Month: January 2024

After many days of snow and ice. We finally had a sunny day on Monday.

It was so nice we had a Cliq chair lunch in the parking lot.

The weather returned to The Mountain and Bend shortly after our lunch. I had the day off from school on Monday for Martin Luther King Day, had a snow day Wednesday, had the day cut short on Thursday, and another snow day on Friday. I kept busy – including making baguettes.

And watching movies. Lots of movies. Happy Feet, March of the Penguins, Benji. and Spy Kids.

The snow was so serious they had to break out two ‘truck snowblowers’ to clear the parking lot.

On Sunday we had our first race. At the start of the day, it did not look like a good day for a race.

I’m on Team France this year.

The weather ended up being OK and I did great. Final results show me in 10th place of the 54 nine, eight, and seven year olds who raced.

Wednesday was a snow day.

There was snow in the forecast all week at the mountain (they received 70 inches in 7 days) so we were pretty excited to hit the slopes on Saturday…but all the lifts were closed and it was snowing hard. We went cross country skiing instead. It was 1 deg F outside. Brrrr…

So cold, that if you look closely at The Mother, you will see a snotcicle hanging from her nose. Ick.

The way to stay warm when it is cold – go fast.

After skiing, we had to shovel and then go grocery shopping. It was 0 deg F and there was about 8 inches of snow on the ground. No one was excited. The Bigs demonstrated their blossoming laziness by declaring they were not cooking dinner and we were having tapas instead…smoked salmon, three different types of cheeses, air fried nuts, pickles, and store bought (GASP) bread.

We woke up on Sunday sure it was going to be the greatest powder day ever. We packed up our breakfasts and planned a 6:45 am departure (to beat the long-weekend-holiday-maker traffic). In the morning we saw that the mountain received 7 inches the day before and 7 inches overnight. We were ready! And then we got there. No lifts were running and there was a thick ice layer over all the powder. Eventually a few lifts started up. We had to hike to them.

While the conditions were not super, it sure was a pretty day.

In the afternoon, my coaches decided they had had enough dealing with the lifts. They set a small race course and we hiked to the top of it, took a run, and repeated. I did that a lot.

Then I came home and shoveled, sledded, and stayed outside in the snow until The Bigs made me come in.

On New Year’s morning, we did the MBSEF nordic relay race. On their website, they highly recommended costumes. We are not costume people and were pretty put out by this, but we wanted to do the race, so … Thankfully, The Mother had not given away my superhero capes and masks.

As you can see from this picture of the starting line – most other participants were costume people.

Dad started, Mom did the second leg, and I was the anchor leg. Here I am recovering all the time lost by The Mother and then some.

We won. Here are our awards – blow pop bouquets.

It has FINALLY started to snow in Central Oregon. Unfortunately, with snow comes heavy traffic to the mountain. We didn’t want to be late to MBSEF, so Dad made our oats and put them in thermoses so we could leave extra early and then eat in the car when we arrived.

You may or may not be able to tell why The Bigs have made a new rule that I must comb my hair before leaving the house.

Here we are enjoying our second powder day of the season. It is about time!

And the new recipe for the week – Kung Pao sweet potatoes from Veg-Table.

Santa may have been feeling a bit guilty about all the tofu he makes me eat. My stocking was full of meat and candy.

Santa also brought me a bongo board:

We made sure to ski Christmas Bowl on Christmas morning!

I also used the $5 Canadian I got for my allowance this week to buy a ‘sled’ run.

The guy running it let me do five laps instead of the one I payed for.

When we got home, I went to work building my robot.

I wrote some code to make it move.

Ultimately making it dance.

The Bigs made me a t-shirt to celebrate my amazing endurance and grit.

Some of the food we ate this week. Christmas breakfast: homefries, mushrooms and spinach, and eggs with delicious Captain Mowatt’s Greenie sauce. Thank you Cheryl.

Christmas dinner: bison steaks, asparagus, and brussels sprouts.

The Mother took an amazing cookbook out of the library called Veg-Table. This week The Bigs made two recipes from it. Kimichi creamed corn.

Lemon and artichoke yams.

New Year’s eve, we had the traditional pork posole.