"This is a beautiful view."

I would like to point out that all the men of the British Royal Family are wearing knickers and stockings in this picture.

Also, some kind of garter. This is glorious! Although William looks skeptical. I wonder who decides what ceremonial attire the men will wear. Probably the queen. She must have a thing for shapely legs.

Have you been watching the Crown on Netflix? I have notes: namely, Prince Phillip is a bit of a hunchy crank. I've always suspected him to be such, but for crying out loud, he KNEW that she was going to be queen someday. Maybe not so quickly, but King George VI had to have had some kind of ominous cough to give him a hint that the lung cancer was lurking. For crying out loud, everyone back then had to have known that a cough equaled imminent death. I keep finding myself yelling at him to stop whining about how unfair his life is and stand up straight and support his wife.

Speaking of royals, this Prince Christmas tree is possibly the greatest of all themed Christmas trees:

If I did not have a beloved family Christmas tree to honor I would have done this and invited you all over to hold hands around it and sing the opening lines to "Let's Go Crazy."

Whilst celebrating A Very Oregon Thanksgiving with Casey & Fam we went out Christmas tree hunting. It looked like this.

Hideous, right. This little farm is 15 minutes from their home and it smelled exactly how this picture makes you image it would smell. Only better because there was a fire going nearby so it smelled like rain and moss and pine and camp fire. We took a little tractor ride around the place and saw some miniature horses and had hot cocoa. All of it was magical. And we found the perfect tree and we actually did stand around it and hold hands and sing like we were in a Charlie Brown Christmas. And then we had to play ring around the rosy because Graham thought that's what we were doing.

Speaking of Graham:

Kylea sent this picture a few weeks ago and I spent a good 20 minutes just staring at it and figuring out how I could move up there so I could devote all of my time to squeezing his cheeks. It is the very essence of Graham. Dumb Oregon and your beautiful vistas.

Straight from the airport we went up to Vista House, which is this amazing little Art Nouveau rest stop overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. On the way there Addie asked where we were going and I said, as Charlotte to her Lucy, "To see a view." And she asked what a view was and I explained that it was a lovely thing to look at. And a couple of times over the week when we were out and about in the rain and the cold I overheard her say to herself, "This is a beautiful view." What a gal!