I have been putting off this post for a while now. I haven't wanted to do it because I knew that it would take forever to post all of the details and pictures of our trip. I finally decided to stop being lazy and bite the bullet. Another excuse was that Damon, great husband that he is, bought be a new computer for Christmas (I LOVE IT!) and I have to put all of my pictures on this computer which tends to take a while.
Now, where to begin? I have to make this fairly short and sweet because American Idol is starting tonight and I don't know about you guys, but I am TV deprived since this whole writers strike.
So, on December 15 we headed to Oregon to visit Damon's family for a week. Besides Damon's mom, his family hadn't seen Hannah since last Christmas. Needless to say she'd changed a bit. :) We were supposed to get in at 7:30 or something but didn't end up getting off the plane and all of our luggage and to the car rental place until almost 9 (which was like 12 am our time.) Then we had to drive to his parent's house which is about 2 1/2 to 3 hours away. We were pretty exhausted by the time we finally got there. We had to wake Hannah up to get her out of the car and she was so excited to be able to run around that it took her a while to calm down and go to bed. But, I'll skip the rest of the details about Hannah's sleeping schedule while we were gone (and now that we're home).
The days all seemed to blur together while I was on vacation and I never knew what day of the week it was so I'll just narrate some of the things we did while we were there and in Idaho. We spent a lot of time hanging out with everyone at home which was great...It is always nice to relax and get to know your family again after a long time. Austin (Damon's youngest brother age 9) had a good time playing with Hannah and she had a good time running around in all of the extra space. One of the days we were there we went up into the mountains to cut a Christmas tree. Damon's family had been up to the spot and had chosen a tree a month or so before and knew just where to find it...or so they thought! It had started snowing that morning and there were several inches of snow on the ground (6 at least I think) when we finally made it up there. We didn't all fit in Damon's dad's truck and the other car we were in could only make it so far so we had to stop. The truck continued up for a while before it noticed we weren't following. Once they noticed they turned around and came back down. Hannah, Austin, Tyler (Another brother, 22) and I stayed with the car and "played" in the snow while Damon and his Mom & Dad went to get the tree. Hannah and I weren't really prepared for playing in the snow. Hannah had her coat, hat, mittens, and warm up pants on. Her shoes were for sure not snow appropriate. I had to borrow a hat and mittens and my shoes might have been worse than Hannah's. Still, she had a good time walking in the tire tracks and just jumped back up whenever she fell - which was quite often. 
Damon and Hannah getting the tree. Hannah is a little pink marshmallow!
Well, after a little while Hannah and I got cold and went to sit in the car. There was just one problem with that...the keys were in Tyler's shorts, yes shorts, which happened to be in the truck which was getting the tree! So we sat and froze in the car (luckily I had a small blanket for Hannah) and waited for Damon and his parents to come back for us. Well, we waited and waited and it started to get dark. I was really worried because they had been gone for almost 2 hours and it was getting dark really quickly. I was envisioning us as those people you hear about on the news who got lost in the mountains and froze to death. I was just about to send Tyler to go and look for them when they FINALLY drove up. Needless to say I was relieved to see them but a little (Okay maybe a little more than a little) annoyed to see that they didn't have the TREE! They had gotten stuck and it had taken them over an hour to dig themselves out. They had quite the story to tell themselves. But that is for another day. All of us but the truck decided to head back down the mountain and get some food and try and warm up. The truck decided to try again for the tree. I didn't think that was such a great idea....but they found it almost immediately and ended up only being 20 min. behind us. Whew! What an adventure. You never know what is going to happen when you're with the Popes! Gotta love them!
Damon in front of the tree...it turned out to be quite pretty! Pretty good for in the dark.
Okay, I have to take a break for American Idol and my hands are getting tired...okay it wasn't THAT long of a post so far. Maybe it is better for the readers if I break this up anyway. :) I'll be back soon. :)
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