Dylan got his Arrow of Light at the Friday night pack meeting. It’s the highest award they can earn in Cub Scouts and the only badge from Cub’s they can wear on their scout uniform. Shannon is one of his Webelos leaders. She got to paint his face warrior style with different colors representing different aspects of the award. Good job, Dylan! We all left a little early and went to the Winterhawks hockey game. It was GI Joes (Sporting Goods Store) night, so a whole family could get tickets for $17. They lost. They haven’t had a great team for a while now.

Went skiing at Timberline Saturday with a few friends plus kids. I brought Dylan and Gavin. It was great snow. About 7″ of fresh, light powder. It snowed lightly most of the day, then cleared off and was sunny in the late afternoon. Dylan was a grump most of the day. He hasn’t been feeling well this week. Gavin got off to a rough start because he had ice caked on the bottom of his ski boots. After we fixed that he did great. I usually ride my snowboard with both feet angle forward so I can carve easier and go faster. Saturday I set my bindings so I was riding with my toes angled away from each other like a duck. I figured I’d be going slow so I could work on riding “fakey”. Turns out we didn’t go slow after all. That stance did make jumps much easier to land.

Grace and Shannon stayed home and sold Girl Scout Cookies.

I signed up for Nikon School in Seattle a few months ago. As the day got closer I noticed the kids didn’t have school Monday, so we decided to make a looong weekend out of it. We pulled the young’uns out of school a little early on Friday and drove to Shannon’s brother’s house in Issaquah (near Seattle). They had 7″ of snow. Just before Christmas their power was out for 5 days. Paul is sales manager at the Fox station so he’s got the sweet hookups for all the goings on around town. He took us to the Jazz-Sonics game. Half court luxury box. It was a fun game to watch. Jazz were up by 14 at one point, but the Sonics came back, tied, then won in overtime. Ray Allen (of “He Got Game” fame) scored 54 pts for the Sonics. Shannon grabbed a t-shirt that was parachuted from the ceiling.

Nikon School (Intro to Digital SLR) rocked. The new camera rocks. It does EVERYTHING! They packed a ton of info into a 7 hr class. Some specs: turns on in 0.16 of a second, no shutter-release lag (80 milliseconds), burst mode shoots 100 pictures at a rate of 3 photos per second, takes 2,700 shots on one battery charge, does in camera editing, etc. Love it. Popular Photography ranked it #1 of the new class of 10 MP cameras. Saturday night we watched football and played American Idol on PS2. Eventful day: Anna turned 11 and Elizabeth found out she got accepted to BYU.

Sunday we (I) watched the Seahawks game before hitting the road. ALL MY TEAMS LOST THIS WEEKEND: 0 for 4. I hope its the Saints and Colts and the Saints win. Next stop: Leavenworth. Leavenworth, WA looks like an entire Bavarian village was transplanted to the NW Cascade range. It reminds me of Jackson Hole: resort town, mountain setting, etc. Monday we hit the local ski hill. It’s tiny with two ROPE TOWs and a tubing run.

Tuesday we skiied at Stevens Pass. Dylan wasn’t feeling well, so he slept in the lodge while Shannon read “New Moon”. Gavin took snowboarding lessons, Grace took ski lessons and I enjoyed a few inches of fresh POWPOW. It was a weekday, so there was NO ONE there. Gavin though snowboarding was just OK and that he would probably stick with skiing. As we were heading home I started getting all these calls from work about the weather. Turns out Portland was hit by a major snowstorm. School was cancelled, so our kids didn’t end up missing any school after all. Got home to 5″ of snow and snow packed roads.

Spent a quiet New Year’s Eve with the family then got up early this morning to go skiing/ snowboarding. It was Gracie’s first time. She took a lesson in the morning then we all did a few runs together after lunch. She did great. Just as we hoped, the crowds were hung over or waiting for a bowl game, so it wasn’t crowded. The snow was great in the morning, but after lunch it started raining. It tried to switch to snow, but it wasn’t cold enough.

Loved the Fiesta Bowl. What a game!! Go Boise State!!