Thanksgiving In Oregon!

This year we decided to head down to Oregon to be with Michael's side of the family for Thanksgiving. After spending time with them at the summer family reunion we really wanted to continue to foster those relationships. We left our house at 7:30am and headed to our first stop...the Country Cousin in Centralia. 

We met up with Papa Martin and Jon, Becky and their girls for breakfast. Ella Grace and Samantha just love their Papa! 

That's a table full of Martins!!! 

After breakfast we began the rest of our journey. Michael wasn't feeling the best so I drove the whole way down to Gervais. I ended up missing the exit and we had to drive another 12 miles to the next exit. Thanksgiving was held at a grange that was over 100 years old. The layout was the kids got the upstairs to run around and play while dinner was served downstairs. As you can imagine it was a bit loud with the kids running around above us. Plus the downstairs was basically a basement made of cinderblocks so it was loud with just us adults in there. There were some other funny things too...there was one toilet for the whole building. Thankfully that didn't seem to matter. Another thing about old buildings is that they aren't really equipped to handle the sort of power needs us modern day folks are used to so they almost started an electrical fire with plugging in all the roasters. Oops! Dinner was great super yummy, but the best part was...

visiting with family of course. We had so much fun with Robin and her two boys Bryson and Ryan. We hung out with them a lot at the summer family reunion and they are so much fun. We all love to play games so they are our gaming buddies. Robin brought along 5 Crowns which we had never played before and it was so much fun to learn. We actually bought it as part of our family gift this year. Michael said he overheard Ryan when they first walked in the room Ryan said, "Yes my favorite cousin Mike is here!" I love that!!! I can't wait until we visit them again this summer. Such good times ahead! 

We ended up being at the Grange from 12:30pm - 6pm and then we started the trek to my parents house. Michael drove the whole way there and we rolled in just before 10pm. It was a crazy long day, but I'm glad we did it!