New Years Day

After great skiing on New Years Eve, and warm weather supposedly on the way we didn't know what to expect for weather / snow on New Years Day.  Looking out in the morning revealed blue skies and maintained cold temps!  Ed came up with his friends Brooks, Eric and Christy and we all headed up to Mt Catherine.  We found great snow, good stability, and not too much wind.  Two laps of fun and we headed home.  Great way to start the New Year!

The crew near the summit

Christy

Ed

Eric straight lining the narrow exit

Brooks

Heather

Cabin Fever Cure

I had the whole week off from work and was really looking forward to some skiing and hopefully some nearby tours. But no...it rained the whole week. We went skiing most days anyway. We skied in everything from mist to torrential downpours. It was miserable.

So I adapted. I read for hours on end in my favorite chair, with my coffee/tea in hand. I did sewing projects. I organized cupboards. My vacation was SUPER relaxing but, I was itching to get outside in something other than rain.

On the eve of New Year's Eve, we got fresh snow!!! And then, as if that weren't amazing enough, the clouds cleared and we had a partially sunny day. What?!? This is Western Washington, not Colorado. Fresh snow and sun?!?

So, we headed off to tour Kendall Peak...

B on the summit

Mt. Rainier

B, making some turns; 

although there were a couple large parties up there, 

we had the whole bowl to ourselves as they were taking turns in the trees.

Heather skiing Kendall Trees

While we were out skiing, Brandon mentioned we needed to be back from our tour by a certain time b/c he thought we needed to spend New Year's Eve in the city, being social and doing something fun. I didn't want to be rude but I was thinking I really don't mind our usual stay-at-home New Year's Eve. But he kept insisting that we should do something so I went with it.

He suggested that we could drive into Seattle for dinner and then go dancing. I was not super excited but, again, I went with it. After dinner, we started walking towards the Neptune Theatre and I glanced up to see the marquis, 'Brandi Carlile' (in concert). And then I understood what this whole 'going out' thing was all about.

My sweet husband knew I wanted to go to this concert but had decided not to spend the money, and so, he bought us tickets and surprised me with them. I am a huge Brandi Carlile fan and have seen her in concert several times before. This was, by far, THE best concert I have ever been to, of any artist, any venue. They made it more of a 'party' event so the crowd was totally into it and the band just had a ton of fun. They played for 3 hours, while the crowd hollered and sang along. And just before midnight, the staff of the Neptune handed out champagne so we rang in 2012 in style. I toasted my husband and gave him a nice kiss... :)

Happy 2012 to all our friends and family! Cheers!

Family Christmas 2011

We are always so happy to have family over for Christmas and hope to keep this tradition going for many years. Our family members say they come to hang out with family but we know that they actually come b/c we guarantee them a 'White Christmas'. Although it rained up until and after Christmas day, the white stuff did fly on the actual day, so we kept our guarantee. Some photos of the family fun:

Uncle Brandon hauls Pekay up the sled hill.

Pekay rides the snow unicorn.

The kids unwrapping their presents...

 Calder liked the packaging much more than the actual presents...

 Mmm...ribbon.

 Pekay got this super cute kitty, home-made (by momma Tara, left) from a sweater...

...and a Star Wars Light Saber from Santa Claus.

The ladies tried on their new aprons (wow, how domestic!).

Tara, Sheena, Heather, & Jane 

And the boys played with their new toys-
the low-flying helicopter was very interesting to the cats too.

Baby Nason stopped by for some play time with Calder...

but he spent most of his time climbing up & down the stairs,

with a little assistance from Don.

[I've already told Melissa & Jeremy

that I'm counting on Nason as my ropegun

to set all the hard climbs in a few years.]

There was much smooching of the little ones.

...and hugging, of course, Nana Teresa with Calder here.

We didn't get any pictures of the loads of eating that occurred because, well, we were eating. 

We ate well, though, rest assured. This year, the cooking was somehow much less stressful and everything turned out according to plan. Weird, huh? No unexpectedly dry stuffing, overdone meat, overflowing pots of boiling water, etc. Even the dishes were done in quick fashion, thanks to helpful family members.

It was another great Christmas. We missed those who couldn't be with us, but hope to see you next year. I'll leave you with this final snow shot...as I type this, it is POURING rain outside. :(

We had grand visions of creating funny, large-scale snow scenes...

(Calvin & Hobbes style, if you are familiar)

but the snow bear and snow unicorn
were all we could really do with the lack of snow.

Next year, next year.

Christmas Eve Hyak Vert 120 Rando Rally

Recently I was inspired by a group of skiers out of Utah, that were tired of traveling to ski race, so they started their own little underground rando race circuit.  I sent out an email to some friends with an idea to start something similar around Washington.  The email spread courtesy of Greg Louie and, before I knew it, we had a race set for Christmas Eve morning with a vert format.  The vert format is basically a set course with a given amount of time to complete as many laps as possible.  In our case, the course would be the Hyak ski hill, with each lap being close to 1000 vertical feet.

When the alarm clock went off this morning it was difficult to roll out of bed, especially since we were greeted with 34-degree temps and rain. When I walked over to Hyak at 7:30, there were only a couple people there, and it crossed my mind to bail. Then more and more people started to roll in, so it was on.  By race start time we had 16 participants!

The conditions were pretty crumby, with off-and-on rain, fog, and 3-4" of glop. Skiing was challenging for sure, but after it was all over, it was worth it. We had a great time, there was suffering, but it sure was nice to start off the Holiday weekend with some good exercise. Hopefully another race will be on the schedule soon.  Big thanks for everyone that made it out, and to my family members that came out to help with keeping time and bringing over some hot cider and pumpkin pie for after the race.

Approximate results below:

Seth Davis - 6 laps 2 hrs 2-3 min?

Brandon Kern - 6 laps 2 hrs 5 min

John Mauro - 5 laps

Greg Louie - 4.5 laps

Crispin Prahl - 4.5 laps

Heather Kern - 4 laps

Holly Walker - 4 laps

Kevin Curd - 3 laps

John Stimberis -3 laps

Melissa Chapman - 3 laps

Francine Curd - 2 laps

Elissa Eng - 2 + laps ?

Anne Melgaard - 2 laps

Cindy - 2 laps

Dawn Frearson - 2 laps

Katie Smith - 1 lap

Lining up to start

Into the fog

Brandon 1st transition

Seth Davis

John Mauro

Greg Louie

 Heather Kern and John Stimberis 

 

Melissa 

Holly Walker

Elissa

Anne, Dawn & Cindy

Pumpkin Pie and Cider for our efforts

Fail

Quickly put together a ski movie for North Bend Film Fest, it didn't make the top 3.  Hopefully the top three this year were better than last year, because the top three last year were pretty lame.  I guess it wasn't aggro enough?  Well here it is, not on the big screen.


The Hy(ak) Life from Brandon Kern on Vimeo.