New Puppy!

We got Brindy a new playmate off Craigslist. Karma is our new addition. She is a Puggle and was 2 in October. She is very playful! They played all day and are becoming good friends already.





New best friends!

My Birthday Weekend Part 2

I figured it was about time I put up "Part 2." Saturday on the 10th we got up to go snowboarding with our friends at Mt Hood Meadows. Megan was tired from the night before and nervous for another day of snowboarding so she was dragging getting up and ready to go. We were supposed to meet our friends at 9 at the ticket counter. By the time we got on the road, we knew that wouldn't happen. Our friends called and luckly they were running late too. We revised the time to meet to 9:15 and then to 9:30 when we realized that wouldn't work either.

We made it to the Meadows turn off to see a giant sign saying "Lot Full use HRM Lot." We were hoping to get to park in the main lot. We got to the HRM lot and realized that Megan left her boots at the Cabin. We got in line for the bus over to the main lodge and I had the genious idea to take the Hood River Express lift from there so I could meet our friends and then meet Megan at the rental shop to get her boots. When I got down to the lift line, I realized it was a bad idea.

The lift line was insane. It took me 45 min to get on the lift. Needless to say, our friends weren't waiting anymore and Megan had been waiting in the rental shop for a while wondering if I just ditched her. We got Megan some boots and headed to "Buttercup." Megan was doing really good. It probably helped that she had snowboarded all day the day before. We went to "Easy Rider" and she went down her first "Green Square" run. (Hills are rated Blue Circle, Green Square, and Black Diamond.) We spend the morning on Easy Rider then went in for lunch.

Some how we ended going to lunch at the same time as our friends and they saw us comming in. We ate lunch and Megan went back to Easy Rider with Leah and I went with Bryan and Kyle to Heather Canyon (Double Black Diamond). Even though we had a bad start, we had a great day on the mountain.

We went back to our friend's cabin later on in the evening. After a potato fight, Brindy got a hold of a whole baked potato and threw up later in the night. We had a good time hanging out trying to play Catch Phrase with 15 people and some other games.

We were exhausted Sunday. We just drove home and rested.

My Birthday Weekend Part 1

It's tough to have a better weekend even on your birthday. I took my birthday off (Jan 9th) and we went to Mt Hood. Emily and Chris rented a cabin and invited us to stay with them and go snowboarding. We went up Thursday night and went to Timberline Friday.

It's tough to get 8 people (4 of them kids) up and out the door early in a cabin that only has 1 bathroom. We didn't get out as early as I had hopped but since it was a Friday, it wasn't very crowded on the mountain. Chris Chained up his minivan right after Government Camp since the signs said "Chains Required." We ended up helping a group of girls with California License plates put on their chains too. Well Chris did it while I finished up his. I didn't chain up our Escape so we got there much quicker than Chris.

The weather was perfect. New snow and a sunny day. We all spent the morning on the "Bruno" lift at Timberline. Caitlin and Alyssa (My nieces ages 8 and 6) were snowboarding for the first time. They did surprisingly well although getting off the lift with them wasn't much fun. I would pretty much pick Caitlin up when we got off so I could get us out of the way.


After lunch, Chris and I left Megan and the Girls on the bunny hill and took on some real runs. Chris hadn't been snowboarding in almost a decade but he wasn't all that rusty. I did take him on a black diamond run without him realizing it.

That evening we went to the cabin where our friends were staying. Their cabin was smaller than ours and had around 12 people staying there. We played very loud game of "loaded questions" and Brindy (our Dog) had plenty of attention.

Still snowing...

It's been over a week since this "deep freeze" started. Many thought the snow previously pictured from Sunday would be the worst of it... Not quite. It has been snowing and between 18-25 degrees Fahrenheit ever since. We have up to 15" built up in some areas around the house. When Columbia hasn't been closed, Scott has driven me to work, and he's managed to make it in everyday at least long enough to get his laptop and work from home.

Church has been cancelled two weeks in a row and we were sick the week before that, so I believe that makes us almost inactive :). We still have power and heat, no broken tree limbs, although a couple out front look suspicious. Large clusters of ice stalagtites hang from the eaves.

We had 8-9" piled up in the backyard by Saturday evening, then that night the freezing rain came. That added a layer of ice a little over a quarter inch thick on top of the snow, and this morning we've gotten another 3" or so on top of that. The first 9" were dry and powdery and thus has created large snow drifts in the roads and some yards where the snow just blew around and collected in mounds. All routes to the coast are closed, I think, and chains are required all around the Portland metro area.

This is me in the snow before the ice came...


The layer of ice that rested on top of the snow...


And today after the new snow fell:

*Severe Winter Weather*

It began snowing at 7:30 this morning in Portland, and continues...
We received an email and two phone calls notifying us that all church meetings were cancelled due to the weather. So instead of sitting at home and watching it, we bundled up and ventured out, Brindy leading the way.
We went to the tennis courts near our house so Brindy could run free while we tried to make a snowman with all the fresh snow (our yard has "land mines" we chose not to play with). It turns out the snow was a little too dry to make more than a snowball. After running around for a while, we came back to the house and drove over to Emily and Chris' to see the nieces and Byron and let them play with Brindy.

Our backyard around lunchtime:



Our backyard again at 4:00pm:



Also, yesterday we put the tile mopboard up in bathroom and I'm so excited with how good it looks! Now it needs grouting and sealing then the "amenities" can go in (toilet, vanity, etc).

Windows, Christmas tree, and Braces...

Over Thanksgiving weekend I bought new windows for the house. My Dad also had the day after Thanksgiving off so we spent that Friday and Saturday putting them in. The outside is mostly trimmed up but the inside still needs some work. We replaced single pane aluminum sliders with double pane vinyl windows.

The inside that still needs trim. You can see me and our Christmas tree in the reflection.


The outside all done.


Here is our Christmas tree. We went this last Saturday with my family to a U-Cut lot. We left with 4 trees. (Only one for us) My nieces and Nephew were having a blast crunching up the ice on the ground.



My awesome self portrait...

Yesterday I got braces put on. Today my teeth hurt! We had a lot of money left over in my FSA this year so I figured now was a good time to finally get straight teeth. It is supposed to take 18 months. I can only eat soft foods right now because chewing hurts. My Coworkers only teased me a little bit today. We had our work "Holiday Luncheon" today so I had to mush salmon up with my tongue. I was so glad they had mashed potatoes.

Kah-Nee-Ta

Megan and I decided to take a trip to Kah-Nee-Ta Resort and Casino for our anniversary. We stayed there for 2 nights (Sunday night and Monday night). Monday morning we went on a hike. The front desk had a trail map and we decided to be adventurous and do the most difficult trail. The view was spectacular and we even saw 4 deer. We felt great after the hike and told ourselves we would do that more often. Megan went to the spa and had a body scrub, scalp massage, and mineral soak afterwards.

With our room, we got 10% off a spa treatment, free admission to the water park, and $10 for slots. The water park was nice. The water is heated by the hot springs and they cool it to 92 degrees. It was perfect. I went on the water slides and Megan just enjoyed the warm water. Since the hotel only had one restaurant open, we decided to drive to Madras and get dinner. My Dad's GPS helped us find a great Mexican restaurant. We then went back to use our $10 at the casino. We've never really been to a Casino so we really didn't know what we were doing but with our free $10 for the slots, we had some fun and left with 5 bucks.

It was a nice getaway. Peaceful place with no cell phone signal.