Thanksgiving and Christmas around the House

I know, I know...it's been awhile since we've posted. We're almost past 2 holidays here. So lets take you back to Thanksgiving. We hosted our annual Thanksgiving dinner at our house for those of us away from our hometowns. Actually, it seems everyone who attended this year was at our Thanksgiving last year with the addition of Eric. The nice thing about having the same people year after year over for Thanksgiving is that you know what dishes they're good at making. So now everyone kind of has their token dish they bring to Thanksgiving, and man, is everything good!

The group around the dinner table minus the two hosts :) Hopefully some day we can upgrade to a formal dining table! Sigh... But on the plus side, we have a huge kitchen counter top to serve as the buffet this year.
The spread. I bet you're just drooling right now looking at this picture. I am at least. I suggested to the group that we host a mid-year Thanksgiving feast. Why celebrate one of the best holidays only once a year? It sounds like a go :)
The weekend of Thanksgiving we didn't have much going on since it was pretty icy on the mountain (so no snowboarding...we can be picky like that now!), so we decided to decorate the house for Christmas. Here's our Christmas tree - we went to a local tree farm and did a U-Cut where we sawed down our own tree. No worries though...this is Portland, and this farm plants new seedlings for future Christmases where we cut our tree. Turns out too that our tree is decorated in semi-Ohio State colored ornaments (how did that happen?). We also got some stockings put up - the extra one is for our CAT. No kids yet. And we had a nice fire going that weekend...definitely felt like Christmas in the new house.
I came up with the idea of decorating our stairway with garland for a really festive look. Notice too in the background that we have some framed pictures hanging. These are actually some great shots we've taken in the past of unique locations and great views. We have some pics up from Egypt, Lebanon, Utah, Hawaii, and Mexico. Guess you'll have to come to Portland to check them out!
We decorated the outside of our house with the icicle type lights. Sorry the lighting isn't very good, but at least it kinda portrays how the lights look outside the house.
Thanksgiving weekend also happened to be a gorgeous weekend, which is kinda rare since it's usually in the midst of rainy season. We took advantage of the weather by going on a hike around Forest Park, which is a park located right in NW Portland (pretty much downtown). It's very lush and full of elevation changes, so it made for a good workout. This trail that we hiked is a 30+ mile trail...I think we only ended up doing about 5 miles of it.
On the hike up the hill in Forest Park, we ended up at Pittock Mansion where we were treated to an awesome view of downtown Portland and Mt. Hood. Definitely makes for a rewarding hike!

We hope you all have a wonderful holiday season. Keep in touch and stay warm! :)