Merry Christmas

Although it was a bit stressful, almost all of my (Ashley's) family has arrived to celebrate Christmas. My cousin was suppose to come in from California on Saturday, but after two canceled flights drove up and made it yesterday. Paul picked my aunt and uncle up at the airport yesterday (their flight wasn't canceled and on time!) and it took him about 10 hours to get up there and back. My older sister and nephew are scheduled to come down from Canby tonight, hopefully they will make it fine. We are celebrating tonight with games, food and movies at our place and then celebrating tomorrow at my parents house in Corvallis. On Friday we will drive up to celebrate with Paul's family. "It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

Snow Days

Duke and I are sitting here drinking some coffee and catching up on the daily news. The schools are closed for the second day and I am trying to keep myself busy. I would much rather be teaching then staying home by myself, especially since I had such cute holiday things to do this week! But I can't complain too much as I am sure there are many who would like a random day off. We tried to get some good pictures of Duke playing in the snow, but it is a bit too cold for him and his bone inside seemed like a better idea. I had my best girlfriends from college and sister (see picture) over for a Christmas party a couple weekends ago so our place has been decorated for Christmas for a while now, but the snow is such a beautiful addition!




(I can't get the pictures to change spots, but the last one is our attempt to play outside and then the second to last picture is what Duke really wanted to do)

Early Christmas present...

Meet Duke, our beagle/yellow lab mix bundle of joy. He is one year old and we brought him home with us from Portland this weekend. We picked him up on Saturday and he rode around with us until we finally got home on Sunday evening. Duke is a very good boy although we have found him to have good jumping skills :)