Christmas And Then Going Home to Washington

The following are pictures from Christmas, and then Ryan, Ethan, and my unexpected trip home to Washington this last weekend. Most of the scenery pictures are ones I plan on adding to my file of reference pictures for painting and drawing. We were surprised when we got to Coulee Dam and saw the ammount of snow they had. It was 18 inches at least, and after we left sunday they ended up getting more snow that evening. There was so much snow that is was very beautiful and made everything a winter wonderland. Our town is lucky because being that it is a government town (because of the dam), they have the equipment and people available to plow all the roads. I hope you enjoy all the pictures.

Here is Tonya and Joan decorating Don up as a christmas tree (?) for one of the family Christmas parties.

I don't know whether Asia buried herself in the blankets, or whether Ryan piled them on top of her...I'm going for the latter of the two.

Trip to Washington

This is the view from my parents front door. My Dad had to carve out a spot for us to park.

Ethan looks so excited, doesn't he?

Rachelle got a hold of my camera... she's an odd girl...:)

These were taken out by Steamboat Rock, near my hometown.

These deer looked like they were having some difficulty getting through the snow, esp. the one in behind the first deer. I think the second deer was a baby, since it was smaller, so it really was struggling to plow through it all.

Devils Punch Bowl. In the late winter sometimes this gets a solid mass of ice down it from the runoff that freezes, and you will get ice climbers out climbing it. As it was there was only a little ice to the right of the waterfall (in spring it's a waterfall at least). When we were out there driving around some guys were gearing up to climb the ice up there, but to me what was up there looked pretty wimpy for ice climbing.

This is part of the lake behind the dam.

Ethan was so tired saturday night that he fell asleep on Ryans lap with the tv going- which is quite amazing seeing as how loud the tv has to be for my Dad to hear it. He was so tired.

Rachelle you crack me up. Lesson learned: never leave a camera around where Rachelle can get to it....:)j/k

These pictures were taken when we were driving through the Bend/Le Grande area of Oregon. I love this area, it is so beautiful. My pictures do not come close to doing the area justice, esp. since they were taken through the windows of our blazer... I would love to go through that area when I actually am not in a hurry to get somewhere else, and just spend time taking pictures of the area, because it is so beautiful. I am envious of Josh and Kari that they get to live there, even if it does get a lot of snow.