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!
On Monday, there was no school, so we went mountain biking. Cold.
And then to the rock gym, where The Mother took no pictures. Then there was school, work, and putting the studs on the car in anticipation of some weather. And weather there was/is. The mountain opened the earliest it has opened since 1998 because they received 66 inches of snow already. I can’t downhill ski for another week (doctor’s orders) but I can cross-country ski.
Here I am dropping the Mother.
66 inches is a lot, but by the end of the year, I’ll be able to sit on this chair.
After skiing, I went to Jameson’s for a sleepover. Although, sleep maybe shouldn’t be included. We didn’t go to bed until 11 and were up at 6:30 am. We did a lot of marble run building.
When it was time for The Bigs to pick me up, J and I were not ready for the party to stop, so we went to the climbing gym.
