Christmas 2008 in Oregon

We were blessed to be able to spend Christmas this year (or I guess it's last year now, isn't it?) with Tom's family in Oregon.

Getting to Oregon was quite an adventure, but I'll try to give a quick summary ... Of course, on the day our flight left Minneapolis, there were snow storms in BOTH Minneapolis and the Northwest. Lovely. It took us over 2 hours to get from our house to the airport (usually a 35-40 minute drive). The roads were terrible and cars were spinning out and going in the ditch in front of us the whole way. We finally got there about 1/2 hour before our flight was scheduled to depart. It turned out to be a good thing that our flight was delayed another 1/2 hour so we had just enough time to get our luggage checked, get through security (which took extra time because they had to inspect Lily's food and juice), and get to our gate. We boarded the plane, but right after taking our seats, they announced that our flight would be delayed another 2 1/2 hours because the flight crew that was supposed to come in from another flight couldn't land because of the storm. We couldn't get off the plane unless we wanted to take all our carry-on luggage with us, so we just stayed on the plane. Thankfully, they allowed Tom to get off and get us some food from inside the terminal to bring back onto the plane since we hadn't eaten all day. Finally, almost 3 hours later, they announced that the flight crew STILL hadn't arrived and they were going to have to cancel our flight. We had to get off the plane. They were putting everyone on standby for another flight ... but that flight was already overbooked. We stood in a HUGE line waiting to get on another flight. Amazingly, they were able to shuffle passengers around and we just barely got on the next flight (they cut off the line just behind us). After a slight delay waiting for them to de-ice the plane, we were finally in the air and on our way to Seattle - hooray!!

Mommy and Lillianna on the plane, finally on our way. Lily was a great little traveler. She loved the take-off and hardly fussed at all! She did GREAT! We are so blessed.

We landed in Seattle during a big snowstorm. We decided to upgrade our car rental to what we were told was a 4WD SUV. It actually turned out to be a Subaru Outback (more like a station wagon), but it was all wheel drive, so it was still good in the snow and an improvement over our original rental. The roads were not plowed at all and it was slow-going, but we arrived late that night at the Lamolli's. Thank you Michael, Jackie, Adriana, Vivian and Matthew for being great hosts - it was so good to see you!

Joy's step-brother, Michael

Michael's wife, Jackie

The next day, we left for the long drive to Bend, Oregon. None of the roads were plowed and it was definitely a mess. Most areas required chains and several major interstates, highways and mountain passes were closed, so we decided to drive south to Eugene, OR and take the Willamette Pass, which is further South and was in much better condition. The drive usually takes around 6 hours...it took us 10. The worst was between Seattle and just south of Portland, around Salem, OR. Once we got south of Salem, the roads cleared up until we got onto the Willamette Pass and we then had snow again from there to Bend. We arrived in Bend at 11pm Sunday night, Dec 21st. Hooray - we made it!

We had a great time in Bend...lots of beautiful snow and tons of family! Nieces, nephews, cousins, siblings - lots of family came to Bend for the holidays. I'm sure you've had enough of my rambling now, so I'll tell the rest in pictures...