Christmas 2008

To be honest, I approached Xmas '08 with some trepidation. The reason? It was to be my first Christmas away from my family. I was worried that I'd be missing my family so much that it would make me too miserable to enjoy spending time with Kurt's family.
My fears were unfounded.
We had an unconventional Christmas but it was wonderful nonetheless. Christmas Eve we flew up to Spokane, WA, where Kurt's cousin's in-laws (yup) picked us up. Before the trip, while packing, I asked Kurt whether there would be a lot of snow in Washington. He assured me there would not be. Well, the drive from the airport to Chewelah, where Kurt grew up, normally takes about an hour. It took us at least 2 hours to get home, maybe more (the memory is fuzzy, especially since I slept part of the way) because there was approximately 2 feet of snow on the ground. We spent that night with the Chalmer's (Kurt's cousin's in-laws) and Kurt's cousin's family. Her name is Christine and we'll call her that to dispel future confusion. Christine has three adorable children--ages 4, 2, and 10 months--and it was really fun to watch them open presents. Then, we headed over to Christine's parents--John and Sherrie--to sleep for the night. The next morning, Kurt woke up to this:

He calls this the squid picture. I take offense to that. The reason I was in that position is because Kurt turned on the main light in the room before my eyes had time to adjust. So I was trying to look at him but it was difficult. Anyhow, I went upstairs and saw this:


Lots and lots of snow. Christine and her family came over and we got to watch them open presents again; the second time was just as entertaining as the first. They are really cute kids with lots of energy. For the rest of the day, we ate tons of food with family, built a sweet snowfort with Jacob (Christine's oldest), and finished off the night with a dip in the hot tub. The sky even cleared while we soaked so we could see the stars.
The next day we hung out with Kurt's old friend, Aaron, at his parents' house. They have two mini schnauzers that were incredibly adorable. Did I mention that just about every house we spent time at had dogs? The Chalmers have two labs, John and Sherrie have a lab and a mutt, Kurt's grandma has a shitzu, the Langley's had a dog, their visitors brought two dogs, Aaron's family had schnauzers, and the house we went to for New Year's Eve had 2 dachsunds and a puggle (pug and beagle mix). I was in dog heaven! The mini schnauzers fell asleep on my lap as I stroked their soft little heads and watched Hancock. On Saturday morning, we continued work on the snow fort--the room inside was about ten feet long, 2.5 feet tall, and 3 feet wide. It was massive. Then we headed down to Spokane for the Field Family Christmas party! Woohoo!

This is the the second time I've been around the whole family. It was fun. They're like my family: loud, obnoxious, and totally fun. See that big guy? That's Kurt's brother. He finally made an appearance, graced us with his presence, if you will. And Kurt's mom was there too. We opened gifts, ate more food, and took a giant group photo that we have to get from Kurt's mom.

This is Christine's oldest, Jacob, and his little cousin Dyllin. Dyllin is 1 and Jacob kept trying to talk to him. Their dynamics were pretty cute.
Sunday morning we woke up bright and early to head over to Nikkia's house in Coolin, ID. Never heard of it? Yeah, it's pretty small. On the way we saw some nature:

These moose were just the beginning of our natural adventures in Coolin. On this trip we also saw some wild turkeys, but didn't get a picture. The majority of Sunday was spent shoveling snow off Nikkia's roof (so fun) then eating and watching movies as we tried to warm back up. Kurt and I took a brisk (to say the least) ride on Nikkia's four wheeler. Then, Kurt and I snuggled up for bed in Nikkia's spare bed: a twin. It was ... cozy.
On Monday we drove down to Post Falls, ID, to take Kurt's grandma out to dinner. It took us about 5 hours to get down (including a stop at Best Buy during which I totally rocked out on Guitar Hero World Tour) and then we ate some scrumptious Chinese food at a Mongolian buffet. Yep, you heard me right: Chinese food and Mongolian restaurants. Those crazy asians. On the much shorter drive back, we saw an elk! Nature! Goulet!
On Tuesday we borrowed some snowshoes from the Langley's (identities to be revealed later) and went snowshoeing! It was much less tiring to sink only 6 inches into the snow rather than 3 feet!


We really need a new camera because it was actually a beautiful day. The clouds were clearing up and we could finally see the sun!
On the way back we saw some more nature:

A huge woodpecker. It was pretty cool to watch him at work. And he totally knew we were there but didn't care.
Then we got back and saw some more nature:

An adorable little white weasel! I tell you what, based on all of the fauna we saw, Coolin must be the final frontier. Or something like that.
We were starving so we headed over to the closest of the two restaurants in Coolin for some grub. And the boys played with their phones and cameras. Typical.

While I showered, the boys headed out for another snowshoeing adventure.

Ah, what a sunset.
That night we had dinner at the Langley's. Merle and Janet are Kurt's grandparents' best friends and Kurt's pseudo grandparents. They fed us lots of food and had dogs too!
Wednesday we headed to Spokane to drop Nikkia off at the airport. Then we headed for the nearest Mountain Gear store so Kurt could check out the mountaineering gear (for his projected December '09 climb up Aconcagua). While in Spokane we saw a parking lot that was half full with a giant 10 foot pile of snow:

That's a lot of freaking snow!
That night we headed back to Chewelah to hang out with Aaron (see above) and another one of Kurt's boyhood friends, Jason Lane, for New Year's Eve. There was a bonfire and a drunk guy telling all kinds of stories so we had a good time, but the three of us (Aaron, Kurt, and I) were not heavy weights that night and left a little early. Kurt and I got into bed right at midnight, got our New Year's kiss and promptly fell asleep.
The next day we left 20 degree weather and 3 feet of snow to go to Denver, which had 60 degree weather and no snow that day. Not a bad trade.
Once again, we did not take nearly enough pictures as we should've. I always forget! Next trip, I'll chant to myself: "Take more pictures, take more pictures." Unfortunately, chanting is a sign of the devil.