Mt Hood January 2012

We loved our snow trip and stay at The Resort at the Mountain so much last year that we decided to do another one this year.  We learned a lesson that the place with the tow is only open on the weekends, at least for sledding, so we planned our trip as Sunday and Monday nights so we could still take advantage of the BOGO program the resort has.  Our biggest pleasant surprise was that they added a cover over the pool to make it economical to heat in the winter! 

It turned out to be not great weather on Sunday, but we bundled up and braved the slopes anyway.  Some serious mountain fashion:

Rockin the rainbow!

OK, the tow thing seriously rocked.  This next picture is not it, lol, but thought Orion towing Akasha was cute.  We didn't take many photos because it was raining, but we had a good time!

Nuttyhead laying in the snow at the end of our sledding.This one was taken by my phone, crazy blue!

We picked this place partially because it has a play area as well, which Orion was looking forward to.

Can you see him in the little window?

He wanted to do a whole series of him jumping into the balls,

which meant he was basically just a blur lol.

So of course the next day was lovely weather!  We decided to try to find an area to at least do some playing in the snow.  We stopped in a local place to do some glove upgrading, and found these cheap sleds:

The guy also told us about a great place to go sled for free during the week that is a bit of locals secret.  It is a place with a fee on the weekends, but then it is totally unstaffed during the week and people still use it.

Nice view of hood heading to the sledding area:

We even had fresh snow!  Guess the rain from the previous day turned into a blessing afterall!

This hill was pretty small.  Perfect for a place without a tow lol.

Just before heading down the hill.

Orion had alot of fun just playing in the snow.

We kept seeing people come and go down a trail, so we asked them what the deal was and found out there was a much longer run not too far away.  We decided to check it out.  It was pretty fun, and we met some other homeschoolers there, but the walking back up part not so  much haha.

Nice trip, although heading back we realized how much closer we are now that we live on the Eastside.  It kinda seemed dumb to pay for the hotel when we could have easily done this as a daytrip.  But the "getaway" aspect is neat too.  Not sure which we will do next year!

Chocolate Festival

We had an Orion-Mommy date at the Chocolate Festival. Only Orion was really not into it at all. We tasted at a few booths and made a couple purchased, but I think it was just too crowded for him. He was really out of sorts inside the festival, but then we ended up having way more fun in the hallway!
Can you find Orion in this picture?

The top picture gave Orion and idea for a game.  He went to stand in different places and had me take a picture, then would come look at it and try to find himself.  :)  Can you find him in the next two?

Then he discovered the air bubbles in the stuff covering the carpet, and that you could move them by pushing on them.  That was another long time of fun!

Snooooow

Seems like there is always at least one snow that actually sticks each year. Sometimes a couple, but just once this year. And it happened pretty late at night. These pictures show just how slow my phone camera actually is lol.

Playtime

We went to a new local play place. It was pretty small, but the kids still had a good time. Nice place for a rainy day.

Oh my gawd, a date!

Just some random pics from our day of wine tasting. It was a deal I bought through one of those online discount sites. We had no idea the driver was going to take photos as well. What a nice surprise! The gal doing the pouring in the last couple shots was a hoot!

End of Year Project

This was inspired by something I saw on the Family Fun website, and I was really pleased with ow it turned out.  I basically went through our year in photos and chose the highlights, then mounted them on cardstock and strung them together.  The hardest part was deciding which ones to include!  It was really satisfying to see them all up there when I was done and realize what a great year we had.  Hoping to make this an annual tradition for sure!

Annual NYE Zoolights Trip!

We were pleased that the weather cooperated for our annual trip to Zoolights. 
 I only had my camera phone, which always takes ass pictures, but they were even more terrible at night!  I am including so many just because they are almost comical in their badness!  OK, there are a couple decent ones, but mostly they are terrible.  :)  The theme of the night was sitting on animals, as you will see... 

We did see a couple *live* animals!

Demon children playing the drums!

Both my kids have always had a thing for benches...