Holidays

Last weekend, we traveled back to Ohio to be with Mom for her surgery. She is doing well and we wish her the best during her recovery. Since a lot of us (3 out of 5 siblings, hey that's a 60% majority) were in town, we decided to do Christmas a little early. The best part was getting to visit with everyone. I had my hands full wrestling my 3 nephews (Logan, Grant, Chandler) simultaneously while Em had her hands full with Mom and Dad's new kittens. The kittens are named Salt and Pepper, can you guess which one is pictured here? A close inspection reveals that this cool cat has one green eye and one blue eye.


The best gift we received this year was a donation that my parents made in honor of us to Heifer International. Their donation bought a goat and 2 flocks of chicks for a family in an impoverished nation. As much as we all complain about the current economic slowdown in the U.S., we gotta realize how nice we have it compared to many other areas of this world. Damn us for being so selfish and materialistic that we complain when we don't get a company Christmas party this year, or that we won't get that end of year bonus, or that our stocks are worth half what they were a few months ago. I guarantee there are millions out there who are in a worse situation. We should be grateful that we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and access to modern medicine. It is our duty as humans to have a heart and help out others who are lacking the basic necessities of life that you and I take for granted every day. I am not saying that we have to drop everything and join the Peace Corps....just do a little more each year. If you're low on cash, give your time. Volunteer. Do a good deed for a neighbor. Always remember to give thanks and appreciate where you are, what you have, and who you love.

OK, enough preaching, let's have some fun.
Mt. Hood has been getting dumped on this week (47 inches of fresh powder in the last 3 days). So I chained up the tires on the car, loaded the boards, and we drove up Mt. Hood amidst the worst snow storm PDX has seen in awhile. Sweet.

Tire chains, required by Oregon state law during snow storms. We would not have made it up (safely) without them.

Here are some pics of the drive up to Mt. Hood. I am told that this very road is where the Stanley Kubrick movie, The Shining (based on the Stephen King novel of the same name...which I remember reading in 5th grade after getting it from the H.S. library....and being totally freaked out by) was filmed. Ya know the scene where the guy is driving an arctic cat up the mountain to the haunted hotel to save little Danny and his mom from the possessed Jack Torrance (played by Jack Nicholson)....only to be axed in the back as he is walking down the hall. If you can't picture this exact scene in your head right now, you have homework, go rent it. Our destination up this road ended much more amicably with unbelievable powder and some of the best snowboarding conditions I have ever experienced. I would love to share some shots of it, but the camera battery died (probably cold-induced) so instead you just get several shots of the frosted drive up.

Look closely in this pic at the wall of snow on either side of the road:

We planned to go up again on Sunday, but the road conditions were just too bad to warrant the trip. Afterall, I gotta be able to live to tell about it on the blog. Downtown PDX was completely buried after receiving heavy snow all night. Here is a shot of downtown from our balcony:

So we called up our good friends Matt and Kristina Kern. I made a killer brunch for us all, including eggs, thick bacon, maple sausage, hazelnut pancakes and O.J. Kristina whipped up some hash brown potatoes with onions while Em played barista. Matt brought over Zoe, their bulldog/pug and we all stayed in for the day and watched movies and played some games. Here's Kristina with our cat, Jasmine, who likes to play in the snow on the balcony.
Hope you all enjoy the holidays and have a great new year!! Keep posted for more....