Absent

It's been forever since I've posted something on our blog. Luckily Blake has been keeping up on it for me. I don't know what to blame it on....maybe the craziness of the holiday season, maybe the constant planning of our future trip to Europe, maybe it's all the meetings and activities of my church calling, maybe it's the bout of bronchitis I've been fighting, or maybe it's because I've had a little less energy lately since I'm 3 months PREGNANT! Yes, that's right we're finally pregnant. My due date is August 10th, which also happens to be my 30th birthday-crazy huh?!! We're really excited and can't wait for the next few months to fly by to find out if we're having a little girl or boy.

Blue Bird for Oregon, not bad.

So Friday night I decided to throw the ol' sticks in the car for a 3 hour ride to none other than Mount Hood. I have a buddy that lives in Portland and his girlfriend managed to hook us up with some free lift tickets at Timberline resort.

I have only been to Timberline once. It was with my good friend, Brent Thompson, back in high school. I remember we went on a Thanksgiving weekend and stayed in some beat up old cabin on the mountain highway. I don't know why, but I also remember we watched the Simpson's on our snow shack's miniture TV. Back then the snow was pretty decent for late November. It was a bit strange going up the 3 or 4 lift rides all the way up to the tippy top because the temperature dropped quite a bit. We would have to slowly don more layers as the lift ascended the mountain, whereas, down on the bottom, it was a bit slushy and warm.

This weekend the weather at Timberline was nothing short of spectacular for skiing. The snow report didn't hold much hope as it had rained a good amount a few days prior to our little excursion. However, with the sun beating down at 40 - 45 degrees, the snow got pretty soft. It was some of the best January "spring skiing" I have ever had. We got quite a few runs in, played a bit in the terrain parks, and ate like kings at the Timberline lodge buffet (tri-tip steak, roast turkey, and a variety of other fixings).

I do have to mention one additional highlight of our dining experience. The Timberline lodge is actually considered a National Historic Monument. It is quite old and they are trying to maintain the beautiful, old wood work on the stairs and throughout the rest of the building. So, they made us remove our ski boots before we went up to the second floor for lunch. This was pretty awesome because we were able to sit down at a real posh restaurant; in socks. Now that was style :).

Lastly, you are probably wondering where Sheena is during this entire trip. Well, she came down with a bad bout of Bronchitis at the end of last week. I ended up putting together a "rehab" package for her before I left for Portland. I bought her some of her favorite movie snacks, rented her a nice flick, and purchased some aroma-therapy bath salts. Even though she was a bit quarantined for the weekend, today she said she is feeling a lot better.

Christmas Snowshoeing

Wow, we can't believe Christmas and New Year's are already over. Seems like they came and went really, really fast this year. We spent Christmas Eve at Grandpa Crotty's house for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner and gift exchange. We had a great time with the family and I (Blake) even found the "infamous" green pickle ornament for an extra prize, a $25 gift card; boo ya! It's a German tradition to hide a glass-blown green pickle ornament somewhere on the tree. Whoever finds the green pickle ornament gets a special gift. It is funny to mention that Sheena's family is actually Swiss and not German, but her Grandpa thought it would be a good idea to start a new tradition, haha! We had an awesome time.

Christmas Day was spent at Sheena's parents home. We opened presents, hiked mount peak, ate way too much good food, and relaxed. The next day we headed down to Yakima to spend time at my parent's house. We opened a few more presents, ate way too much good food again, played Wii, went snowshoeing up around White Pass, and I hit up the new White Pass ski-area expansion with my brother Brandt. We brought Lucy snowshoeing. She LOVES the snow. It was pretty funny watching her because there was about five feet of snow and she couldn't run in it very well. To get through the snow she had to "bound". Let's just say she was really tired on the way home and we didn't hear a peep from her the whole way back to Seattle. Hope you all had fun as well; enjoy the pics!