I won two gift certificates to Mountain Burger in the Pole Pedal Paddle, so we went and used them this week.
When the weekend came, we loaded up the camper and headed out east to Spray, OR (pop. 145) for the Spray Rodeo.
We camped on the John Day River.
I did some fishing,
and some swimming,
and some marshmallow roasting.
I slept well in my new bunk:
On Sunday, we went for a bike ride. It was beautiful, though a bit tough.
The last climb kept going and going. I took some breaks:
On Monday, we stopped at the Painted Hills National Monument on the way home for a short walk. Papa should remember this view:
We made it home just in time for my riding lesson. I rode Jack this week, and we did a lot of loping.
This week, Dad made a recipe from The Mother’s new cookbook. Porchetta chops ( pork chops wrapped in pancetta and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, orange zest, fennel fronds, sage, and rosemary)
and he served them with a fennel salad and green beans.
Big week this week. I started it out with some horseback riding – and some poop shoveling!
It was Pole Pedal Paddle weekend. This year Dad and I raced together in the Family Pair category. Dad started things off with the alpine ski.
He passed me the timing chip, and I was off on the Nordic ski. I hammered right from the start and just started dropping people.
Here I am coming up to the finish. Notice all the adults close behind me.
Now notice that, not but 20 yards later, I have completely dropped them. I passed the chip to Dad, and he took off on his bike, racing toward town.
Once Dad got to Bend and tagged me, I was off on the run. I ran fast. Really fast (8 min and 24 sec miles).
When I finished the run, I tagged Dad, and he was off on paddle leg. Would someone please tell this fool that paddle boards are not fast.
After the paddle, all that was left was a sprint to the finish.
We won our category. By a lot. And, we got mugs! Our team name was “The Manimal and his Dad”. Good name.
For being the fastest Family Pair, we also won a prize bag filled with hundreds of dollars of gift cards and goodies. I was most excited about the gift certificates to Mountain Burger.
The Mother was most excited about the goodie bag.
That evening I set up a celebratory PPP bar:
Sunday, we went mtn. biking. It was cold.
After biking, we went to my school’s fundraiser at a new park in town.
The best part was the super cool bouldering area in the park – although the soft serve sweetened with manuka honey was pretty darn good.
Dad and I bought The Mother a new cookbook for Mother’s Day. Yup. You guessed it – that means new meals. Maybe ones we might not like. This week didn’t look great but was yummy – mostly. Za’atar Tofu Bowls (not photogenic). ..roast carrots, turnips, and broccoli, za’atar seasoned tofu, white beans, with radishes and shredded beet garnish.
It is spring time on the river walk. Goslings everywhere.
Next week I will do the Pole Pedal Paddle with Dad. I will do the Nordic and run legs (the race is a downhill ski followed by a Nordic ski, then a bike, run, paddle, and sprint. We practiced the Nordic leg. Because it was Mother’s Day, I let the Mother keep up.
There is still a lot of snow, but it is disappearing fast. I could ski right onto this chair only a few weeks ago:
Afterwards we went for coffee. Thank you Nan and Pop.
For dinner we took The Mother to the Yacht Club for a reuben. They were out of reubens but thankfully there were cubans.
We planned to go skiing on Saturday, but when we woke up – it was raining at the mountain and in town. We canned the plan to ski and headed to the rock gym. But you can only climb for so long – or The Bigs can only climb for so long. So after lunch – it had stopped raining – so we headed to the park for some basketball,
a game of catch (and some hitting practice),
and a little soccer thrown in for good measure.
Upside to the rain? Flowers. Check out these trees.
Sunday morning it was cold…but the thermometer at the mountain kept climbing – so we packed up the car and headed out for a ski. Jameson met us there. It turned out to be a pretty great ski morning – followed by a soccer game.
This week, Dad made shrimp and chickpeas with chermoula,
I had three days off from school this week due to conferences, so Papa came to town to hang out with me. (My conference was very good, by the way.) On his first full day here, we headed to Suttle Lodge for an overnight trip. On the way there we stopped at Diane’s Riding Place for a little ropin’ and ridin’:
Here’s Papa delivering a stuffy from one mailbox to another. Good job, Papa!
Strawberry, stopping for a drink:
Next, we went for a walk along the Deschutes River at Tumalo State Park:
After our hike, it was on to Suttle Lake Lodge. It was awesome.
We got up in the morning, had a banana, and went for a walk around the lake:
On the way home, we stopped at the alpaca farm:
On Saturday, we colored eggs,
and went for a walk at Shevlin Park:
The Mother insists we behave for pics. This is what we do otherwise.
On Sunday, I awoke to find that I had been visited by the Easter Bunny:
Along with some chocolate, he brought me a poster of Marco Odermatt:
I did an egg hunt in the back yard:
After helping Dad remove the studs from the truck, we headed out to the Cascade View Trails, where the Bigs went mtn. biking, and Papa and I went for a 5.5 mile walk (We walked at least four miles every day.):
The Mother finally got to try out her new (birthday gift) mountain bike:
When we got home, I set up one of my famous bars to celebrate Easter and Papa’s last night here:
For dinner, we had leg of lamb, braised leeks:
green bean salad with tahini and quinoa:
spring potato salad with green goddess dressing:
and a loaf of teff bread:
Other food we had this week, smoked salmon and goat cheese omelettes:
The May Day race was this weekend. It is a four event competition. There is a Nordic race, ski jump, and two GS races. I was up and dressed early for the Nordic race.
We alll lined up for the Nordic start. I am on the far right.
I pulled ahead quickly.
Soon I had dropped everyone.
Turns out I had the fastest time for not only my age group but I beat every boy in every age group (8 to 16 years old) there!
Instead of a trophy, I won a cool mug.
Up next, the jump. I won’t lie. I was not looking forward to this event. I ended up jumping 29 feet and being quite relieved it was done. Here I am taking off.
After the race, Dad and I had to run out and buy me a new helmet. Mine was not race sanctioned. We found this bright red one at a ski consignment shop.
It worked well and I had a good first GS race.
After the race, I planted some pansies for The Mother.
I crashed on the second GS so the ski meister award was not to be for this year. We skied some afterwards. It was pretty awesome.
Busy weekend. On Saturday, I had GS training at the mountain all morning, and then we came back down for my first soccer game of the season. It was a beautiful day.
On Sunday, we had our last Mini-World Cup race of the season and end-of-the-season awards and BBQ. Team Österreich (Matthew thinks he is giving me rabbit ears, even though he is about a foot too short – and wearing mittens!):
The race was an untimed dual slalom. We got a ton of runs and had a blast. I even got to race The Mother, though Dad had a camera malfunction, and there is no video evidence. Here I am racing some of my teammates:
After the race we had a BBQ, and then awards. I received a number of awards. First was the Arc City Award, given to the group of Mini World Cuppers that really know how to arc (see photos above):
MBSEF’s values are Commitment, Honesty, Accountability, Sportsmanship, and Excellence – CHASE. Each year, they give the CHASE Award to the skier that best embodies those values. Marti won this year, but I was one of the nominees. The Bigs were very proud of me for this, even though I didn’t even win the award!
Finally, they gave out the overall season awards. I was the 2025 U10 Mini World Cup Champion!
We tried a couple of exciting new recipes this week. Mustardy cheesy cauliflower:
