Timberline Lodge

A couple weeks before Christmas Ahmma & Dumpa came out to Oregon for a quick visit. They had planned on spending a couple nights up at Timberline Lodge, and this year we decided to treat ourselves and join them. Our stay also happened to coincide with our ninth wedding anniversary, so we were pretty excited!  However, the weather forecast had predicted lots of rain, so that put a damper on all of our wishful, winter fun.  The morning we drove to Mt. Hood, we woke up the girls before 6 am, threw them in the van with their jammies still on and made our first pit stop at the famous Joe's Donut Shop in Sandy.  We grabbed a dozen to tide us over until we met Ahmma & Dumpa for breakfast at the Huckleberry Inn in Government Camp.  The rest of the morning we drove to Hood River to get some more apples from Kiyokawa Orchards and then spent the remainder of our first day watching it rain up at the Lodge (and wishing for snow).  The blessing in disguise regarding the weather was that the ski lifts were closed (due to lack of snow), so we had the Lodge all to ourselves.  The next morning we were greeted with snow.  McKinley wasn't feeling well, so after breakfast I took Piper & Tessa outside to play.  The wind made it crazy cold, and we didn't stay out too long before we retreated back inside for some hot chocolate by the fire.  Since it was our anniversary, Ahmma & Dumpa agreed to watch the girls while Benji and I had a romantic dinner in the Cascade Dining Room.   But for dessert we surprised the girls with smores by roasting marshmallows in the fireplace in the lobby.  Our last day before checking out, the girls built a snowman, Benji shoveled over a foot of snow to dig out our vehicles, and Ahmma was nearly knock unconscious by a luggage cart.  Fun times at Mt. Hood!

This was a separate trip up to Mt. Hood before Ahmma & Dumpa arrived.

We were attempting to take a family picture for our Christmas card.

Before Ahmma & Dumpa arrived we put up our Christmas decorations.   Tessa really enjoyed trimming the tree.

Piper insisted we hike up to this rock.

You can barely see Timberline Lodge in the background....it was so windy!

After McKinley was feeling better, so joined us outside.

Taking a quick dip in the jacuzzi while it was snowing.

Their snowman on the ledge.