From the sublime to the ridiculous - meet Milo the Snow dog.

Okay so the second time was definitely the charm (to paraphrase) and this time we took Milo along for good measure, yes you've guessed it, we took another drive to the mountains in search of that elusive stuff called SNOW - you see Christmas day gave us a taste and we wanted more... and more is what we got and how, it was actually a beautiful day in Portland, the sun was even shining and no rain to be seen anywhere, so we once again packed up the car, this time dressing Pap in snow gear from head to toe - (Darren sacrificed his snow pants so Pap could stay dry.)  Off we went once again to Mount Hood - only this time it started snowing before we got to the base of the mountain, and snowing, and snowing and really blizzard conditions snowing.  A journey that usually takes an hour and 20 minutes turned into a 2 hour trek as we obviously weren't the only ones with this idea.  Still we decided to try the same spot as we had previously and as soon as we let Milo out of the car he just wentbeserk with happiness and started running as hard as he could through the snow at amazing speed until he'd hit a snow bank and disappeared up to his shoulders into the snow with only his tail and head showing.  He had a fine old time which is more than I could say for us as we battled the snow and the biting wind climbing up the hill to find a place to sled... and if wethought that the lack of rain would deter the sinking into the snow up to our crotch we were sadly mistaken.  At least this time I didn't split my snow pants from laughing so hard.   Mainly because I had just purchased new ones the day before and also it was too cold to laugh and after only 20 mins or so, Morgan was not having it anymore and  decided she was just too cold and wanted to go home - even Pap dressed in his warm clothing was finding it a tad too chilly - I couldn't see anything between the fogging up of my glasses and the snow blowing in my face.  After another 10 minutes ofthis torture, we headed back toward the car and as luck would have it Morgan found the perfect spot to sled - by then Owen had given up and had with Opa/Pap gone back to heat up in the car. So we decided perhaps we should find somewhere to eat lunch and warm up a bit.  So we headed into Government Camp, the local town, to find a place to eat and the snow kept falling.  So we left a pooped out Milo in the car in search of sustenance and found ourselves in a local restaurant that unfortunately took their sweet time in serving us.  Still it gave us enough fortitude to try to brave the snow once more but by now it seemed that all of Portland had headed for the hills and we couldn't really find anywhere to park near the snow park wherethe kids could go inner tubing so we pulled out our trusted plastic sleds and headed with everyone else to sled down a snow covered street that everyone else was using with great success...and this time we couldn't get the kids back in the car.  Of course with all these people there was the occasional wipe out but at least no one was seriously injured and Opa/Pap wisely decided to stay with Milo who at this point was quite happy to just eat the snow and have a good sniff as well as mark his territory.  (You know what they say about eating yellow snow - DON'T).   And still the white stuff fell from the sky.. and as much as the kids wanted to stay we decided that we needed to head home.  So we loaded ourselves back into the truck and managed to shed various layers of clothing so we no longer resembled the michelin men - however after all the food we've been eating this holiday even removing the clothing layers didn't really help with that issue and after a cold day out in the snow the dinner we ate really didn't help our waistline but man it was most definitely well received and much welcomed and none of us seemed to get enough of it as we all got stuck into a sumptous pot of  this:  

And so ends our two weeks with Opa/Pap. It just flew by but I'm happy to say that his bruise is almost completely gone and he isn't as stiff as he was and hopefully the next time he comes to visit he doesn't take a fall right before he arrives. We've had a fine time with him and I know the kids will sorely miss him.  Tomorrow we're getting up at the crack of dawn to take him to the airport for his 8.50am flight back to NY. 

I think this may well be my last blog of the year as I don't anticipate writing again until next year... it's been an interesting year and an exciting one as well so to all who read my blog I wish you a glorious 2008 may your dreams and desires and ambitions and wishes all come to fruition in the days to come.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It's over and it's only 363 days left till Christmas - Phew!

And to make it official down came the tree today.  I don't know why but this year, I had the urge to de-decorate the day after Christmas but I waited until today.  I guess it's because on new year's day I'm flying with the kids down to L.A. for the 6 days and I didn't want to wait until we got back on the 6th.  Not to mention I had some able bodied hands to help with the task - namely Pap and the kids.  So the living room is kind of back to normal and looking a little sparse.  It will take some re getting used to though.  Still the outdoor christmas lights are still up and my intent is to get those down on New Years day first thing so we can still have those up for new years eve as we have some friends coming over for that event.

Anyway what about Christmas you say?  Well it was actually very nice and somewhat to our amazement (and every one else in Portland) it actually snowed. Yes you did hear that correctly - it snowed and hard.  Even stuck to the ground for a short period of time until the inevitable rain returned.  Morgan was so excited that she came screaming down the stairs yelling "SNOW" at the top of her lungs... and went out with Darren and Milo for a brief walk in the white fluffy stuff.  

But I should back up a little further to Christmas Eve which was spent getting last minute stuff things done and even had drinks with a few of our neighbors.   

Then the kids got ready for Santa and as you can see he was very happy to receive the goodies they left behind so much so that he filled their

 stockings to the brim, but 

actually in his hurry left his main presents for them on the door step outside and not under the tree so the kids found their presents outside the front door on Christmas morning much to their delight.  We were all thoroughly spoiled and received WAY too many goodies.  Darren surprised me with the new Itouch IPod that really wanted as well as a bunch of new clothes.  The kids got almost all the things they wanted on their list which really seems a little absurd but then there are so many relatives that like to purchase gifts for them.  This year I'm not sure they even could pick out a favorite item. 

I was surprised by a really HUGE hard drive for my pictures 1 terabyte - I didn't even know you could get hard drives that big.... with many thanks to both Mum, Pap and especially Michael as I am told he was the instigator of this gift.  It will be most useful to dump all my accumulating photos that I take on a daily basis.  On top of that we all got mounds of movies that we are still watching.  Most of which Pap hasn't seen so he was delighted to view them with us.  And not to be outdone by all the family, Darren prepared a delicious beef wellington with all the trimmings.. including roasted parsnips and carrots.  We promptly finished off our meal with a homemade New York Style cheesecake baked by Darren from scratch.  And I don't have a single photo to prove it other than our rather large round stomachs. - And I'm not photographing those I do have my limits you know.

Christmas Eve and all is quiet.. and no we don't even have a mouse

at least not one that I know of ..... everyone is watching a movie "Rise of the Silver Surfer" while I'm adding to the blog.. in the quiet before the insanity of present tomorrow, not to mention I doubt I'll have the time, inclination or energy to blog tomorrow.  Today saw a last minute dash to the market to pick up the meat for tomorrow's dinner (we're having beef wellington oh yum!) and bread for Owen's famous garlic bread for tonight. Yeast for Darren's annual chocolate brioches that he makes for breakfast... he's also making a cheesecake for dessert too - Pap's favorite, a change from fruit christmas pud.  (Although truth be told I actually like the old Christmas pudding, but I forgot or didn't find or look for it this year - also lacking unfortunately are our Christmas crackers - Pooh!!)

Anyway before we did that we decided to take the dog for a jaunt to the park and Owen met up with some of his school friends for a quick game of field hockey although I think he got a little confused how to play the game as he kept kicking at the ball instead of hitting it with the hockey stick. 

 Morgan headed straight for the monkey bars.. she's a little Monkey after all... and Milo met up with his friends and promptly marked his territory by peeing on a little dog's head.  I don't think his owner was too thrilled by that.

We're having some friends over for a quick drinky tonight and Morgan is dying to put on a fancy dress.  But I think more importantly both of them can't wait for the annual opening of open present tonight...and lets face it even before Santa's arrival, we already have way too many presents under the tree.. 

as you can see from this small sample in the photo

...well to all of you have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and I'll be writing more sometime soon.....

'Twas the night before the night before... you know that day

Okay we have done some crazy things in our lifetimes, but today without a doubt takes the biscuit, cake and any other food item you care to use for my current metaphor.. today we decided to head for Mount Hood to visit the famous Timberline Lodge that was built during the depression under the WPA.  It's a beautiful Lodge and we thought that Pap might enjoy seeing it as well as getting in some sledding.. okay so far so good.. we set out early around 10 as it's about an hour and half drive and as usual it was raining.. no big deal we thought because as we head for the higher elevation that rain was surely going to turn to snow... it's colder the further up the mountain you go right? WRONG! NOT today... in fact even Timberline which is at an elevation of 6000 ft it was still raining.. and how.. okay so we parked the car and walked through what would've have been a blizzard if in fact it had been snowing, instead rain.. pouring rain.. and made our way into the Lodge which was really something.. (I and am sure the others were soaked through) This Lodge really is a testament to the craft men who carved, built, designed and generally produced a masterpiece of workmanship, from what we saw of this lodge it was really something.  We even managed to get into the dining room to eat a hardy lunch... The snow was actually half way up some of the windows of the second floor - even the rain couldn't melt the snow that quick..  The kids were enchanted by the fact that their Christmas tree spanned 2 floors, which was very reminiscent of Heidehof times... (Although the tree was no where near as magnificent as the trees I remember from my child hood).Okay you're wondering where the crazy came in right??? Well we had promised the kids we would take them sledding so we decided to drive further along to Mount Hood Meadows ski area and along the way we found a snow play area and stopped.. At this point it was really torrential rain and yet some how this didn't seem to deter us.. we donned on our ski pants and jackets and boots and walked up a pretty steep hill of snow.. however... because of the rain we kept sinking into the snow and several times got stuck.  In fact at one point Morgan lost her boots in 2 feet of snow not once or twice but three times, I was laughing so hard at the situation that my pants bust open..

 it was so ridiculous and funny, Morgan didn't know whether to laugh or cry and Pap just stood there getting wetter and wetter.. . and Darren and Owen had disappeared up the hill to sled.. I looked at Pap and realized that he had to get into the car to dry as he was soaked through.. so I took Morgan up the hill where she proceeded to sled in the pouring rain and got the keys from Darren before carefully making my way down the hill back to a now drenched Pap and the car. 

 At this point there was NO WAY I was going back up the hill so I also got into the car, helped Pap strip down to his skivvys (Okay he was wearing thermals) and managed to dry a little while waiting for the completely insane Demetre clan to get back from their sledding expedition... The rain followed us all the way home... And after everyone got dry, Darren made us a very very nice dinner of steak and rissotto... YEAH for Darren..

It was a crazy crazy wet day... now I know that all the Oregonians have advised me to continue with our plans despite the weather, but I don't think I will ever want to go sledding in the pouring rain again...

And all because of a cap....

Okay this is going to be a supremely quick blog as I have to pick up the kids in about 10 mins so I don't have a lot of time.. but needless to say, you have all by now heard the story of Pap and his fall in San Diego (No I did not push him down the stairs), this all happened because he wanted to buy a new cap for himself to keep his head warm and they went out to the Gap no less to purchase one.. Now I can tell you that aside from the fall which was considerably worse than he is letting on.. see for yourself.. it was alarming to hear and see the end result.  I have told him to call the doctor again as his bruise is now spreading.. Pap is definitely not his usual spry self and getting in and out of the car is most definitely a bit on the difficult car.  Poor Owen now travels with his knees by his ears as we've pushed the seat back as far as we can so he can get in and out of the car easier...  Now don't flood us with phone calls ... I know you have the phone in your hand, he is okay and with enough Arnica gel that we are putting on him on a regular basis, I'm sure it will heal itself in time.... now you might be wondering why I mentioned the cap... well lets just say it's Christmas and well presents are giving at Christmas and what do you think the odds are that THIS christmas someone had purchased him a new cap.... Yes ME!!! so you see this could all have been avoided if someone had just waited... (although I have to tell you it is a very stylish had that he sacrificed his right butt cheek for)  Okay that is it... now I must get the kids...

a new christmas story ...... Milo & Monkey ... oh and more christmas stuff

Okay so now the lights are all up and decorations are pretty much done, but still we decided we needed to hang just a few more lights.  Morgan desperately wanted some colored lights up this year so as a sucker I got some and wrapped them around the maple tree... and then we decided we'd paint our pine cones with silver spray paint!  That was particularly fun as it ended up all over my hands and I looked a little like my hand had been dipped in silver paint that only paint thinner was able to remove.. and no I didn't get a picture of that... 

I also finished packing up my little boxes of cookies for our neighbors so now I just have to deliver them..

Yesterday evening the kids and Darren went to see a Blazers game (NBA Basketball for those of you not in the know) and they had a great time especially as the Blazers won.. me, well I was all up for a night out with some of my new friends... but... sniff.. alas... none were available so there was poor little me, wondering the streets of Downtown Portland (The Pioneer Square Mall).. looking sadly at all the sparkly lights (played with the new touch screen IPod and IPhone - SWEET) pathetically coverting all the pretty displays in the windows (after trying on a bunch of clothes - didn't buy anything) ... I wondered into an establishment for nourishment... on my own (Yum Sushi at the sushi bar)... before getting into my car and heading home for a night at home coloring my hair... (okay I can't put a spin on that one as I really did do that... hey wait a minute I got to eat chocolate while I was waiting for the color to set... yay.)

Anyway Pap gets in tomorrow the kids are VERY excited about him visiting especially in the new house...

On a whole other note, I was feeling sorry for Milo as he had managed to destroy every toy he had, and as Christmas was coming I thought, he should wait for his presents like everyone else, but he was looking kind of depressed so I bought him an early Christmas present, a monkey hanging from a rope, well needless to say he just loves this toy - unfortunately he managed to rip the monkey off the rope (maybe he wanted two toys who knows - )

still I decided I'd fix the monkey and sewed him back together again... (I know, I know how long is that going to last you ask... still) this is the end result... an armless monkey... well you can't really argue with the happiness of Milo and his monkey... hopefully whatever Santa brings will last longer than a day...

 ...Hey I can dream can't I?

and that concludes the story of 

Milo and Monkey!

Finding the perfect tree

So this was the weekend to do it, and lets face it with just a little over two weeks till the big man himself pays us a visit (or so the kids hope) it was definitely time, so after showers and breakfast this morning (yummy cinnamon rolls) we hopped into the truck and drove ourselves out to a Christmas tree farm in search of the perfect tree. It certainly felt a little christmassy with all the frost on the ground. There we were in our wellies, trudging through the rows and rows of Christmas trees as our feet got colder and colder... and then the snow started to fall, so it was now or never, the trek for the perfect Christmas tree of 2007 had begun in great earnest. Owen was the first to discover what he thought would be the best tree, but as you can see it just wasn't really big enough, and then 

Morgan spotted what she thought would be a phenomenal tree....  (perhaps in her bedroom).. definitely not the right size.  So the hunt continued over the frozen ground, which was made just that bit colder when Morgan would sneak up behind us and put ice down our backs... the toes continued to get colder and the tree still eluded us - we none could agree and Darren just wanted to get it over with and cut down anything, but what do you know.. it seems he had found the perfect tree after all....

can you hear the tada, and trumpeting sound of success as there before our very eyes was the tree of our dreams and all we had to do was cut it down.... a task it was to prove, a little easier said than done.  First Morgan tried to saw the tree, and then Owen and, with the extra muscle power of Darren down came the tree..... TIMBER!!!!  Not before another shower that of pine needles down the the back of Darren's neck... Time for a quick picture of our new addition... and it was off to pay, load and return the saw to the farm owners and a quick drink of hot apple cider

 (most definitely welcomed with the now frozen toes - I think we all thought about putting our feet into the hot apple cider just to warm them up)  And then it started to snow harder.. so we decided to call it a day and head back to our toasty warm house to take on the task of decorating the tree.......

So home we went and the task of bringing up and sorting through the decorations began.. Both Owen and Morgan were tremendous helpers lugging up the huge box of Christmas ornaments up the stairs from the basement.  We sorted through all the Christmas lights and plugged them to test them, and then managed to hang them along with all the other decorations that we had (there seem more and more each year) That could be because every year the kids get a new ornament themselves and I put a photo of the kids on the tree from each year.... Of course this didn't go completely without a hitch, we managed to break a couple of ornaments this year and probably would've have broken more if some hadn't bounced.  Lucky for me as I'm the one who dropped most of them... Klutz that I am.  Poor Morgan broke one of my ornaments and was so upset that she ran upstairs to hide in her bed... so I found her and said not to worry, I'd put a giant hook on her and hang as my ornament instead.. she thought that was very funny but pointed out to me that she was probably to heavy for the tree...ah well such is life... Anyway we finished the decorating and here is the end result... the search for the perfect Christmas tree is at an end and now we have the PERFECTLY Decorated CHRISTMAS TREE.  Happy holidays to all.

Now it's just foggy...

Okay I promise I will stop going on about the weather .. one of these days.. Still we're still here and we have power so we can be grateful for small mercies..But apparently we had a freakish amount of rain even for the Pacific Northwest in 2 days the rainfall in our neck of the woods was 6.60 inches, which is 3 times what California got entirely last year..... unfortunately our basement starting seeping water again, we even went over to our neighbors house to talk to her about her gutters because they are leaking so bad that the run off is contributing to the water leakage.
On a whole other note I'm waiting patiently, I think, for the plumber to get back to me about our pot filler that he was supposed to attach to the wall today but didn't have the right tools.. the story of our lives with regard to the kitchen, nothing is ever simple. And Darren is getting very.. very frustrated with it..I don't blame him, he's at work all day and then gets home and has to move the 600 lb stove about... don't ask. Anyway our stools finally arrived yesterday and I (yes that would be me) put all four of them together myself... and they look pretty good if I say so myself. My trusty helper Owen, helped me by picking up the boxes and plastic so that we could get rid of the mess before D got home.

Well that's it for now.. nothing new to report.. the plumbers are back.. but not with good news.. I will up date later....

Christmas is coming and rain is coming down

I knew it was too good to last - the rain has officially come back and I guess this shouldn't be any surprise seeing as we do live, after all, in Portland. Still it couldn't have come on a worse weekend - I had a photo shoot to do today - a paying gig at that, and the weather was just so awful that I had to go to my client's house to shoot the photos and I'm sure anyone who knows kids, it is incredibly to photography children in available light when they are moving and your light is low - I don't have any fancy lights to set plus I like to use natural light. So out 295 photos I only really had about 44 decent photos that I could post that were in focus. Pity because these kids were extremely photogenic. Still I might be able to go back next weekend to try again, but I'm worried about the turn around in terms of getting their pictures to them in time for Christmas. Ah enough of those woes - but to top it off we were going to go to a Christmas tree farm today to pick out our Christmas tree for the house, and I thought how cute it would be to get the christmas card photo of the kids doing that - no such luck. It's way too wet. So we will attempt to try this idea again next week - come rain or shine.

On a different note the kitchen is pretty much done.. I mean with the exception of them coming tomorrow to repolish the silestone tomorrow there is nothing really left to be done except the installation of the pot filler tap above the stove and the installation of the back splash for the stove that arrives on Tuesday..

The kids even had the opportunity to make and decorate some gingerbread cookies - see the photos. I will post some photos of the finished kitchen once everything is done...