My weekend started last week Thursday morning at 11 AM. It’s been pouring rain in the city and dumping snow in the mountains, so I tried out the ski resort 10 miles up the road from our house. There was three feet of new snow and a forecasted break between storm systems, so I was stoked. The signs in the canyon said 4WD AND chains required, but the CHP guy at the road block let me through with 4WD saying I might need to chain up at Ice Box Canyon. I made it up without chains, but got quite a show along the way: vans dragging their un attached chains, little Toyotas fishtailing with chains, little Toyotas with big men bouncing on the tailgate fishtailing, etc. It only took 30 minutes to get up the mountain, but then the waiting began. My brother in law warned me that it was a tiny, mom-n-pop operation and that you had to be patient. I was in line at 9:15, but they didn’t start selling tickets until 11:30!! I was amazed at people’s indiffence to the delay. Plenty of people left, but many stuck around with the attitude that this is part of the experience at Mt Baldy. While waiting in line there were 3 good-sized avalanches close to the ticket office. The first was BIG: shook the ground and sounded like a freight train was coming. The other two were closer, but smaller. They started selling tickets at 11:30, but you could only ride the left to the mid mountain lodge. You couldn’t ski down the first lift because of the risk of avalanche. The other lifts would open when they finished digging out the load and off load areas AND when the lift operators made it up the mountain. I had been standing in line for 30 minutes for food in the lodge when someone shouted, “Lift 3 is open”. I was next in line to order, but chose a shot at fresh powder over a cheeseburger. The lifts are ancient 2 seaters. The snow was probably the HEAVIEST powder I had ever experienced. The mountain was socked in with low clouds, so visibility was poor. That meant it was hard to get the speed up to make decent turns when you couldn’t see where you were going. The first few runs were fun until the main areas got tracked out. After that I found a patch of powder that was actually pretty light. The runs are decent. The area is bigger than I expected and the runs are steeper than I expected. It took less than 20 minutes to get home. The sides of the road were packed with people playing in the snow by that time. One of the popular things to do was load the back of your truck or roof of your SUV with snow and drive back into town. Saw U2 3D…most excellent!

Saturday we went to the San Bernardino County Museum. It was interesting. They have 40,000 bird eggs and a big collection of stuffed birds and mammals. The history section had lots of info on the Mormon pioneers that settled the area. We had lunch at Famous Dave’s BBQ then went home. The boys had a sleep over at their cousin’s house and Gracie went to the triplets’s house. For dinner we took Shannon’s cousin and her husband to my favorite restaurant in the world: Fogo de Chao in Beverly Hills. It was outstanding as usual. After that we went to the LA temple for the first time. We missed our session, but went in for an hour anyway. Saturday night the second and bigger storm rolled in. It was POURING rain. We don’t have rain gutters, so it sounded like a waterfall outside our sliding door. I set Dylan’s bike ramp up to quiet things down. That helped.

Yesterday morning (1230 AM), under the light of the full Wolf Moon, I saw two BIG coyotes walking toward our next door neighbors house. They stopped to check me out, then slowly continued up the street. Apparently that is why we don’t have any cats in the neighborhood.

Gavin was signed up for baseball, but changed his mind and will be playing rollerhockey with Dylan. We took a trip to Hockey Giant right after school on Friday. It’s half way between the Anaheim Duck Pond and Disneyland, so we went to Disneyland for a few hours after outfitting Gavin. The boys had a rollerhockey clinic Saturday. Dylan picked up right where he left off and Gavin looks like he will do well.

Last week someone finally bought our former house in Portland. It was on the market for 8 months!! Luckily the relo company bought it from us back in August at a price significantly higher than it ended up selling for. A year and a half ago houses on our street sold in 2-3 days for the asking price. There weren’t many houses on the market in that price range back then. Builders noticed that and built literally hundreds in that $ range, packing them in on tiny lots. The weather here this week looks like Portland: cold and rainy. It’s snowing on the mountain, so I might finally get to try out the ski resort 12 miles up the road from our house this week.

Two big thumbs up for JUNO!!

Thursday, when I was looking for a half marathon for Shannon, I came across an ad for a century (100 mile) on Saturday. Since I USED to do stuff like that, I checked into it. Less than 48 hours later I was 10 miles from the Mexican border in Ocotillo, CA voluntarily subjecting myself to extreme punishment. The last time I went on a bike ride that elevated my heart rate was 6 months ago, so it was a CRAZY proposition. I drove the campervan 3 1/2 hours south right after work. I did some off-roading on an dirt road and slept in the van. It was a gorgeous day: 75 and sunny. The course followed an old stage coach route north through the Anza-Borrego desert, which was amazingly beautiful. It’s where they filmed the horse sequence for the “Soarin’” ride at California adventure. There was WAY more climbing than I expected (4,300 ft). At ~7 hrs, plus food breaks and one flat repair break, I certainly didn’t set any land speed records, but I finished!! I’ve got major saddle sore going on, but I can still walk. Its just what I needed to motivate me to get riding again.

Grace is keeping the tooth fairy busy. The last day of school before Christmas break she lost a top front tooth. Today, the first day back to school, she lost the tooth on the other side of her remaining top front tooth. She won’t be sporting the hill billy look long as the her one top tooth is super “wiggly”.