My mother, our college daughter, and our Cambodian exchange student left Arkansas and came to our home near Portland, Oregon for Christmas. Yesterday we drove from our house to Mt. Hood, Oregon (1 hr. drive) to ski and have fun with tubing. It’s our absolute favorite thing to do in the winter time.

When I’m with my family in the outdoors I try to imagine those postcard moments and on occasion I’m able to capture those moments in my minds eye and share them with you compliments of my iPhone camera and my Flip video camera.

I think these pictures turned out pretty good considering I took them with my iPhone.

This first picture shows beautiful Mt. Hood as we approached her from the west.

This next photo is one I couldn’t resist. Sandi and I grab a quick hug as soon as we hit Mt. Hood Ski Bowl and prepare for skiing and tubing. The red neck wrap I’m wearing was given to me by a desert bedouin when I served in Iraq as an Army Officer during Operation Desert Storm. I wear it to show my support to our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We saw the men and women of the Mt. Hood ski patrol working hard all day. This picture shows the entrance to their operation hut. Notice the level of snow.

What do you enjoy most about your winter family vacation?

One of the reasons we live in Oregon is the close proximity to ocean, vineyards, and mountains. Do you have some favorite winter activities that don’t require you to travel far from your home to enjoy?

Would you please consider sharing your favorite winter activities with me in the comment section below. I’m especially interested in stories where you don’t have to travel far from your home to enjoy.

Maybe you have a video of your winter fun that you uploaded to You Tube. Let me know and I’ll link to it from this blog post.

I thought I’d share a brief video of our family fun time together today on Mt. Hood. I take my flip video camera with me all the time and other than my kids giving me the occasional cross look for filming them at unannounced times the camera is great to have and capture some of our fun family times together.

But wait, let me take you away from my Rockwell family video moment and share with you some filler for this fun family trip.

• My mother, with her successful cervical spine fusion, wanted to go sledding but we overruled.
  
• Teenage girls can alert you that Mother Nature is making her monthly appearance when you are on a mountain top.
• Stoned kids who own snow mobiles should be banned from Mt. Hood. It would put a big dent in business, but that’s what I think.
  
• College daughters can still torment their siblings on the ride home.
• Walnut bladders and a freak winter storm causing a 4 hour traffic delay home are not a good combination.
• The instruction sheet made putting on tire chains look so easy.