December Snowstorm

As I sit all snuggled up on the couch, the snowstorm rages outside. We live in Troutdale which is known as the 'Little Windy City' as it is the gateway to the Columbia Gorge. We typically lose shingles off of our roof during this time of year, but we do have fun out in the weather as well. Our cul de sac is off of 10th Street which is a large hill that the kids all sled down when it snows or ices over. We are thankful that everyone made it safely home and we can have nearby or outside.

December FUN 2008

We have had a great year. December is definitely a month of celebration. We started the month with our traditional trip to get the Christmas tree. We go to a farm outside of Sandy, OR but we ALWAYS have to go to Joe's Donuts on the way. Joe's is famous for great donuts and their huge bear claws. Last year the snow started before Thanksgiving so there were a lot of skiers and snowboarders and the line was outside and around the building. This year it was sunny and green ground. We had the shop to ourselves!!

Next, we headed to the tree farm to choose the perfect tree! It was a beautiful sunny day. We meandered through the field of trees and ended up at the section of trees the farthest away from the barn and our car. It turned out to be a blessing because it was on a little hill and the view of Mt. Hood was incredible!! Did we take a family picture with this stunning backdrop?? No, of course not. My goofy family decided it would be hilarious to take our family picture around a dead tree and use it for our Christmas card! We laughed and had great fun and created another great memory!

Just a week later, the snow started coming down. It doesn't come down very often in our area and it seldom sticks when it does. We had to get out in it as soon as possible. Brad and CJ were out sledding and I decided to through my coat on and go take some pics with Brad's camera. I was still in my pajama pants and Brad insisted that I take a little trip down the hill so he could take a pic. It's a good thing they are flannel and better yet that you can't see them in the picture.

MEXICO FROM THE EYE OF BRAD

Brad gets a lot of enjoyment from picture taking and we get to reap the benefits of his wonderful talent. Enjoy these Pics that he took!

Mayan Ruins

We took a risk and traveled to the ruins of Tulum and Coba. There are ruins everywhere on the Yucatan Penisula and it was amazing. There were even some small ruins on the resort near the shore. It included a small temple, dwellings, as well as a the remains of a church that the Spaniards had built. There were over 100 bodies found buried in the church yard. If you are wondering, human sacrifice was NOT part of their culture.

We decided we would go to Coba first as it was hot and we could see Tulum on the way back as it is by the coast and it is much cooler. This was our first mistake. Apparently the Federali Police leave you alone if the roads have more people on them. There were very few cars on the road when we passed the Federali Police car. We checked our speed as we approached and we were not over so we felt safe. . .MISTAKE #2. The police pulled us over and told us we were going 20 kilometers over the speed limit. If it had been a different situation we probably would have laughed out loud. He made Darren get out of the car and discuss the situation at their car. Darren made it clear that he wasn't calling them liars but that he was also NOT going over the speed limit. They told him that he could go back to the police station with them now or pick up his license on his way back and it would cost 1,300 pesos. This is the equivilant of about $130 in American money. After some discussion, the police finally decided that there might be a third option and they would give it back if there was some exchange of money. We paid them the equivilant of $47 American dollars. We found out later that we could have easily only paid them $20 but didn't know that at the time. They were very excited and said, "Thankyou, thankyou! This will be a nice dinner!" The rest of the trip we were all fearful and poor Darren had 6 back seat drivers. We made him go 20 kilometers under the speed limit which is very annoying when the taxi drivers sped by us going 20 kilometers over the speed limit. Later we were wishing we would have taken a picture of Darren with the Federalis.

MEXICO MANIA

We had a great trip in Mexico in spite of many pitfalls!

Darren's bother, sister-in-law, and Mom arrived first only to find the resort overbooked and they had to take the 45 minute trip back to Cancun and stay there the first night. Dave (Darren's brother) lost his cell phone (This will be one of the 3 times he loses it). He called Darren on Cathy's phone and had him order a new one and bring it down with him.

Darren started to get sick on the airplane ride into Mexico City and ended up having influenza B. He felt good enough to do something fun about every other day. We had a crazy time finding our connecting flight in the Mexico City airport. We finally figured out, with our limited Spanish, that we needed to take a bus to another terminal. We boarded and the bus started out into the city. This made us just a little nervous. Once we finally found our gate we relaxed a bit and played games, slept, snacked, and relaxed. Brad did his usual activity of taking pictures which upset the airport security a little. Fortunately they didn't confiscate the camera. About 10 minutes before our flight took off I decided to check in even though we already had our tickets. We discovered that the tickets we had were not acceptable and we had to go back and get the correct ones. Since Darren was sick I took off running to the Mexicana counter and went to get new tickets. The lady at the counter didn't want to give them to me because the Portland counter had placed us in first class. I told her our plane left in 4 minutes and I didn't care where we sat I just wanted the tickets that we paid for. I then used the 2 minutes I had left to run back through three security stations and fortunately the plane was delayed slightly. We were the last ones to board. We boarded for the last leg and we ended up in first class to boot, YEAH!