9 days

I was told this morning that I haven't blogged in 9 days, so I guess I better get on it!

Thanksgiving weekend was fabulous! Geoff and I got to McMinnville Wednesday night, set up camp, made some dinner, and relaxed. Thursday morning we slept in, ate breakfast, and then headed to his parent's house for Thanksgiving! It was a wonderful Thanksgiving... there were 5 of us, and we all got to visit and relax all day, and then have a great dinner. Geoff's mom came camping with us that night, so fun! She was so excited to go. Friday morning we woke up and went WINE TASTING!!! :) We went to Kramer Wine (our FAVORITE place, they know us there) and Carlton Winemakers Studio. Both fun favorites that we love. Friday evening Gary (Geoff's stepdad) came down and joined us for dinner. Geoff made steaks and we had a salad and leftover potatoes. Then we played dominoes. I love dominoes in the camper! Saturday morning, day two of wine tasting! We went to Kristin Hill Winery, Amity Vineyards, Left Coast Cellars, and Evergreen Vineyards (which is in the Evergreen Aviation Museum, where the Spruce Goose is). Kinda cool story: while we were at Evergreen, I particularly enjoyed one Pinot Noir I had. I was told that it was named for Delwood Smith, who was the father of Captain Michael King Smith, the founder of the museum that died in an accident before he finished the project. His father helped make sure the museum got started. Well, they pointed out that Mr. Smith was standing right at the entrance to the museum door, so I went over and told him I liked his wine! He asked if I was there with my family, and I said I was there with my husband and his mother. He said he would like for us to have tickets to the IMAX movie that night, she arranged for us to have complimentary admission. He was the sweetest man, I am so pleased that I got to talk to him. When Geoff was done touring the museum, I introduced him to Mr. Smith. Such fun! Gary came back again that night for more dominoes (I didn't play that time, just sat on the couch, which I love to do while camping... rarely at home though!). Then he took Julie away from us... sad. Although she is lucky, because the next morning we got up at 7 to start packing up... and the hose was frozen! This was an interesting predicament... the pipes in our trailer were fine, but the actual hose outside with the freshwater was frozen. We still aren't quite sure how to fix that problem. Sunday evening we winterized the trailer for storage and put it back in it's little home... it will come out again this Saturday!

Geoff came home from basketball Monday night and collapsed on the bed. Apparently he had pulled a muscle during basketball and was in quite a bit of pain. He wasn't even able to go to work on Tuesday, and he asked me to come home to help him get lunch and things. This from a man who has such a high tolerance for pain that he grew up getting his mom into trouble with his doctor! He would have horrible ear infections and the doctor would scold his mother, saying "you need to bring him at the FIRST SIGN of pain!" She would say "but this WAS the first sign!" He just wouldn't feel or complain of the pain until the ear infection was so bad that he could no longer ignore it. So he was definitely in a lot of pain. He took ibuprofren and I got him a heating pad to put on there and by last night he was able to walk around and stretch it out a little bit. It's still hurting him quite a bit, but he did go to work this morning.

I put out a few Christmas decorations last night... our house is finally starting to come together in terms of being more organized and cleaner. The guys still have some things at our house, particularily in one room that we will use as the office, so we haven't been able to finish everything. Once the things are out of the office, we will give it a good cleaning and then set up desks, computers, filing cabinets, etc. :) That will be so nice... I am REALLY looking forward to having an office again! I tend to "office" quite a bit. I also spent about 3 hours on Sunday "de-guyifying" the bathroom. To be fair, it was NOT that dirty... I just really scoured it from top to bottom. I'm quite sure that if I went to that level of detail in my bathroom, it would take 3 hours as well. And I enjoy cleaning, so it was not too bad. I have also been vacuuming the house much more frequently than usual, and Geoff's parents have a steam cleaner that they said we could borrow. I'm looking forward to that too! Hopefully we will do that in the next couple of weeks, and after we steam clean we will get the Christmas tree (remember the one we picked out in September? it's still waiting for us!). Patrick is coming on Friday and we will still be "in process" when he is here, but we have a room all set up for him so at least he'll have his own space. And a nice clean bathroom! Very exciting. :)