A Brough Family Vacation

In September my in-laws decided that they wanted to come visit for Christmas. December is not exactly the ideal month to make your first ever trip to Alaska. In fact I'm pretty sure it's the exact opposite of ideal, especially if you're coming from a warmer climate like Portland, Oregon. Never the less up my in-laws came. They arrived on December 26 were greeted by a balmy -10. No seriously it was balmy. After several weeks of -35 and colder in November anything above -15 now feels warm. Its weird I know but that's life in Alaska. While they were here they actually got to experience both -42 and how warm -20 feels afterward.

I had to chuckle a little when I saw my mother-in-law all bundled up at -15. We were total opposites; she was as covered as she could get and I'd forgotten to put on gloves because it felt warm. Too funny!

After a quick stop for dinner we headed home for Christmas Round 2. In addition to gifts from the grandparents we had also saved all our gifts for each other to open that evening. We had a great time sharing stories, opening gifts, and watching the kids playing with their new toys. I even took advantage of another camera in the house and got out from behind mine. Turns out I can be rather silly when allowed to appear in front of the camera, as you'll see later.

Jonathan absolutely knocked it out of the park with his choice of gift for his brother. After spending several hours shopping and agonizing over the options Jonathan very thoughtfully chose to get his brother a doctor kit.
As you can tell from the look on Jason's face he was absolutely THRILLED with his gift. He immediately opened the box, put everything in the dr. bag and got a stuffed animal to examine.
Apparently Cody, Jason's special bear, needed his ears checked. What can I say, you play what you know. Since October Jason has had 5 ear infections and ended up getting tubes a few days ago. But I digress.

Jonathan only asked for one thing for Christmas this year. He desperately wanted the Siddeley Lego set from Cars 2. You can only imagine his disappointment when it didn't show up on Christmas day at AG and Granddad's. He got a lot of cool stuff that he really liked but was bummed there was no big Lego set.
Needless to say he was pretty darn excited when it showed up under our Christmas tree. He had a great time building the set and has had even more fun flying Siddeley through our house.
See I told you I get a little silly when I get in front of the camera. I have no idea what is happening here but apparently it warranted a goofy smile.

Oh that's a nice one!

We had a great Christmas. Dan got me a board game I've wanted for a really long time. I gave Dan a CD he's wanted for a long time and a Star Wars shirt. My in-laws LOVED the photo book I put together of our trip to see them this past summer.

And once the kids were bedded the adults stayed up way too late playing board games, card games and Wii Bowling. It was a great day!

At Graduation

We are at gradution, but we have a lot of waiting before things get started. Of course we didn't get here without a little drama. Jonathan is allergic to cats and my in-laws have several so he has been struggling with his asthma since we got here. This morning he was really caughing a lot. It was to the point where he was caughing so much he couldn't talk and his throat is so sore that didn't want to eat. We gave him his inhaler and he is doing a lot better now. Then Dan realized he had forgotten his dress pants so we scrambled to get ready so we could get to the mall and buy pants. Just as we getting ready to leave Jason pulled a chair over on himself and busted his lip and bled all over his dress shirt. Good thing we were already going to the mall! So Dan, Jason, and I headed out to the mall. Thankfully we found a great pair of pants for Dan and a cute shirt for Jason and coffee for me and headed on our way. And now we wait for things to start. Hope y'all are having a great weekend!

We made it

We are here in Portland. The trip was very uneventful. Dan and I listened to a book on CD and I am hooked. Have any of y'all ever read Eragon? I'm not usually one for fantasy (I didn't get more than half way through Harry Potter before I put it down) but I am absolutely hooked on this book. Perhaps its the guy reading it, his voice is great and really brings the characters to life. All I know is that with the exception of about 20 minutes I was awake the whole 6 hours in the car. Pretty amazing since I had only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.

Anyway we have a fun and busy weekend ahead of us so I probably won't post again until Monday. Hope everyone has a great weekend! Any fun plans?

Christmas Step 1 - Portland

The first part of our Christmas trip was going to my in-laws. I've already told the story of our snowy, scary drive through the Columbia River Gorge, no need to revisit that. On Sunday there was supposed to be a baby shower for one of my friends over in Vancouver, Washington, right across the river from Portland. The weather wasn't too bad (remember I'm from Alaska so my perspective a little different) so Dan and I headed over to another friends house where the shower was being held. Sadly the shower had been canceled because of the weather however, Dan and I spent over an hour with our friends Ben and Katie. We hadn't seen them in forever. They have been in Germany for several years with the Army and just separated from the Army and moved to Vancouver. It was wonderful to catch up with them. The friend that the shower was for lived really close to Ben and Katie so we drove over and visited with them for a few too.

The next day we took my MIL shopping. The roads were crummy but I drove and when we got home I was congratulated on knowing how to drive in the snow. I laughed a little inside. I learned to drive in snow and much prefer it to rain.

We did Christmas with my in laws on Christmas Eve since we were jetting off to Alaska on Christmas day. Jason had about as much fun a an 8 month old is going to but Jonathan went wild. He was all over the place he was so excited.


See I told you he was excited. My SIL got Jonathan gloves that have the fingers out for Christmas. He thought those were pretty cool. He also got 3, yes 3, tents. Last year it was play dough, everyone got him play dough. This year we all got him tents. At least play dough can be put in a cupboard. :)


Isn't he cute? Oh goodness those cheeks, that hat, the little curled toes, the baby blue eyes, heavens it's almost more than one person can stand. I love this kid!

After we opened presents we put the boys to bed and then stayed up until 3 in the morning playing games with Dan's family. Then we got 2 hours of sleep and headed to the Airport.

The next part: Alaska!