Holiday Greetings To Everyone!

As you can see, we have renamed our blog from "Our Adventures in New Zealand" to "Traveling with Jon and Joyce". Catchy title isn't it? We have been kicking around names all week, but Life with the Vagabond Vognild's or the Voyages of Vognild didn't ring right to us, so we have opted for practical and hopefully we can keep you interested with our blog notes and photos. Sadly, we are not traveling in New Zealand this winter but have decided to stay closer to home and have rented a wonderful little house in one of our favorite locations; Cannon Beach Oregon. We have loved Cannon Beach for years, and our frequent trips here made it an easy choice for a short winter getaway.

We arrived here on December 15th, and so far have settled in nicely. Our home is just a short 1/2 block from the ocean and about 1/2 mile from the iconic Haystack Rock, and about 2 blocks from the center of town. It is really different from our last year's home of Christchurch New Zealand, but the differences are fun and we are having a great time exploring.

This first week has been a settling in process with shopping and stocking the house with EVERYTHING FOOD! We drove to the newest Costco (opened 11/25/09) just 9 short miles north of here and typically, we had only 3 items on the list, but left with about 20! We had a little shopping intervention discussion and got ourselves under control, but still managed to wreak havoc with the budget! The following day we had a 1/2 cord of firewood delivered and Jon stacked it and then built a roaring fire in the fireplace. Needless to say, we are keeping very warm.

Last Sunday, we scouted out some of the local churches in the area and decided that we could be Presbyterians this winter! We were in luck, as the children were putting on their annual Christmas program and it was fun to watch the "angels" misbehaving in between each song. Very entertaining. It was also comforting and familiar to sing Christmas Carols and get in the Christmas spirit. We walked home after service in the pouring rain and Jon built another nice fire. I built a great eggnog latte for the two of us.

The weather has run the gamit since our arrival. It poured rain to greet us, stopping just long enough to unload the car, then it resumed raining, blowing about 40 MPH, unleashed some thunder, lightening and last night hail!!!! Seems to happen no matter where we are, so the sunshine this morning and a day without rain prompted us to get out and explore. We traveled south along the coast to Tillamook and visited the cheese factory. We then went out to Oceanside, a place we enjoyed a few years ago and meandered back up the coast to home.

I've been running down to the beach nearly everyday around sunset to catch some photos, and have been pretty lucky with my photos so far. I'll include a few in this post for you.

We really want to wish all of you the happiest of holidays. It is such a magical time to stop and reflect on the birth of our amazing Savior. We wish you peace, happiness, and the grace and fullness of God's love for you. Merry Christmas everyone. Merry Christmas.
Jon and Joyce