Robert the Rose Horse

This was a favorite book in our house when I was little. It's fun to share the same stories with Bee now.

Trains, Trains Everywhere...

Thanks to YouTube on the iPhone, Bee has watched countless preschoolers line their trains up like this and name them off one and a time. He loves doing the same. He's pretty proud of his collection.

Duck Love

This is the cutest thing you've ever seen and you know it. Go Ducks!

What an adventure! Road trip to grandma's house.

Bright and early this morning, Bee and I bundled up and left Eugene for grandma's house. I thought I had the sweetest deal worked out. Mike would drive us to Multnomah Falls, where we'd meet my mom & drive with her the rest of the way. 

To me that meant I could get some work done (mostly grading papers) in the car. Hurray! 

Just outside of Portland, down Interstate 84 and just past all the city exits, Mike & I realized that we needed gas. Oops. Guess we should've stopped "back there." The next exit was for Corbett and the handy road sign claimed gas could be found. 

From the floor of the Columbia Gorge, we climbed 1.5 miles to the top and to the smallest gas station I've ever seen. Corbett Country Market has one gas pump that's nestled up against the building. You sort of have to shimmy your car up to it. From there, Multnomah Falls was just an 11 mile drive back down the Gorge along the historic highway. 

From Historic Columbia Gorge Highway.

It's been very cold for about a week in Oregon, so the waterfalls along the highway were frozen (mostly) solid. Gorgeous! 

We got to Multnomah Falls, we saw that even that was partially frozen. Really spectacular. 

Horsetail Falls (just east of Multnomah on Historic Hwy)

The hand-off to Mom's Prius occurred just east of Multnomah Falls & we were off. We pit-stopped for a delicious lunch at Burgerville in The Dalles. Back on I-84 when Mom realized that she needed gas (some sort of theme today...). We stopped in Biggs for gas and then got back on the road. 

It wasn't long when Mom noticed a warning light on her dashboard. Turns out is was low tire pressure and we figured we'd stop at the next exit to check. Then...  

Flat Tire

The craziest flat tire I've ever seen. You can see the hole in the tire wall, right? It was smoking and smelled like burnt rubber when I got out to check it.

We weren't exactly in the safest place and it was a little bit scary when the semi trucks barreled toward us. There was even one VERY, make-you-heart-pump close call. But we called a tow truck and waited.

This was our parking spot at mile marker 126 on I-84

It only took about 30 minutes for the truck to arrive. Bee thought the process was all pretty fascinating.

The tow truck driver took us to Arlington and a place called Industrial Tire Service. Arlington has a population of 524 (according to the 2000 Census) and its high school mascot is the "Honkers" (as in geese). 

Industrial Tire Services tire yard (the rest of the place wasn't this bad... I just thought this was funny)

They didn't have an actual tire we could buy... because they sell big truck tires (duh.), but they put my Mom's spare on. The tiniest little donut tire I've ever seen. So back on the road we went (at no faster than 60 miles an hour).

By this time, Braxton is in TOTAL meltdown mode. Don't tell the cops, but I broke down and held him in the backseat. Eight hours in the car is no fun for anyone, much less for an almost 4 year old. He was a trooper.

We finally made it to the my mom's house about 5:45 pm. That's right, it took nearly 10 hours to get from my door to my mom's door. Yay! And I got very little grading done... figures.

We're recuperated, fed and relaxing now. I know it WILL be a nice break to be away this weekend. Now where's my glass of wine?...

Annual Updates: All Work & Little Play

In putting together our annual family newsletter - I say that as if it were an annual event - I realized that I don't have nearly enough family and friends stories. Most of my "news" is work related. In an effort to change that, I'm going to restart this blog to track our family adventures.

But to start, I'll share with you our annual newsletter. It's a PDF, so click on the link and download.

Matthews-Graves 2009 Family Newsletter

Happy holidays!