Cabelas, eat your heart out.

We had a fantastic weekend. First off we got our tree, and Evan even helped decorate it. We put all of our unbreakable ornaments down towards the bottom, but he apparently thinks that they're there for him to throw, so now theres only ornaments on the top half of our tree. He gets so excited every morning when he comes out into the living room and sees the tree. I like that.
Later, we decorated ornaments to put on our tree, which was pretty fun and they turned out great.

We also went to Bass Pro Shop this weekend which is now officially my favorite store ever. I think I can say that for the whole family. We had a blast. I know there's no Bass Pro in the west , so if you've never been there it's a sportsman's/outdoor store--kind of like Cabelas (assuming you've been there...). I took some entirely terrible pictures, but I'll use them anyway. Evan loved the fish the most--they had a little pond with some fish and a big aquarium with all sorts of big fish--I think he could have watched them all day.

Everywhere you look there was some stuffed animal (taxidermy, not the cute kind) or wilderness display or some craziness, and Evan was constantly pointing things out to me.

You see over in the top right corner of the picture? Theres a whale hanging from the ceiling. Why was there a whale? I have no idea. But it was AWESOME. Oh, and they sell cool stuff, too. minor detail. We even ate lunch there. Crazy. Best part though--Santa was there. And Evan got to have his picture taken with him.

I wonder if Evan will ever look happy in a Santa photo? Here's last years:


Stone-faced. I think he's making the exact same face in both pictures. Wait, whose teeny little baby is that? Evan was never that small.

I'm so proud of him though--at least he's not crying. (unlike these kids--thanks Ellen) So brave.

Another reason why Bass Pro rocks--our santa picture was free. And we only had to wait in line for 15ish minutes. Last year at the mall we had to wait in line for at least an hour listening to the woman in front of us yelling at her kids (remember that Holly?) and then had to pay a ridiculous amount of money for our photo. ($20? I don't remember). Never again. This year we got one picture for free (which is all you need really) and they gave us a code to use online if we want to order more. So, let me know if you want a santa photo.

Now I've gone and gotten myself all excited and lost my train of thought. Oh well. Moral of the story: we had a fantastic weekend.

One last thing: our christmas tree is a balsam fir, which is kind of bushy. Being from Oregon, we're used to a douglas fir, and I can now say from experience that the doug fir is highly superior to all other christmas trees. Ha! take that world. Go Oregon.