Safe arrival

The road over the pass never got any worse than this.  And I have LOTS of knitting along to focus on!  I started playing the alphabet game with myself, too.  "I'm going on a cruise and I'm taking Aqua sox.  I'm going on a cruise and I'm taking Aqua sox and a Bathing suit.  I'm going on a cruise and I'm taking Aqua sox, a Bathing suit, and Cosmetics.  I'm going on a cruise and I'm taking . . ." You have to think of things beginning with the next letter of the alphabet and remember all the other items in order.  DH just sat and smiled as I chanted away.  Trying to think up the next letter is a good challenge.  Dancing shoes. Elegant accessories. a Formal. G. . .

 Then we stopped at Government Camp where DH used the restroom and I witnessed an attempted murder.  Three or more chickens is a flock, three or more lions is a pride, three or more crows is a murder of crows.  Here are two crows, quite annoyed at the cold and the snow.

DH negotiated the pass with maximum ease, the traffic was light,we made good time.  We stopped in Redmond and visited with my brother Chuck for a while, then cruised on our way.  It's been a few years since we've been through this way, and oh my GOSH things have changed!  Redmond is not the little town I grew up in. They have built an elementary school right next to the cemetery, and I bet Dad is really ticked off at all those noisy kids disturbing his rest.  All the growth and changes make me feel sort of disoriented.  How could this happen when I wasn't watching?  How is it that my hometown no longer matches my memories?

Then we drove to Sisters and checked in to the Five Pines Resort.  Heaven on earth!  Just look at the bath tub!  The water plummets from the ceiling and builds enormous mounds of bubbles.  You could loos a small person under the bubble bath.  There's a window into the main room so you can wallow in the tub and watch TV or just gaze at the fire in the fireplace.  The resort features small,  separate cabins, luxuriously appointed, no kitchen, but all other amenities.  And my niece had arranged for gift baskets for us with cookies and teas, wines and crackers, bells and whistles, (actually, there were no whistles, but I whistled when I saw how generous and thorough she had been.)

Then the meets and greets and hugs and rejoicing.  I feel so blessed to have re-connected with my twin brother's girls!  And what nice children they have produced!  I love my great nieces.  They ripped into their Christmas gifts and are wearing their fish hats all over!

The wedding is today.  I can hardly wait.  Will M. wear a calf holster under her bridesmaid dress?  Will the flower girl shine in her tiny glory or go all shy on us?  Something goes wrong at every wedding.  What will it be for this one?  (My first wedding, I had a fever of 103 for the whole ceremony and spent the honeymoon in bed with an upper respiratory infection.  For my second wedding, the best man nearly cut his thumb off  2 hours before the ceremony.  He arrived just in time from the emergency ward and soldiered through like a trooper.)  May today's bollix be much smaller.  Maybe the music won't work. Maybe the curling iron will die.  Maybe someone will dress inappropriately and I can be all snarky about the nice formal sweatpants someone showed up in.  It's going to be a great day!