the last sixteen days

well, it's been a while. honestly, we're falling apart here a bit: since we returned to oregon on the 28th nickel's chewed apart like 2 pieces of clothing, we've broken like 3 things, we locked ourselves out of our apartment to the tune of a dollar amount i don't want to even talk about, and nickel has gone to the bathroom inside twice—something she hasn't done is about 3 years...yeah. but to back up to better times, christmas was great. really, really great. so here goes:

we made sure to frequent some essential restaurants:


for all our oregonian readers, this is zaxby's, and trust me. you're missing out. it's all in the sauce here — yummy chicken, crinkle fries, texas toast (daniel always lets me eat his)...but the sauce. and no lie: you put a tarnished penny in that sauce for like 2 minutes, take it out and rub it off and the penny shines. weird. and who knows what it does to your stomach. but it's good. plus, zaxby's originated in our school-town of athens. all the better.


and look! overcast skies! just like here...


quite possibly the greatest restaurant in the world...do i even have to tell you? awesome sweet tea, healthy and amazing chicken, waffle fries, and so much more. really, really good. oh we miss you chick-fil-a.


and this wasn't a must-go at all, but we did go into a johnny rocket's all the way across from oregon and you know what we found? can you see it?? it says tillamook cheddar cheese right there next to rocket single. woah.

but anyway, christmas is way more than food. we had amazing times with both of our families, saw not nearly as many friends as we would have liked to see, but a couple of really important ones, and opened a lot of presents.

so just to show you oregonians what we're talking about when we talk about christmas craziness, this is just a taste:

i don't know if you can tell just how many presents and people and stuff there is there, but it's a lot.

and then daniel told our cousin amanda last year that he would put his video of her opening her gift on you tube. well he never did, but he promised her this year too and so here's what we got amanda! love you amanda! you look great :)

but alas, we eventually returned to our new home and immediately picked up our dog who obviously missed us tons...this is what she did for like the first 45 minutes of being home:

and once that was over, just lots of this:

i know. lots and lots of videos. aren't you excited??

so, in the midst of several small disasters and frustrations, we went snowboarding yesterday, for my first time ever and daniel's second. it was pretty amazing — i fell like 200 times. but the good news is that daniel's practically a pro by now (at least on the green run that we took like 20 times.)


it was snowing super hard and i think daniel's showing us that his fingers are going numb (don't worry — he had gloves, he had just taken them off for the camera.) we went up the ski lift at one point and by the time we got to the top we had like an inch of snow all over us...


and can you see this? my leg is completely immersed in the snow. apparently the base of the mountain had 80" of snow on the ground. over 6 feet. wow.


and can you tell what this is? a car. completely, completely covered in snow. just the antenna there. sooo crazy.

and speaking of snow, portland got like 19 inches of snow while we were gone. apparently record-breaking, the "arctic blast" resulted in the national guard being called in. so that's pretty crazy. we'll just pretend like we were here.

that's it! merry christmas and happy new year!!!