the journey is the destination: Here Today, Gone Tommorow (to Thailand)

The Storch Christmas Tree

The holidays came and went and somehow I managed not to blog. Keith and I went to OR to spend Christmas with his family this year. This is the first Christmas out of the 4 Keith and I have spent together that we were actually in the country! We drove back a week before Christmas and made it to Corvallis in about 20 hours. We stayed with the Storch's and made it back just in time for one of Joanne's amazing meals. That Friday we went to Mt. Hood with Josh and Ashley and enjoyed 13 inches of new snow on a blue bird day. It was AWESOME!! That night we meet up with friends at Laurelwood Brewery for some good beer and tasty food including Jason and Kelly (with baby in belly), Graham & Greta (with breathalizer in tow), Marc McCambridge, Greg Dausman, and many more. It was great to have sooooo many people in one place. I miss OR and all of our friends there. I think CO is a wonderful place but my heart is in OR. On Christmas day we got to meet Keith's new Nephew Levi. Precious Levi. I still don't want children of my own but this little one won my heart. After 5 days of eating copious amounts of Joanne's amazing cooking it was time for me to fly back to CO. I was sad to leave and almost didnt' know how to function back at home with no roomies, no Keiffer, and no dog. The no doggie part was especially difficult as usually he's entertains me when Keith is away. Keith and Cota made it home just before the New Years after LONG drive home from Bend. We celebrated New Years with Al & Sean and Christ & Lauren. We played games and enjoyed homemade cookies as the New Year began.

Me with sweet baby Levi.

Tomorrow I leave for Thailand. It's finally here! I've been planning and training for this trip for months now and I'm beyond excited. Lauren and I are meeting up at 4 am and will spend the next 2 weeks on the shore of Southern Thailand. Since it was my last weekend in town we decided we needed to do something fun so we head up to Summit county to stay with Dane and do some ice climbing. We wanted to ski but the National Forest Service decided to try to charge us $6 per person and we were unable to skeak by as incoginito as we'd hoped. Oh well. Okay...time to travel.