I put Dad’s in an air-fryed bell pepper rather than a tortilla.
On Tuesday night, I was supposed to go Nordic skiing with Jameson and then to see Dogman. He got a stomach bug Monday night and couldn’t go. I went anyway. No way was I missing Dogman. We got there early so we could get a couch.
I had a delicious cheeseburger and cajun tater tots. I’d never had a tater tot before. They’re OK.
On Valentine’s Day, which is also my half birthday, I asked to go to The Great Greek to celebrate.
I had the gyro plate.
For dessert, I had chocolate-covered strawberries.
I used ChatGPT to make my Valentine’s Day cards for school. Last month we listened to “Into Thin Air” on the ride to and from the mountain – piquing my interest in Mt Everest. When it came time to make a Valentine I decided it should have Mt Everest and prayer flags, but the prayer flags should be hearts. I tried making it myself. It was coming along OK, but then Dad suggested I try ChatGPT. I just entered image with Mt. Everest with prayer flags and then when I got that, I asked it to add hearts to the prayer flag and voila:
On Saturday, I skied with my team and on Sunday I went for a tour with The Bigs. This sign was, in the fall, very high on the tree. It will soon be buried. They are calling for 28+ inches of snow in the next few days.
This week I prepared a charcuterie board for dinner. The Bigs questioned if this was really making dinner, but they sure did enjoy it. We had toasted nuts, smoked salmon, prosciutto, olive tapenade with seed crackers, crudités, and cheese.
Speaking of cheese, I discovered these marinated mozzarella balls at Costco. So good, I eat them right from the container in copious quantities.
Friday night was Desert Sky Montessori’s skate night. I had a blast.
The Mother was so happy there was a fire pit. It’s been very cold and snowy in Bend lately.
My Christmas gift from Auntie Cheryl was a USB microscope. I LOVE it and look at magnified images of all kinds of weird things. Today the subject was…a favorite of mine…a twenty dollar bill.
I had downhill training on Saturday. It was snowing. The lift broke when I was on it. The Bigs looked like glazed donuts. It was quite a day and there were no pictures because there was no way The Mother was taking her hand out of her glove!
Sunday morning was COLD…on the drive up the thermometer said 3! It was early, we had to be at the mountain for a 7:30 am cross country race start., so we were hoping it would warm up with sunrise. This was my first year doing The Great Nordeen. The Mother and I did the 18 kilometer (~10 miles) race and Dad did the 30 kilometer (18.6 miles).
Given the race length, The Mother thought she was going to have to provide encouragement to help me finish. Incorrect. I took off like someone was chasing me and never looked back. I passed adults, I tucked, I didn’t slow down until the finish … while The Mother made an all out effort to keep up!!!
The Mother almost forgot she did the race and should be in the picture too.
Here are the race results. The more observant of you will notice I’m listed as being 12. It is possible that 9 year olds were not eligible to race, but The Bigs chose not to ask. So, I raced as a 12 year old. 5th place against much older kids indicates they should let 9 year olds compete if they are The Emmett (which The Bigs knew).
Afterwards I had a celebratory kombucha and ginger molasses cookie at Thump.
For some reason, we didn’t have school on Friday. The Bigs had to work. Luckily Jameson’s dad had the day off and he decided to take us skiing – and it was a powder day!
J’s dad is way cooler than The Bigs … he took us for pizza after a long day on the slopes.
The next day I had ski training with MBSEF, but before we started for the day, they had the awards ceremony for last week’s race. Here I am getting my first place medal.
While The bigs were skiing, they found the Bill Healy shrine. He founded Bachelor and there was a big celebration for his 100 th birthday last week…the shrine was probably part of the celebration.
On Sunday, Jameson and I were supposed to go backcountry skiing but the equipment he borrowed didn’t end up working out, so I got stuck with The Bigs.
Dad and I took turns ‘hucking a cornice’.
And we did a bunch of laps in the new snow.
We skied until The Mother got too tired and started crashing.
We tried one new meal this week, cauliflower shawarma with Lebanese slaw and Israeli salad and a Zhug sauce.
It was a cold and windy weekend. Saturday’s slalom training was cut short when the lifts closed due to wind. Sunday was my second Mini World Cup race of the season – a slalom. I am on Team Österreich:
We haven’t had much slalom training yet this year, but I did great!
We had a couple of exciting new meals this week. Mexican breakfast pizza (egg ‘crust’):
If you are reading this on Monday morning, it is Great Grandma Marie’s birthday! Happy Birthday, GG Marie!
I missed the last day of school before Christmas break because I was sick. I recovered enough to ski on Saturday. Surprising, I am sure. Bonus. My bud Jameson was added to my team. Can you tell we are psyched to be together?
We left practice at noon and started our 10 hour journey to Canada. We did not pack light. Thank goodness we have a minivan – we had 11 of 13 pairs of skis and 10 pairs of boots packed.
Day 1 was pretty awesome. We did some downhill in the morning…
and then in the afternoon we did some cross country.
On Christmas Eve, Silverstar gave a discount to anyone dressed as Santa. There were A LOT of Santas.
We had a tree and Santa (AKA The Bigs – yes, I am over the fairy tale) brought me a gift and some cool stocking stuffers. Highlight – whoopie cushion 🙂
Christmas day started out almost sunny.
I attacked a gnarly double black diamond. You old folks are probably familiar with the Gong Show. No one hit the gong on my watch.
After our downhill session we stopped for a Christmas poutine (french fries, gravy, and cheese curds – Canadian mana) for me. Yum yum yum.
After poutine, a Christmas x-country ski while it was dumping. Let’s just say it was intense.
The Bigs rented a place with a king bed for them and a sleeper sofa for me. I’m not sure about The Bigs.
On Boxing Day, The Mother may or may not have needed to relieve herself in in nature’s bathroom. It was a beautiful place for a pee :).
Meanwhile – I was ripping in the powder.
We took a break for a coffee.
Then it was time for ice skating. The Mother thought this was going to be a vacation. She really is a slow learner, isn’t she. This was Webb Ski Camp.
One thing we did agree on – hats. We love hats.
This is where we stayed.
One morning we had a brief period of sunshine.
Then it started snowing again.
Thankfully, for The Bigs, the room had a hot tub. Is there anything better than soaking while it snows?!
We headed home just before New Years. While we were in Canada, we watched a lot of FoodTV and while watching we learned about The Feast of the Seven Fishes. Apparently this is a Catholic tradition where you prepare seven different types of fish for Christmas Eve. This brought back fond memories of fried smelts at GG Marie’s for The Mother and inspired our New Year’s Even dinner of shrimp, calamari, and mussels. We did throw in some brussels sprouts for a ‘balanced’ meal.
On New Year’s Day, we defended our title at the MBSEF Nordic Relay (costumes strongly encouraged).
We did not win, but it was not because of me. Here are my heroic (hee hee) efforts recoup time lost by The Bigs and bring it home.
The snow is piling up at Bachelor. Here is the chair in November.
Here it is this past Wednesday. Mt Bachelor has received 37″ in the last 7 days.
Every morning we leave the house at 7am for 9am ski camp and we see this. Sigh.
Thankfully we have the camper and we can relax and eat breakfast once we reach the resort. The way home is sometimes not relaxing when there are three monkeys in the back of the truck.
But it is always fun. Maybe too much fun. I am exhausted.
Tuesday was the birthday of The Mother. I made her a poster/card complete with tennis, skiing, mtn. biking, rock climbing, and cake!
And, she had all three meals on the Red Plate! Breakfast:
I started playing futsal (type of indoor soccer) last week. It’s fun, and I’m doing great.
I also built a car one evening. It has a headlight,
a stereo system,
a gear shift,
and a dashboard.
I skipped school on Friday so we could go to Portland to pick up our new camper. While it was being installed on the truck, we took the train to the zoo. We had our best zoo trip ever: a beautiful day, no crowds, and all the animals were out.
Check out this hamerkop behind me in the aviary:
And what’s going on with this guy?
We finally got the camper. It’s great! I can’t wait to take it on a trip.
On Tuesday, Pop took us to dinner at Hook and Plow. We had oysters:
ahi tuna salad:
an ahi sandwich:
Pop had a steak salad, and I had a chicken club:
On Thanksgiving, we did some archery:
and some basketball:
We had a grilled leg of lamb for dinner:
Black Friday was spent at the mountain. We had a tailgate lunch after a morning of alpine skiing,
and then we headed into the woods to find a Christmas tree:
This was the one:
I cut it down all by myself:
I decorated it by myself too.
Saturday, we went Nordic skiing. The chair is getting lower. I should be able to sit on it before long.
Sunday was another beautiful day of alpine skiing. Check out my cool new jacket:
The afternoon was spent doing appliance repair. The drier was making strange noises, so we took it apart to try to figure out why. We didn’t really find the cause, but when we put it back together the noise was gone!
