Pomerleau Family Blog: May 2021

The kids and I were excited to decorate for Christmas. I love getting all of our fun Christmas decorations out and looking at them again and remembering where I got them. This year I wanted to make Christmas as special as I could with COVID going on and the kids and me being stuck at home so much. We were also going to host Christmas at our house with Sean's parents (his sister and her family ended up not being able to come just because it was too much of a risk with COVID). We decided to go cut down a Christmas tree this year and went to Sleighbells in Sherwood. We went on a Friday afternoon and there was not very many people there. It was so fun walking up and down Sleighbells looking for the perfect tree. It took us a while (about 45 minutes of searching) but we finally found the perfect tree! Sean cut it down and then we took it home and had a blast decorating it. It was one of my most favorite Christmas trees we have gotten.

Snuggling together and getting more friendly

Getting our Advent Calendar set up

Christmas tree farm

Searching for the perfect tree-it was such a beautiful day

We found the perfect tree!

Hanging out with our tree!

Olivia and I had fun exploring the Sleighbells Gift Shop. They had the most amazing Christmas decorations and ornaments from all over the world. Olivia got to pick out a special ornament for the year (this is a tradition we do each year and we hadn't gotten one yet). We also signed up for the kids to see Santa on Sunday. We headed back to Sleighbells to see Santa and he was very funny and it was definitely a memorable experience!

Searching for the perfect addition to our Christmas ornament collection

"Mr. Tree" made it home!

Chatting with Santa from a distance

This photo captions it all!

The kids were so much help decorating the Christmas tree

Our beautiful tree!

Had to purchase this 2020 ornament! So funny.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Oregon and the rest of the United States had a third wave of Coronavirus and the cases were on the rise. Governor Brown had just done a 2 week freeze which restricted bars and restaurants to take out only and they closed down Olivia's gymnastics gym so she had to go back to zoom which she was sad about. The Governor asked that we keep Thanksgiving gatherings small to only two households and have our gatherings outside. It was our year to spend Thanksgiving with my family and my sister Rachel offered to host a small Thanksgiving get together at her house. We all cooked up parts of Thanksgiving dinner and then brought it to our gathering to bring home and eat later safely in our house.

We got to Rachel's house at around 3:00 PM and sat around outside and had yummy drinks she put together and snacks. We all stayed more than 6 feet apart with masks on and had fun talking and the kids had fun playing on the playground and together. It was very nice to see CiCi and Baba and Auntie Rachel's family even if was only for a short period of time. We were able to get a fun COVID style family photo. We headed back home at around 5:00 PM as it was getting dark and heated up all our food and had a yummy Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Sean had fun doing a family zoom with his family later that evening. It was certainly a different Thanksgiving this year but we made the best of it.

Olivia made a Turkey gingerbread cookies and decorated them

Sean used the Traeger for our turkey something he had been wanting to try for a while

Thanksgiving gathering at Rachel's house

Snuggling CiCi

Thanksgiving COVID style all bundled up

Thanksgiving dinner potluck style

Zooming with family!

The next day we traveled to Cannon Beach to stay at a fun hotel right on the beach for 2 nights. I found a great deal just before all the restrictions were taking place at the Hallmark Inn in Cannon Beach with a dog friendly room. It was fun getting out of Portland and spending a few days away from our house. The kids and I were getting stir crazy with all the school zooming and working out of the house. We got to Cannon Beach in the early evening and the kids and I went down to the beach. Sean was watching the Ducks game and stayed in the hotel. We got to watch the sunset. The weather was also awesome while we were there, it was clear and not windy and there was no rain so we definitely lucked out as November weather can be dicey on the Oregon Coast. We came back from the beach and got yummy take out and played a new fun game-a Game of Cat and Mouth where you throw little magnets in the cat's mouths.

Haystack Rock!

They can be nice to each other!

Handstands on the beach

The 3 of us having a blast

We had the most amazing sunsets both nights

Watching the sunset with our pups

City lights in the background

Beautiful Hay Stack rock

Fun new game!

The next day we slept in and then went out to a fun Crepe booth where we ordered yummy crepes and ate them outside. We had fun walking around Cannon Beach and going into the shops and Olivia and I got much needed sunglasses as we forgot ours at home and it was super sunny. Then we headed down to the beach and had a fun time spending a good part of the afternoon at the beach. Brandon and I had a hike we needed to do for his Cub Scouts and did a 3 mile hike along the beach with the dogs. Everything was shut down restaurant wise inside but we had yummy take out both nights. The dogs had a blast playing on the beach. It was a fun way to end our Thanksgiving weekend.