Happy Thanksgiving Break!

It is so nice to finally have some downtime! Right now I'm sitting in the Cafe Earth coffeeshop in downtown Silverton (this is where we usually go to get internet when the internet in the house isn't working), sheltered from the endless rain that we are graced with here up in Oregon!

Thanksgiving yesterday was quite nice... a bunch of us drove into Salem for the afternoon and sat in a coffeeshop so we could use the internet. Everything--even McDonald's--was closed!! Understandably, I guess, haha.

After our afternoon at the coffeeshop we came back to our house, got ready for dinner, and then headed over to the Oregon Garden Resort for a complimentary Thanksgiving dinner buffet! Originally, the parents of one of the girls on my team had made reservations for us there (at $25 a person), but when the Resort found out we were going there for Thanksgiving dinner, they offered it to us on the house since we were doing work for the Garden. It was such a nice gesture!

Eight of us were at dinner last night because two people on the team went home for Thanksgiving. I envy their opportunity to be home and see family and friends for the holiday, but given the exorbitant cost of plane tickets, the relatively short four days of break we have, and the fact that in three weeks I'll be going home anyway, I decided to just hold off and wait until Christmas break to go home. Two of the women on my team went over to Salem, rented a car, and are headed up to Seattle for the next few days. They'll be living on somebody's couch using this website whose name eludes me (it's a website where if you are travelling, you can connect with people who wouldn't mind hosting you at their house and showing you around). So right now it's six of us here in Silverton, and two of us (me and Dan) are here in the coffeeshop. Three at at the house, and one is at the house of an elderly lady he met last weekend, who invited him over for dinner at her house tonight.

This weekend should be pretty great. It will be filled with movie watching, book reading, hanging out, eating, and the occasional work session. Right now I gotta go though... Dan and I are headed to the Resort to check to see if we have any mail, and then we need to find a place to get the left windshield wiper of our 15-passenger van fixed... it isn't working, so if it rains (which it does OFTEN here in Oregon), we can't see through the windshield!

Okay, I'm out. Hopefully will be back later to write more and post pictures. We'll see if the internet in the house is feeling like working tonight, haha.