Road Trip!

Christmas is a great excuse for spending time with my hubby!  Sure we've been spending most our non-work hours either sleeping, eating, or working on the house together, but traveling affords us all sorts of time for conversation and dreaming and having fun.  Rather than sit next to one hundred plus strangers on a short flight to Oregon, we loaded up our car with gear and gifts and sat next to each other.

The roads weren't terrible.  Tom got to do all the driving in the snow through Idaho and Washington

 Washington??  Yes, it isn't exactly on the way to Oregon, but we had to stop by to meet baby Benny - well worth it!  Met up with friends in Wenatchee for dinner and Bellingham for lunch, and then off to the Pacific Coast for some "vacation" before Christmas.

We could hear and smell the ocean, but arrived in the dark.  In the morning these two (plus a third) were waiting outside our window to welcome us.  Or they wanted breakfast.

After our own breakfast, we walked the beach.

 

I was thrilled to say I went in the ocean (thanks, rubber boots!) until the ocean went in my rubber boots...

Then Thomas pulled a sly move and scared up all the birdies on the beach - so grateful they kept moving south and didn't come back to poop on me!

Yeah for friends and seafood and hot tubbing and more seafood and a beautiful scenic drive 

(and for North Plains - otherwise, we would have run out of gas before Portland).