Oregon trip

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Last weekend Stephen and I went up to Oregon to visit the Portland crew and try skiing again after 10+ years.

(Thank you so much Tom and Natalie for watching our kids and enduring Steve’s alarm clock w/o killing us. Thank you also to Merilee and Chris for the invite up, room and board, enduring us, and just an overall fun time. Thank you Chris and Katie for going WAY out of your way to hang out w/ us and getting us to the airport.)  We had a wonderful and disasterous time. The weather was beautiful! It was clear skies when we got there and then started snowing perfectly when we were on the mountain. The driving was a little scary for some, but Chris got us home w/o a hitch. Chris B and Katie’s experience was a little different, but now that I mentioned it he will have to get on and blog about that. (See how tricky I am.) That was a good thing because we had a big hitch on the slopes. Poor Stephen fell on his shoulder and hurt his back. It hurt everywhere and his legs were numb so for precautions the ski patrol loaded him on, or rather strapped him down, in a neck brace and onto a board and took him down the rest of the way to the medic center. After about an hour and a half, and several x-rays later, the doctor released us w/ a perscription for vicadin, unless of course one of our friends had a stash somewhere and a reccomendation to go have a few drinks.  Woohoo! Only in Oregon can you get doctor’s instructions like that.

We got back to Portland and went to eat at a semi fancy restaurant w/ our jeans and sweatshirts on. Oops, they didn’t like that too much, but the food was good. We did the big switcheroo back w/ the kids and cars, then we went back to Mer’s and tried to watch a movie, but just crashed instead.

So in all that explanation i totally skipped Friday. That just can’t be done. Friday night we drove up to Hood River w/ Merilee and Chris and stayed in the cutest little hotel. On our way up we dropped kids off w/ Joyce (Chris’ sister, thank you Joyce) and switched cars w/ her. Then we went over to the glass works shop where Chrispy works. (I am adopting Merilee language now because it makes it easier to know who I am talking about.) It was very cool. Chrispy showed us where everything was, took out some red hot glass and was blowing it into a big balloon. It made a great pop as it shattered. We found where venom’s suite ended up from the last Spidey movie and watched Chris pour hot glass all over it. This was a very cool place and it fits my little brother so much to work there. He definitely needs somewhere to develop and express his creativity. I felt very much at home there too actually. Something about the whole creative process and changing one material into something else that is beautiful just gets to me.  (Another thanks goes to Christoper for showing us this great place.)

Then we headed up. We passed some falls that were so beautiful. They had froze as they were falling and then since it was night and dark, the headlights made them glow. It truly was amazing. Sorry, no pic’s of those. We got to Hood River and yikes, it was freezing. The hotel was so cute, a little turn of the century place that had been renovated. I think Steve fell in love w/ our 300 sq. ft. room.

The sink was in the bedroom and then there was a little room to the side for a toilet and shower. It was very quaint. Â

We thought maybe some dessert would be nice so we found a little place called Brian’s Poorhouse. A little dessert turned into dinner at 9pm. My egg rolls were delicious! Stephen is sure his hot chocolate was spiked because it was the best he had ever had and needed to have more and then we did finally get dessert.

Now, skip ahead to where we left off back at the Cameron house. The next morning Chris and Katie came over for breakfast. We played a little dance, dance, revolution. I fell on my behind on the balance board. Then it was time to shower and be off.

Chrispy and Katie took us on a little tour around the back way of the city to get to his part of town and to show us their apartment. We also got some really good gellato w/ the most intense ice cream man I have ever spoken to. When we were done talking about why the goddess of death was the color of monsoon storms we left. (It was Sunday, we had to get something spiritual in for the day.) Chris took us to the airport then and we got through the 3 mile long corridor to our gate w/ Steve speeding very fast on some very sore muscles.

Thank you so much to Mom and Dad for taking us and picking us up from the airport, especially since our flight got in late. I know circling the terminal is not fun.

Thank you most of all to my amazing husband who indulged me in this wonderfully frivolous trip. Â