Saturday

What a busy Saturday we had. I wanted to write about it last night but I was too tired and a bit distraught (stay tuned for more details).

We had everyone (my parents, my brother, Tina, and Zellee) over for breakfast. My mom tried the Dutch pancake recipe from the Nourishing Traditions book. They were really yummy but didn’t puff up like they were supposed to. It snowed a few flakes during breakfast. What fun!

After breakfast, we headed up to a tree farm outside of Silverton. It was freezing so the poor kids didn’t last too long, but we found our trees and everyone headed back home. We had time to set ours up before heading out for our train adventure.

Daddy and the kids

Grampy and Jubilee

Grammy and Sawyer

We drove up to Hood River via the back roads and the scenic highway. It was a beautiful drive with trace of snow on the ground and sprinkles falling as we got further into the Columbia Gorge. We boarded the train and were off by 5:00. We were really disappointed with the trip. The train car was quite run down and old and it was so dark outside that we may as well have been on a bus with bad shocks. They served cookies and hot chocolate and then had an audio reading of the Polar Express. The train stopped at the “North Pole” and “Santa” boarded and visited with the passengers. About 20 minutes before we pulled into the station, a few people led us in singing Christmas carols. The kids had fun climbing like monkeys on the seat!

Cookies on the train

I don’t know what to think of this Santa person

I do, Santa is scary

Mom and Jubilee

Here is my little pet peeve rant…..it really bothers me when people don’t offer a seat to a pregnant lady, elderly person, or nursing mom. The train station was very crowded and there were two benches occupied by young couples, children, and their bags. Phil was holding both the kids and I had the camera bag, diaper bag, and an additional bag with warm clothes (the train was cold). I saw the families looking at me several times so I know they saw that I was obviously very pregnant and struggling to stand there with my heavy load while their elementary age children took up the bench. Where has common courtesy and mannerisms gone????

The way home was interesting. It snowed the entire time that we were on the train so there was about 3 inches piled up by the time we got back. We had to make several runs before we made it up the steep hill and headed for the freeway. Fortunately, Phil is an experienced snow driver and by the time we were leaving the Gorge the roads were clear. Phil said if it was much worse, we would have needed to stay in a hotel.

And now for the distraught part… We pulled into our driveway around 9:30. The cats all jumped off the porch to greet us and we ran over Bookie (despite the fact that we were going at a snail’s pace). We could hear his yowling and the thump as the car ran over him. It was so awful. All the cats were accounted for except Bookie so we knew that it was him. He ran off and we couldn’t find him. After putting the kids to bed, unloading the van, and several flashlight trips outside, Phil finally found him. We don’t know the extent of his damage or if there are any internal injuries. One of his back legs is obviously injured. We kept him in the garage with a heat lamp. He purrs every time we come near him and is happy to be petted. He doesn’t seem to be in too much pain and is eating, drinking, and going potty. We can’t afford to take him to emergency care over the weekend or pay for surgery or a major visit to the vet. I plan to call the vet on Monday and see if we can take him in for a check up and at least know the extent of the damage. We will have to decide what to do from there.

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