Tubing @ Bogus Basin

We love date nights and have committed to having at least 1 date per month out of the house.  We have movie and restaurant gift cards to cover many dates, but we want to do fun activities as well, so we started the year off with a bang. 

Marcel and I both had MLK Jr Day off from work and headed up the mountain for our favorite winter date: tubing!  Love the chain to pull you back up the mountain :)  Also, in Caldwell we were experiencing a nasty inversion and hadn't seen the sun in forever and had constant temperatures of about 25*.  We were so lucky to have a sunny day of 42* at the mountain and were able to leave most of our clothing layers in the car, including Marcel's jacket!

Because no post is complete without pictures:

waiting in line with a million kids

selfie riding the tube back up the mountain

Marcel's selfie

Marcel is always being artistic with a camera.  This may be one of my favorites!

Getting ready for take-off

Just around the corner from the tubing hill

When I have more time I'll watch the videos of us going down the hill and find a few to upload.  Mostly for us to have, because I scream the whole way down and Marcel just thinks it is so hilarious :)

Gold Rush Tubing Hill

We've had plans to go tubing for one of our monthly dates for months now.  We had originally planned to go in January but with our serious lack of snow, the mountain wasn't open so we postponed it a few weeks.

We had an absolute blast!  We headed up to the mountain way before our tubing time in hopes of seeing Presley in her ski race, but we missed it, because I'm a slow dresser and they started early.  We enjoyed a long walk to the lodge for some hot chocolate.  Marcel loved the hot chocolate but I found it, ironically, too chocolatey!

We were even able to try out our new waterproof video camera.  Granted it wasn't completely under water like it will be when we are in the Bahamas, but it was nice to not have to worry about it getting a little wet from the snow.  When we bought the camera, the lady at Walmart told us it was good for video but took horrible pictures, so when these were the first 2 pictures I saw from it, I thought she was right:

 It is so nice to have a ride back up the hill :)

I started to get worried about our purchase, but then saw some other pictures that looked good to me, granted I have limited photography knowledge, and was once again pleased with our new little camera.  I decided that they were really only bad because the ride isn't very smooth!

Marcel waiting at the top of the hill

waiting at the tow line.

I just have to say that I absolutely love when people offer to take our picture.  We are quite professionals at doing it ourselves, and it is always awkward to ask someone, but it is nice to have a picture of more than just our heads :)

 together forever :)

In addition to taking pictures, we also recorded some of our trips down the hill.  We discovered that I'm not very good at recording (at least while holding onto Marcel's feet while spinning down a hill in a tube!)  Here's the best one, even if you have to see me the whole time:

After sledding, we went back to photographing ourselves.  There are quite a few good ones, but I think this is my favorite.

 I don't usually like/post pictures of just me, but after our pictures, I sat down on a mound of snow and Marcel took quite a few of me.  He is so artistic, using the sun to highlight my face.  He will be taking all the photos on our cruise!

Speaking of our cruise, we leave in 9 days and couldn't be more excited!  I can't wait to be COMPLETELY unplugged from everything, except spending wonderful, quality time with Marcel.

Susie

The morning of New Years Eve, Marcel and I decided to enjoy the snow and build a snowman. It was something we'd yet to do as a couple. I had to borrow snow pants, boots, and gloves, so I didn't get wet or cold, and my mom's stuff came through for me. Now I'll just have to get some stuff of my own! And like always, Marcel was the photographer!

Making the base, turned out to be lopsided, but it worked!


our snowman turned into a girl when I made hair out of twigs!


MaryBeth, Susie, Marcel


MB & MB


Marcel's snow angel & MaryBeth's snow angel, in the backyard!

For the evening, we saw It's Complicated with my mom and Don and then hung out at their house for snacky food (who really eats a real meal during the holidays) and watching the ball drop. Marcel was confused with the time zone how it would work since when it was 9:30pm our time all the NYE coverage had a clock that read 10:30pm, but at 10pm we saw an hour of news before starting the coverage up again. Marcel and I can't remember what we did last year so I'm glad that our first married couple new year was spent in a memorable way!

I'm So Over Snow

I think I jinxed Portland's weather. A week before this awful storm started I said I'd do anything for some snow here and even hoped for a White Christmas. In Portland, I thought it was just wishful thinking that there would be no possible way. Well we ventured out again today--and now Kelly and I hate the snow!

Our story in pictures!

This was where we left off last night, at least with my car. Kelly's did look better but not much.

So after we walked 10 minutes down the road to the store we decided that if we were already dressed warm we might as well try our luck at getting chains on our vehicles, since they are required in our entire county on all vehicles.

Step 1: Measure the snow--this used to be fun, but it's losing the coolness factor each day!

Yeah that's right your eyes are not deceiving you. 15 inches!

Step 2: Begin using some of our awesome winter weather supplies

Again you are seeing correctly, one of our favorite piece of equipment the last 2 days has been our dust pan. Other items used include our indoor broom (why would we possibly have a big outdoor one?), a rake (as much as our parents laughed at us it came in very handy), and lastly a gardening shovel that Kelly had so luckily never returned to her parent's house.

Result of Step 2:

Look its our driveway!

Step 3: Put on chains

This part actually went pretty easily, no complaining here except Kelly did it without gloves on...Brrr!

Step 4: Drive 1/4 mile in order to get chains tightened...

This is where we stopped taking pictures, but the rest of the story goes like this:

We were so proud of ourselves for being 2 girls and shoveling all day and finally get chains on a car and we excited to finally leave our house (even if only for .25 mile!). We made it about 5 feet before we couldn't go any further. Kelly's car got a bit high centered on our snow piled driveway. Then began more shoveling with our infamous supplies. An hour later we left like we had finally made a dent in how our driveway looks so she tried to move her car. Lucky for us, our work had paid off and she was able to drive again. We were yelling at the snow for the entire 3 hours we were outside trying to unbury our cars and finally decided that for now we don't want to see anymore snow. It even decided to snow some more while we were struggling so much. I hope knowing we were out there for 3 hours makes this blog seem like what we went through. I thought the step 1, step 2, thing made it seem really easy when it was far from that way! Our goal for the day was to get chains on both of our cars and to drive around the block in each car so we're able to resume life tomorrow, but in the end we got chains on 1 car and didn't make it out of our driveway. I still feel really accomplished! In the end, I'm never again going to wish for something weather-wise again.

PS- This is now officially the worst storm Portland has had in December since 1968, and the 4th most in a season in the last 30 years. We are very grateful that we could be here to be a part of history!!

Snow Storm in Forest Grove

It has been snowing since I got up this morning and since my work shift got cancelled I have thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing but staying dressed warm and scrapbooking my day away all while enjoying the snow storm. Every few hours me and Kelly go and very officially check the snowfall with our ruler. This last time we decided to take pictures to document the adventure it was!

Our "official" measuring shows 10 inches in our front yard, well more like sidewalk since I wasn't going to put my feet into the pile while being in my warm pajamas

Kelly's car (with mine and Amy's in the background) covered with snow. We are finding it very funny and ironic that Amy is in warm weather while her car is getting covered with snow.


My attempt to keep up with Kelly for artistic pictures! I like how my flash captured the snowflakes so well...

We've never remembered to do anything with our borrowed lawn chairs, like maybe put them in our garage, because we NEVER go in the backyard, but that is the very reason we went back there tonight.

These are Kelly's footprints in the snow when she was trying to measure the pyramid on our table, kinda seen in the picture above! It doesn't show very well either that with about another inch of snow we will officially be snowed it, at least through our back door.

Maybe for the first Christmas I'm not in Idaho I'll actually get a White Christmas!

Christmas Decorations!

So in keeping with the holiday spirit I decided I'd take a picture of how I'm decorating my house for Christmas this year. I am finally in the Christmas spirit after Zoo Lights and am listening to nothing but Christmas music, which is huge for me, and am loving all our snow!

As some of you may know, I won't be returning home to Idaho for Christmas until the 27th (I got an extra day off, it was supposed to be the 28th!) so I'll be having my first Christmas away from my parents and sisters. Marcel, his mom and little brother are headed back here in the next few days to spend Christmas with me so I'm not completely alone. They will then drive to Idaho on the 26th and we'll all drive back on the 30th--hoping the roads aren't closed between here and there. One of my roommates is already at home and the other will be going home Monday so it is up to me to supply the Christmas decorations. I did buy some stockings for me and Marcel but after I got them home and realized they weren't going to be Christmas presents from Santa I decided I don't really like them. Marcel and I are going to hit some big after Christmas sales so we have stuff to decorate next year even if I have to do it twice (we'll hopefully be moving back to Idaho mid-December 2009)

The big decorations:

I colored a Christmas tree with the little kids at work, even had so few kids because of our snow storm that we got to glitter so it even has Christmas lights and a gold star at the top! I think before Christmas I'll do some rearranging of the furniture so that our presents look pretty but for now my house has the presents for Marcel and what the 2 of us got Snoh & Coco.

P.S. If you click on the picture it makes it really big and you can look at the tree up close :)

Snow!!

WE HAVE SNOW IN FOREST GROVE!!!

Now I'm just hoping to have a white christmas which is always my hope for Christmas. My work shift was cancelled because they closed early and chances are that it will probably be cancelled in the morning as well as tomorrow was supposed to be the day of snow so it will only be continuing.

Maybe tomorrow I'll have to get dressed up warm again and go throw snow balls at Marcel. I'll make sure to take some pictures as well, because a post without a picture just isn't the same :)