Catching Up on the Holiday Family Gatherings

J and I had three family gatherings for Christmas. I will have pictures of the big family dinner held at our place the 19th in the next blog. The following pictures are from the 25th and 27th. Daughter and her family came Christmas day and stayed through the 29th. They had planned to leave son-in-law's family a day earlier, but the two-year old had the flu so bad they had to take him to the hospital for an IV. He was very listless through the 26th, but when he recovered on the 27th, he was definitely on the go and we could harldy keep him full. He was making up for a huge fuel deficit and he was doing it in a hurry. Son and his family arrived the 27th, so we had another round of present openings. The six grand kids liked this multiple Christmas days with the various grandparents because they got to open presents on three days. J and I immensely enjoyed having both families home with their six children aged 8 months to eleven years. Makes for a very busy household, but lots of fun interaction with grandkids who don't see each other but at the most twice a year. Sure fun to watch the 8 month old and the 14 month old interact.

Well, the grandparents are pretty tired. We will be relaxing for the next few days.

Daughter flew home with the 8 month old and her husband drove home today with the three boys. The guys hit snow at Hood River and encountered snow covered roads on I-5 and 205. Lots of wrecks and so things really got tangled up. So far they have been able to avoid any fender benders of their own. The girls were delayed an hour in their flight out of Boise because of icy conditions in Portland and then had to circle Portland for an hour when they did get there. So the family at this writing is dining at the Red Robin and waiting for the roads to hopefully clear before trying to head home south of Portland. Meanwhile we are experiencing 20 degree weather and dry conditions. Kind of nice for a winter day.

p.s. They arrived home 11:30 pm PDT. They pulled off I-5 so mom could nurse the baby. They were on U.S. 99 and asked a policeman if getting back on I-5 would be the quickest way home. He told them to stay on 99 since they could pull off into a parking lot when the kids needed attention. Good advice. They talked to one woman who had started home from work in Portland at 5:00 and 10:30 she was still an hour or more from home. Seems as though there were a lot of abandoned rigs on the freeway and only one lane had moving traffic. Maybe the long stalls caused people to run out of gas. I don't know. Wow. What a trip home to see moms and dads.



Until next time,
Love you all,
Papa Coyote