Well. This past two weeks have been a bit of a blur, where to start...
First off I suppose I ought to mention Dennis and myself taking a trip to Oregon. We drove and actually had very little trouble with the trip despite the snow, ice and freezing rain which was in and of itself amazing considering that we chose the weekend of the worst winter storm in 5 years to take it! My little car was quite the trooper (YAY! Hyundai!) and we only required chains for a small stretch of time on our way out of Oregon.
It was gorgeous. And Dennis’s first meeting with his dad and paternal family went beautifully. Honestly, I think I may have felt more at home at first then he did as that side of his family is as loud and huge as mine is. And everyone was so lovely and friendly - and musical! There was even a jam session at one point in the evening with Dennis on bass, a cousin and younger brother on guitar and alternately his dad and youngest brother on drums. It was amazing. And grandma makes quite the Divinity and homemade caramels! Yum! We even had opportunity to taste a locally brewed holiday beer too, complements of another cousin I believe, which was delicious.We also made it out to the Spruce Goose. It was in California for a while and Dennis has been wanting to see it for ages but as soon as he was old enough to go and see it himself, it was moved out of Long Beach and up to Oregon. D’oh! But now, finally, he has seen it. And TOUCHED IT! I’ve got proof - I took pictures!
And speaking of pictures, I have a ton of ‘em, period. I took more pictures of snow and us in it than are probably necessary but what the hell. You only go on your first vacation together once. ♥
A couple of road trip stories of note:Olives!
On the way up, we saw a sign for The Olive Pit which advertised free olive tasting but we were in a bit of a rush to get to our hotel in Stockton and neither of us were very hungry, we decided not to stop and check it out however, seeing as it was dinnertime on the way back when we passed it, we stopped. The olives were delicious! And the garden burger I had topped with olive tapanade was scrumptious. We even purchased a magnet which says "Olive you" on it while we were there.
Sacramento. Oh, woe is you.
We were running out of gas and figured that Sacramento would be a great place to stop because it is a big city and ought to have Chevrons galore. Well, not so much. In fact, it took more than a mile of driving to come across a gas station, period and it was a Shell station. We filled up anyways though because we really needed the gas and then spent another 15-20 minutes trying to find an on ramp. Dennis says that the only reason Sacramento is our state capital is because people stopped there on their way to somewhere else and never figured out how to leave and he very probably may be right!
The saving grace of Sacramento turned out to be the Shell station attendant. He gave Dennis a free cup of coffee which was very nice because even though it was an old pot which was due to be dumped out soon, he still could have charged for it and we’d still have paid for it so it was very nice of him to be so generous. Way to go Shell station attendant! You single-handedly saved the capital city’s reputation in our minds.
Moving along to Christmas...
It was lovely. We spent the Eve at my brother’s house and after the initial shock of finding out that the meal prepared was seafood, my sweetie was a bit relieved to find out that swordfish was on the menu. After having such a great experience with it at The Express holiday party, he felt confident enough to try it again and found that it was not just a fluke - he really does like swordfish. Huzzah!
It was also fantastic to have Katina at our holiday celebration. She got a number of lovely gifts including my favorite which she received from my cousin. It was a bracelet with cinibar and other interesting beads interspersed with Chinese coins. It was a very thoughtful gift.
Dennis and I also got a number of gift cards to our favorite restaurants and movie passes for the local theater from my parents and my brother and sister-in-law. Sweet! And the cards were made out to both of us which was very nice. It would seem that they truly like him a lot.
Christmas day was spent with Dennis’s family and it was also very nice. We had the traditional brunch at Grandma’s house and also the traditional opening of the "what is it" gift. Sadly (for everyone else), Dennis guessed the first one before anyone else even had a chance to take a good look at it. I do believe that HE enjoyed it though!
Later, we had dinner at Dennis’s mom’s house. She was very sweet and prepared a tomato and mozzarella salad with basil in it for me as the rest of them were having prime rib. It was delicious (the tomato salad!) and we even got to take some of it home to enjoy the next day. Yay!
All in all, I must say that this was probably the best Christmas I can remember. The last few with Dennis have been lovely of course - he makes me so, so happy - but it was so wonderful to have Katina home and she was just the icing on the already beautiful and perfect cake.
