Last year at this time Cody and I were in Oregon along with my Mom and Dad (Jonathan was working on a cruise and was in South America.) We went to Oregon to spend Christmas with our family. My Dad’s side of the family and a lot of my Mom’s side of the family both live in Oregon-mostly around the Eugene area with some in Portland. We flew into Portland on Christmas Eve. It was snowing. We taxied into the airport on a runway covered in snow-it was magnificent. I’m not sure my Dad was feeling the same way knowing he had a two hour drive south to Eugene. We stopped and had our Christmas Eve meal at the local Burger King and headed on down to Eugene. I think my Dad was having second thoughts about renting a car instead of an SUV! On our second day there at our traditional family get together at the pizza parlor our cousin Danny offered to take Cody snowboarding at Willamette Pass Ski Resort. This was Cody’s first time snowboarding and he caught on no problem. After a few runs down the bunny slope he headed up the ski lift with our cousins that have been snowboarding all their lives. I stayed in the ski lodge with my hot chocolate most of the time-with my novice skiing skills I didn’t want to slow the boys down. On our last day in Oregon, the University of Oregon Ducks were playing-my entire family are Duck fans and if you live in Eugene it is a pretty good chance you are too! Cody even caught Duck fever when we were there and came home with a Duck jacket of his own. It is always sad when we have to leave and we always look forward to going back. We actually went back this past summer-I will share that trip soon!

Have I mentioned that I love the snow and live in Florida. No? Hmmmm

That’s Cody to the right of the ski lift-looking pretty relaxed!It was pretty cold out there!
Just a few of Cody and I with our cousin Mason (the STAR of the family!) and that’s me with my most wonderful cousin Amber!This one’s for the fam in Oregon…

Last week I had a little preview of our trip to Colorado in January 2009. We went to visit our friends Carlos and Jennifer and spent most of our time in the snow (and in case you don’t know-I LOVE the snow.) We went skiing (well, I skied and the boys snowboarded) twice and then spent a day at the Rocky Mountain National Park sledding. We actually skied/snowboarded at night and it really was magical-at times when I was up on the mountain I would just stop and look out amongst the mountains, snow, stars and that big huge sky and take it all in. It was breathtaking-I really could have just stayed up there-and given how I was skiing and the size of the mountain it was definitely a thought-I think Jonathan, Cody and Carlos made it down the mountain five times in the time it took Jennifer and I to get down it once! We also ate at Rubios a lot (it’s one of our favorites and we don’t have one here in Florida.) So last week I shared a few pictures from our trip to Winter Park Ski Resort…this week I thought I would show you a shot from our drive to Winter Park (so glad I wasn’t driving-thanks for getting us there safe Carlos!) and then our day of sledding at Rocky Mountain National Park.

It has been a crazy month so far. I guess that is how December is suppose to be. So this Traveling Tuesday is going to be a preview of a future Traveling Tuesday and a glimpse of where I dream to be…

A few shots of our trip to Colorado last January-this is the Winter Park Ski Resort