Happy Birthday!!

To my darling daughter Mackenzie aka Kiki!

15 already.  Growing up fast.

Monday was a holiday for many people.  Including myself.  So for the 4th MLK Day in a row I went snowboarding as Cascade Mountain.

I got up there as they opened at 9:30AM, got my 8 hour lift ticket and off I went.  

When you only do this one time a year, you never really get any good at it.  So the day goes on and I have some good runs and some not so good ones.  

It's a busy day, although not as busy as some weekends according to some of the people that work there.  I am just not used to waiting that long in a lift line and to get anything to eat? forget about it.

Still it was a nice time in the fresh air and I got to knock the dust off my gear.

They have only been open 10 minutes here

Picture from the top, although the snow and fog did not make for the best shot

Lunch time break

Puzzle!

Last year for Christmas I picked up a 1000 pc jigsaw puzzle as a family gift.  Inexpensize and we get to spend some time together working on it.

I published a time lapse video for that here.

Well that went over so well I did the same thing this Christmas.  However,  this was only a 500 pc puzzle.  I did not realize last years was so big.

Sunday we set to making it.  A bit less than 2 hours later we had finished it!

On a related note, Kiki and I went to see the final Hobbit movie last Tuesday.  We had fun and made a day of it at Bayshore. In Bayshore they have a dedicated game store that carries many jigsaw puzzles.  They carry GIANT puzzles.  32,000 pc puzzles!  Finished size of 17 ft by 6 ft!  Not sure how you even work on such a huge puzzle? Thats bigger than a normal size piece of plywood.  Don't think I will get that for next year.  

Ok so I am a little excited about getting outside.  Some real snow would be good for skiing would be nice and maybe a warm up too.  

I mean I have had my 2015 vehicle and trail passes for a few weeks now!

Not only that I also used my REI gift card (Thanks Jenna!) to get a little camp pan for my stove.  I even tried it out after I got it.  Worked great!

What a dork, right?  Whats next?  

Start off New Years Day right.

Baby Back Ribs on the grill.  Have a happy and prosperous 2015

Yappy Hew Near!

Well another year gone by and as far as they go it was up and down.

Some of the awesome things that happened:

I got back into cross country skiing. Not a ton, 11 miles total.  It’s a lot more workout than you would think and the winter was super cold.  Excuses, excuses… 

I fulfilled a longtime want.  I finally got that canoe, (what I originally wanted 25 years go) well actually Tracy and I got kayaks.  At the Canoe show.  Then finally brought them home.  I got 80 miles worth of paddling under them too.  I also busted out the bike into road mode.  Almost 200 miles on the mountain bike.  Most of that in one ride – the Trek 100.  Thanks to all of you who sponsored me for that ride.

 

Then Kiki graduated grade school.  That led to a Road Trip! Another awesome trip with my kids.  7 days of bonding with my daughter. Such a great experience.  I can truly say it is so worth it.  Especially since Joel turned 21. Yea you don’t get to go back once they get older.  I have hopefully created some memories for both of them with these trips.

Yea, Joel is 21 and in his third year at the University of Arizona. That means we also get a back to school trip in.  Tracy’s favorite trip of the year.

The Mackenzie started high school.  Going through a lot of those déjà vu moments as we traverse the high schools hallways.

Now onto some of the not so great things that happened in the year:

I had to paint the house.  Yea, it’s done. Took a long time to do and man it’s a lot of work.  Scraping, and repairing and caulking and getting on ladders and sky lifts.  It also ate a lot of good weather for doing fun stuff like boating and biking.

Kiki broke her elbow in gym class, playing dodgeball on roller blades. What the hell?  Something I expect kids to do in the driveway because it seemed like fun.  Not by an adult in an organized way indoors.  It set her back quite a bit in the basketball season missing over 1/3^rd of her inaugural high school season.

Tracy developed an issue with her hip and ultimately ended up having surgery in November.  Finally off her crutches and cleared to drive.  It prevented her from doing a lot this summer too.  Like helping paint! Ha Ha.

So what is in store for 2015? More Kayaking trips! Overnight camping paddle trips. More bike riding and if I can’t do that, hiking.  Doing a lot of research on the Ice Age Trail, 45 miles of which are in my back yard.  Go fishing more.  Got my first fishing license in over 10 years last year and forgot how much I enjoy it. Take more pictures.  Getting my first DSLR for the road trip, I forgot how much I like getting behind the lens and how poor my composition skills are. Lastly, I think we are shooting for a family vacation in Mexico!

These are all the things I want to do outside of regular day to day activities. Ambitious? Maybe. Doable? absolutely!  Cheers!

-Jeff