Home Sweet Home

We were in Portland for about a week, starting on the 26th of December. It's funny how each time we go back it feels a little bit less like home. To me at least, I shouldn't speak for Matt. I still love the Northwest and really enjoy visiting. We stayed with Matt's family first for a few days.
Rachel loves her uncle Justin! He is 17 and so cute with his little nieces. He was a good sport about letting Rachel kiss him repeatedly.


My niece Olivia (Matt's sister's baby) is not quite 2 and a half. She is really cute and has the funniest personality. She loves me (I'm not sure why, I only see her twice a year) and called me "Mishaw" for the first part of the visit. Whenever I would try and get her to say the L sound she would tell me, "Mishaw is a hard word to say". She had it figured out by the end of the trip. I could tell about a zillion cute stories about her, but I realize I only think they are cute since she is related to me. So I will spare you. Let me just say that I'm kind of excited for Rachel to get older. Toddlers say so many funny things. One last funny thing: She breaks into song at random times (and she's only 2!). My favorite example is when we were at the temple visitor's center in Salt Lake (much later in our trip) and she was walking beside me hold my hand. Out of nowhere she starting singing, "There's a little black snake, swimming in the water. A little black snake, doing what he outta..." Where did that come from?? Then after finishing that song she started in on the song the vultures sing in Jungle Book (her favorite movie): "We are friends, we are friends, etc." Ok, I'll stop telling stories now.
We played a lot of guitar hero. Rachel LOVES watching guitar hero and gets pretty frantic between songs (More, more!!). She and Olivia are observing guitar hero from the highly fought over "manager's chair".
What vacation would be complete without a trip to Ikea? Rachel was pretty sleepy by the end.