Portland, Oregon, USA December 23rd - January 3rd, 2009

This year, Eric and I travelled to Portland to spend time with his family and extended family for Christmas. We were really looking forward to our visit as it had been about a year and a half since we had last been out west.

After a stop over in Frankfurt, Eric and I boarded the plane for an 11 hour journey west. As luck would have it, we were upgraded to business! I had never flown business before so I was like a kid in a candy store. I almost didn’t want to sleep in case I missed out on anything. It was the most relaxing and (almost) stress-free flight I have ever been on.

Little did we know that the weather out west was going to include the worst snow storm in Portland in over 40 years. I can’t remember exactly how many inches fell, but I have never heard so much talk of chains on tires in my life. The city basically shut down and fortunately we were able to land smack in the middle of two major blizzards.

Over the course of about 10 days, we crammed in a lot of activities including playing host to my parents. It was the first time, in the almost 10 years that Eric and I have dated, that my parents had been out to Portland. It was quite a treat!

Along with meeting our new ‘second cousin’ Anthony, we got to spend time with Heather and Russell, Eric’s cousins and family friends. One of our outings included a day of skiing up at Mount Hood. The conditions were quite blustery and the roads a bit treacherous, but that didn’t stop us from spending the day at Ski Bowl. It was a memorable outing, especially for poor Russell. He was given the wrong size skis which kept popping off. He had never skied before and combined with the ill-fitting skis resulted in a broken rib.

A few other highlights of the trip were:
Running the bridges
A fabulous Christmas Concert at the Old Church in downtown Portland
Delicious Christmas lamb dinner
Seeing all of the fabulous pictures that Jean and Rob took on their adventure to India
Receiving beautiful silk pashminas and scarves from India
Catching up with some of Eric’s old high school friends, wandering the city in search of dirty late-night food, staying out way way way too late for our age
Jean taking us (including my parents) on a tour of downtown Portland
Brandishing chains and journeying to Timberline lodge in white-out conditions for lunch with both sets of parents
New Year's Eve dinner with the Urbans

2008 was gone before we knew it, but what a great year it was.

Photos here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=hj0zhyv.8d1dz8qj&x=0&y=-rva71q&localeid=en_US