Santa made it!

Of course we prepared cookies and milk for Santa. Luke ate more of the cookies and frosting than he prepared but....that's Luke. Ryan was determined to put out an apple for Rudolph because "he needs energy". When all things were prepared, the boys settled in to bed and amazingly did not wake up until 8:45. The shout..."SANTA MADE IT" came from Ryan first. Luke probably would have slept another hour but Ryan would not have it. They opened their presents from Santa...the favorite being remote control helicopters. Ryan is ready to bring on the rest of the presents. Luke opens everything and says ..."it's what I always wanted". Even the underwear made his morning. So, Santa made it to the Paschalls. Now, Matt is going to sled on over to Grandma and Grandpa Swanson's house to pick them up and bring them back to our house for the day.

Christmas Eve

After a day of baking and last minute preparing, the boys and I headed to Amy and Gary's house. Matt had to work until 11:00 but he actually ended getting off a little early so he could see the family. We had a great time visiting with the Slagle family and was amazed at how much everyone is growing up. The cousins that were Ryan and Luke's age when I joined the family are now 20-25 years old...WOW. We didn't get home until 11:15 so Mom made sure that the boys knew that Santa needed extra time to come so they better sleep in. :-)

Cool Icicles--the melt begins!

When we got home from our excursion I noticed several large icicles hanging from our house. I thought they were definitely worth capturing since it is not something we see often.

Usually, we head to Cinnabon every Christmas Eve. We started this when Ryan was 1 year old...mostly because Matt needed to finish his shopping. It has become a tradition we look forward to (and Matt still does his shopping). This year, Matt has to work on Christmas Eve so we went to the mall on the 23rd. It was also a nice chance to get out of the house and rescue the Grandparents from their hill. We shopped, walked and wandered just to enjoy a change of scenery. The yucky part was getting home. Everyone and their mother was out yesterday afternoon, probably for the same reason we were. However, ODOT decided to bring the scrapers down from Mt. Hood and totally scrape I-5 and I-205. A good idea that turned in to a disaster. This big idea caused traffic back ups everywhere. We were stuck in it and took about close to an hour to get home. Some people heading to the Blazer game from Salem, Woodburn, etc were stuck in traffic for 3-4 hours! Oh...the joys of snow in OREGON.

Professional Driver

A funny story from today. Thankfully, Matt has no qualms in driving in snow, ice, sleet or all of the above. Our truck is 4 wheel drive and has been great to have through all of this. After our sledding excursion this morning, we decided to head down the road just a bit to see about picking up a gift card for a present. On the way back, a bunch of snow slid down on to the windshield blocking Matt's view so he pulled over....unfortunately, in to a snow bank. Well, when we tried to get back on to the road our handy truck just slid and spun it's tires going nowhere! My professional driver husband was stuck! A very nice man in a REALLY BIG truck stopped and pulled us out with a tow line. Wheewww! I had visions of having to ration our granola bar and cuddle up for warmth....just kidding. It was about 1/2 mile from our house so we would have walked home. :-) I just like to add the drama. Anyway, we came straight home and Matt was throwing the chains on because in 10 minutes, he was out the door to the store and to visit various neighborhood friends. No stopping my professional driver, highly active husband. In all fun, I won't be teasing him tomorrow when I want to get to the mall!

More sledding...keeping busy

We have never been sledding until this year. Today we hit the "slopes" for the 4th time in a week! The soft snow helped cover up the ice layer from yesterday so it was safe sledding again. Since I am in to my vacation schedule again, I was up way too late last night with Matt. We were still sleeping at 9:30 when our friends knocked on the door asking us to sled with them. Well, it took us a little while to get moving and to get the snow gear on Luke, who throws a fit EVERY time about how fat he looks in his snow pants. I swear sometimes I wonder if it is worth the effort to get him bundled up. He is always a blubbering blob on the floor and I am sweating to death by the time we are done... BUT we made it for another hour and a half of fun. Of course, I had to test the sleds out with the boys. This time I remembered to grab the camera to catch some more of the action and the scenery. It is a beautiful view of the snowy trees along the river.

Santa update...where did he go?

Going, going, gone! When we woke up today, there was ANOTHER 4-5 inches of snow on the ground. Really, I am dumbfounded. I can't believe how much snow there is on the ground. I went out to measure the amount and it was about 11-12 inches. Underneath is 1/2 inch of ice layer so you crunch along as you walk. The weather reports are saying that all of this snow is not going anywhere fast. It is supposed to be around 30-35 all week with more snow on Christmas. It has been since 1968 when Portland has had this much snow on the ground. I have to believe it will be another 30-40 years before we will see it again. It's just amazing...and beautiful.