sweet. After dinner we ended up driving to Corvalis to Nikki and Eric's house and hung out there for a while before sriving back to Florence. On our way back to Flo town it was super foggy, foggy enough that we couldn't really see the signs on the road telling us where to go. We weren't driving on highways we were just on these little back roads so it was kind of spooky, At one point we realized that we had missed a turn because the road we were on was getting smaller and smaller. When we tried to turn around we ended up putting the truck in ditchand the front tire sunk in to the mud. We freaked out for second because there is no cell phone service out there and it was really late. BUt Ryan kicked the truck into 4 wheel drive and we just barely got out, missing hitting an electrical box by only a foot. (for those of you who don't knowOregon, this is a lot of driving to do in a course of two days. Portland is 3 hours from Florence, Corvalis is and hour and a half from Portland, and Florence is an hour and a half from Corvalis. So, we definitely did our share of driving...plus the trip to Oregon from Utah is 15 hours)

Saturday, Ryan and I took Nathan's family to some tourist spots in Oregon before the reception that evening. We went to the Sea Lion Caves, where we had to pay for the very first time to get in (it was bought out and there is no one working there that knows us now), and we went to the Devil's Churn. The whole family again went out to eat together at the ever tastey Azatlan restaurant in Florence, then it was off to more wedding festivities. She had the reception at the brand new club house/restaurant at the Sandpines golf course. It was really good food and gorgeous atmosphere.

I think for now I have had my share of weddings, at least for the ones that last three days, and that I have to wear a dress that I don't like. So here are some pictures from ourl ast two weeks. For Christmas this year we didn't really do gifts in the Eichelberger family cause everybody was too poor, but I decided that I would get a little something anyway. I wanted to start a new tradition for the girls in the family of giving PJ pants to them on Christmas Eve. We did this in my family when we were little, but we haven't done it in a while and I thought it would be fun to do with Ryan's sisters and Mom. So I am hoping it will stick cause it was definitely fun. So this is all of us wearing our "Christmas Tradition".

Jennifer and her new husband, Nathan...so precious.
This is the refelcting pool that Ryan stepped in. And don't ask me why we are all wearing short sleeve dresses in the middle of winter when it was 32 degrees outside and kind of raining.
I think Ryan's feet were pretty cold, doesn't he look so happy?
This is where the reception was, it was really pretty for taking pictures, but freezing cold, again and super windy.

All the Bridesmaids in our pink dresses. Cindy, Nikki, baby Natalie, Bethany (Jenny's best friend and maid of honor), and me.