Ahhh...The Holidays

Well, I know it has been an eternity since I last posted anything. I am so sorry, but we have been pretty busy this past holiday season.
It all started with Thanksgiving in Kamiah, Id. We had so much fun with Brian's parents, brother and sister in-law, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. I was finally over the Nauseous stage of pregnancy so I dug in full force at Thanksgiving Dinner. YUMMY. In fact, for most of the month of December all I craved and ate were Turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce. I guess Baby Rupp loves turkey.

We started off December at a running pace. Between work parties, church parties, school parties, and parties with friends, Brian managed to pull off one of his best semesters yet. He spent many evening in the Library, but all of his hard work paid off. I am so proud of him. Now just one semester left and he is officially a college graduate. Yeah!
For my Christmas bonus at work my boss decided to take his whole staff shopping in Spokane. We were all given, let's say, a fair amount of cash, and only 2 1/2 hours to spend it all. I made out like a bandit, bring home some really hot boots, two pairs of tennis shoes, a cute purse, lotion, shirts, and jackets. It was so much fun, but kind of stressful. I felt like I was on that old game show "Shop 'Til You Drop", where they would run all over the mall. Needless to say...I had little to ask for as far as Christmas presents went.


One of my cute co-worker, Kelly found out that I liked to sew, so she commissioned me to make Christmas Stockings for her family. It took me a few weeks to finish them all, but that is partly because of my own laziness. I also gave my favorite neighbor, Amy, a crash course lesson in stocking making. We had a lot of fun.
My favorite stocking was the fish stocking....I felt so crafty when I designed it. Plus Kelly loved it!
After finals and work were done for the month, Brian and I headed over to Long Beach, WASHINGTON, to spend Christmas on the beach with my family.
It took us about 8 hours to get over there. Partly because the weather here in the Northwest was crazy. Anyways, when we finally reached the coast, it was still snowing. (For those of you not familiar with the Northwest, normally it doesn't snow on the coast. And if it does it doesn't stick. This was kind of a weird winter.) We got the experience of driving through some of the coastal logging country. (BRIAN was in heaven). The picture above is of a stretch of trees that were blown down in the winter of '07 by hurricane forced winds. It was really eerie, but the cool thing was that Weyerhauser has already replanted a majority of the forest into regrowth. Yeah Forestry!

Well, we finally reached THE BEACH, where we met up with my parents, and my brother Justin and his family. We only spent about 20 minutes on the beach because it was so flippin' freezing. The condo we were staying at had an outdoor pool that was heated to 75-80 degrees. SO Brian and the kids went swimming every day. We basically drove around the little penninsula, ate a lot of food, and hung out.
The picture above is of Brian and my nephew Caleb. He is a red-headed fire ball, who loves Lego's, Star Wars and Brian. They had so much fun. On Christmas Eve he did a little singing for us. The best was his rendition of "The 12 Days of Christmas", which included 10 Lords a "leaking", 5 Golden "Teeth", and a "Parch in a Jibber-Pear Tree". What a kid!
It was so windy on the beach that day....Hence the reason why my mom looked like she was wearing a Berka. Doesn't my mom make a cute little "Muslim" woman. She is so funny. She just bee-bopped all over the beach with that silly little smirk on her face.
The whole fam...except Dad, he didn't feel up to traipsing out in the cold.
Brian and I...Freezing our Hinnies off.


On Christmas Eve we had a white elephant gift exchange. It was pretty funny.This picture was part of Brian's gift. Lucky for my dad, he was the fortunate recipient of the gift. (Brian has asked that I not explain the gift, so that he can use the idea again for another gift exchange. What a goober)


This is Justin posing in the LOVELY Christmas Sweater that I gave. Isn't it Awesome! I got it at the Good Will.

Well, from there I stopped taking pictures, but we had a really good Christmas. It was nice to be with my family...they are so funny.
We got up early the next morning and headed back for Pullman. Luckily we beat the snow, but my parents weren't so lucky. They almost got stuck in Pendleton, Oregon. But eventually made it home to a busted pipe and a flooded living room. Yuck!
We had a really great holiday. We loved seeing all of our family and friends, and most of all just being together. We are super excited for the Holidays next year, just because we will have our little baby with us. It is so exciting.
We hope all you were as fortunate as we were, and wish you a very Happy New Year!
Love ya!