Christmas Tree Hunt, 2008

We had a wonderful time going on our annual family Christmas tree harvest in the Blue Mountains!We were able to arrange for everyone to get Saturday off so we drove to Grandma and Grandpas Friday night and all slept in the living room. We woke up to snow falling! That was exciting for everyone. We started driving up the mountain and the snow kept getting deeper and deeper. Before long, we were making new tracks through more than 2 feet of fresh powder. Even though we had 4WD going in the Toyota, it was still a bit scary and Denise was just a little bit nervous. So we got to a turn around point and went back a little ways to a parking spot and got on our winter gear. We hiked up a trail a ways and took advantage of the grade to stop and sled a few times. We kept our eyes out for a good tree but the area we were hiking through looked like it had a fairly recent forest fire so there weren't a lot of family size trees around. We finally spotted one up on a steep mountainside and Spencer, Nate and Paul climbed up to it while Denise and Justin waited on the trail below. We cut down our prize and then spent some time bombing Denise and Justin with snowballs from above!!! It was fun. We then got back on the trail and headed back to the truck. We were trying to find a second tree for a family in our ward that didn't have one but there were none to be found. As we headed back on the trail, we were relieved to hear the snow plows finally out clearing the road. The only question was whether they would plow us into our parking spot! We got our tree loaded and decided to head further up the road to our traditional parking and sledding spot. We got there and the powder along the road was 3 to 4 feet of fluffy stuff! Paul promptly backed into a ditch trying to park and got stuck. Fortunately, the snow grader had a tow strap that he had already used a couple of times that day and came to our rescue. We spent a couple more hours playing in the snow, diving into the powder and getting cold. We had a good lunch with hot chocolate. Spencer and Paul headed off into the woods to find the second tree and came back with a nice one. It was a good trip! Our family really enjoys these outings as there isn't usually that much snow at home. Hope you enjoy the video and photo!

Badger Mountain Bike Ride

Okay, I'll admit it, I love to ride my bicycles. Mostly its my road bike in the early morning for exercise. This is my hobby (along with swimming). But I also enjoy time on the mountain bike and today was a fun ride. It wasn't a long ride but I got the heart pumping hard and had a great view from the top of Badger Mountain. I started on the west end of the mountain at the parking area (left end of orange line on picture). Then I sweated and grunted my way up to the top. The bottom of the orange loop is my trip up, the top is the trip down (until they merge where I went up and down on the same trail) In the picture, you can see a couple buildings where antennas are perched on the summit. Before I came back down, I strapped on the Flip Video camera. You can watch the video if you'd like. Sorry, it's a little shaky with some glare as I headed into the sun at points. It was a good ride, about 35 minutes total time.