January 2012
January 8
It’s taken me a whole week into the new year to finally start this journal, but we certainly haven’t been slacking off.
We kicked off 2012 by going up to Mt. Hood to ski. The mountain had gotten over a foot of new snow on the last Friday of 2011, and we had plans for New Year’s Eve already. So, we went up on Sunday, January 1, 2012 knowing that the majority of people wouldn’t be getting out of bed that day anyway. Boy, were we right! Not only was it a light day people-wise on the hill, it was a gorgeous, sunny day. Blue Bird, as they say. We enrolled the girls in a morning ski class to get them ready for the season. Jada and I started out low, but we ended up all the way at the highest lift (Cascade Express) at 7300ft. It was a beautiful panoramic view over the eastern Oregon landscape. The snow was a nice groom with patches of ice. My skis did ok, but I’m still tuning in my boots. I fell several times as I regained my legs for the season. Jada did great all day with only one fall on the tricky drop-in to the Gulch run. We had a great day in all. The girls had fun too. Ellen’s instructor said she was probably ready to move up to the next level. Phoebe was upset that she still had some things to work on. We stopped off at Huckleberry Inn for brunch, but it was packed. We had to wait about 45 minutes before we got our food. We didn’t do much after we got home.
The girls had Monday off, but I was back at work. I got to ride to work all week except for Tuesday when I picked Ellen up from her tutoring. Jada was able to re-work the schedules so that the girls could get into the next level of gymnastics which was only available on Wednesday nights. Piano started up on Thursday again. On Friday, Phoebe had finally saved up enough money to order her own full-size (well, full doll size, not full girl size) American Girl doll, so Jada helped get that ordered.
Saturday morning was the first day of the girls’ 4 week ski camp (every Saturday in January) called Snow Blasters up at Mt. Hood Meadows. We left a little earlier than normal since it was going to be another sunny day, and Saturdays are always busier than Sundays when we usually go. We got the girls checked into their program, and then Jada chose to go to the demo center to rent skis this time since it’s only about $5 more than going to the rental center, but you can try out any ski or different skis all day. She got a nice pair of twin tip Rossignols to try out. The snow wasn’t as good this Saturday because they had only gotten a couple inches for the whole week. Looks like we’re going to have a similar weather pattern for this January that we had last year where we just didn’t get very much snow. We had to ski some pretty icy areas. After going on the nice groom on the south runs off Mt Hood Express, we went to North Canyon and tried one of the runs we had found last year. With the reduced amount of snow, plus ice, it turned Middle Fork blue run into what seemed like a black run. This was the only time I fell, but Jada was able to pick a decent line all the way through. This will be a fun one again when there’s less ice. We took a break just before 11am to have lunch and rest our knees for a bit. During that time, we ran into some friends from Jada’s school and our friend Laurie with her son and husband. I even saw someone from my office while Jada ran off to help Laurie. We checked in on the girls when they came in for lunch at noon. Ellen was disappointed because she had to spend all morning on the Ballroom Carpet with her group while we had found Phoebe out on Buttercup. Then we headed back out. The runs at Vista Express had softened up a little bit in the sun, and they were pretty nice. You could usually tell when ice was coming up because someone was going through them. The sound is pretty loud. Talking to a father with his 4 year old son on the way up, we found another little run that we hadn’t tried before off Texas Trail which is the lower portion of Catacombs trail. It was a fun day even though the conditions weren’t perfect. We found Ellen in the afternoon, and Jada rode the lift with her once. She was doing a great job on her turns. We came in early enough for me to run to the car to put my skis and boots away and return to the car for Jada’s shoes when she got a great deal on a new pair of the skis she’d chosen to demo. So we’ll get to pick those up next Saturday. We were able to pick up the girls around 3pm. Ellen had had a better afternoon getting to head to Buttercup where we found her, and then going on up Easy Rider and down Fireweed. (Note: I know many who might read this have no idea what I’m talking about with the names, but I’m just trying to keep up with their progress. You can reference the map if you want a general idea of where these things are.) Traffic wasn’t bad at all on the way home. We stopped at a Subway in Troutdale for dinner. They only had 1 person working the counter, so it took a while to get through the line. We were home by 6pm.
Sunday morning, we decided to be lazy and go out for breakfast followed by grocery shopping, piano practice, and household chores. This is the first day of the piano minutes competition, so we had to make sure to time the girls practice. Phoebe and I were supposed to have guitar practice, but after we drove to our instructor’s house, and knocked on the door and no one answered, I checked my email again. I found that he had to cancel this practice to take his son back to college. The message had gotten sucked into the junk mail folder for some reason.
January 15
It was another cold, dry week. I ended up being a bit sick on Monday and missed work. I went back to bed after the girls left for school, and I didn’t wake up until noon. Just achy all over, a bit of a chill, and a cough. The girls had their usual busy week with Ellen’s tutoring, violin, a middle school open house and both girls’ gymnastics and piano. Phoebe also got a permission form to have the opportunity to participate on the chess club tournament team. She’s really excited. The tournament falls on the same day as the Junior Festival for piano, but her teacher said it would be stressful to get her ready for it, even with all the hard work she’d been doing.
On Saturday we went skiing again. It was windy and clear in the morning. We tried the Hood River Meadows lift area so we could hide from the wind a bit while the girls were in class. The groomed run was long and fun, but icy and was a bit sparsely covered at the bottom. The second run we tried the Park Place run down the other side of the lift. It was ungroomed and it was complete ice. The cut across to the groom was probably a black with the current conditions as we picked our way down between the rocks, stumps, grass and shrubs. We made it, but it was tiring, and Jada’s knees were doomed. We went up to find the kids. We managed to find Ellen and Phoebe in the morning. Then we went to eat lunch. The weather came in around this time too. It started snowing and blowing. When we went to see the girls at lunch, Ellen’s feet were really cold because her boots were too tight. She got fitted with larger ones before she went back out, and she was much happier in the afternoon. Jada and I only did one run after lunch because it was so windy. We just wandered around the lodge taking care of things and looking around in the shop. I took our skis to the car before picking up the kids. Ellen was late again this week. Apparently, Ellen’s instructor always likes to get one more run in. The drive home was a little more slow this time because of the weather. We were following a Corolla that was having difficulty staying on the road, but they didn’t pull over to chain up or anything. We were able to pass them after we turned onto highway 26 and 2 lanes. Then it slowed down again through Government camp because of an accident. Then we got stuck behind a Durango going way too slow. We eventually got through and stopped in Gresham for dinner at an Outback Steakhouse. We got home around 6:30pm and we all went to bed early.
Sunday morning we woke up to a dusting of snow on the ground, and we did our grocery shopping before Phoebe and I had to head off to our guitar lesson. We got back just before our first friends arrived. Our tandeming friends came over for brunch, and they taught us how to play one of the new games we got for Christmas called Carcassonne. It’s in a similar vein as Settlers of Catan, but you build the board as you go. We had lots of fun. I actually won in my first attempt at play. Jada finished last, but as she said, it’ll probably be the last time any of us win at that game. She’s devious that way. They spent the entire afternoon with us, and then our other friends came over with their 2 sons for soup and games. Jada made a couple soups, and they brought one as well. We had a lemon-chicken and potato-broccoli soup that Jada had made, and pasta fajole (which I apparently don’t know how to spell) as the third. They were all good. Then we played “Pass the Pigs” which is a game where you roll small pigs like dice to see how they end up. This was followed by a game of Ladybug Farkle which is similar but with dice instead of pigs. I just watched, and I still had fun. Phoebe won Pass the Pigs, and one of the boys won Farkle.
January 16
Monday was MLK day. I had to work, but everyone else had the day off. I decided not to ride to work because our hill looked iffy with another dusting of snow overnight. It wasn’t a bad drive to work, though, so I wished I had ridden my bike. Oh well, I didn’t want to get stranded at a MAX station like last year when I had done something similar anyway. Jada and the girls were supposed to get to see some friends today as well, but everyone ended up sick…not us, the friends. I’m guessing they spent the day doing their practice and what not. Plus, I hear they watched a movie and Ellen had to attend her math tutoring in the afternoon.
January 22
The wintry weather pattern continued into Tuesday where it snowed again over night. Up and over Sexton Mountain, it was a winter wonderland, but still easily passible. The lower elevations were seeing some big, wet flakes, but not much sticking. Some of the side streets and intersections were slippery, though. Wednesday night was the big burst for much of the area when we had 6 inches around 1am, and we heard later people had turned their alarms off assuming school would be canceled. However, the rain started not much after that, and by morning, it was nothing but slush for the morning commute. Apparently the big storm side-swiped the Willamette Valley since west of town, they had 9 inches to a foot in some areas while most of the Portland metro area just saw a bit over night and rain all day Wednesday. Seattle wasn’t quite so lucky. They had a foot of snow in the city followed by ice. I-5 was shut down due to the skating rink it had become through central Washington. Here, we only got rain and lots of it, in the valley. The mountain got hammered by 5 feet of snow which made us hopeful for skiing on Saturday. On Friday, Jada had the carpets cleaned after a couple days where Scarlett had coughed up something on them this week.
We left earlier on Saturday morning than last week in anticipation of the snowy roads (5:50am). Traction tires were required on the passes, but I only had one section where I slid a little in a corner. Overall, it was enough to determine that snow tires would probably be a good idea for the winter even though I didn’t have any real trouble other than that. The wind was whipping at the mountain with gusts up to 40mph. The snow was falling in tiny pea form, and it was surprisingly dry. We hung out with the girls until they had to gear up to head out, and we followed them over to Buttercup since all of our regular lifts were on wind standby. Phoebe’s regular instructor hadn’t been able to get up to the mountain that day, so she had someone different. We waited probably 20 to 30 minutes to get on. The girls were in ski school, so they get to jump the line a bit. Jada and I were asked to accompany a couple of little boys from a ski class on the lift since the instructor needed an adult to ride with them. Phoebe’s class was already coming back down by the time we were on the lift. Our fingers were cold by the time we reached the top of that short ride. The groom was a little icy, but where there was fresh powder, it was nice. The wind just wasn’t any fun, we were cold, and so we went back inside to warm up. Of course, it had taken so long just to get that far, it was already lunch time for us, so we went and tried the restaurant in the lodge. I think it’s called Alpenstube or something like that. The food was good, and it came fast which allowed us to still meet up with the girls when they came in for lunch. They were cold, but they had a fun time in the morning. Jada had picked up a face mask for Ellen since the wind was blowing so hard, and she didn’t have a balaclava like Phoebe does. She also got them some hand warmers for their gloves that can be used more than once. I talked Jada into going up Mount Hood Express which had finally opened for a run down the North Canyon trail. The snow was really nice, it was being able to see where we were going that was the hard part. The wind was just blowing the snow sideways in curtains that concealed the run from our vision. We did find our way down to the tree line which helped, but the snow was still blowing into our faces hard. So we made that one long run and called it a day. It was almost 2pm by that time anyway, so we waited for the girls to come in. Thankfully, they came in early, and we were able to get on the road earlier. Ellen had finally lost the tooth she had been working on for several days while in a lift line. We had told her just to spit it out on the snow for the mountain fairies to take care of, but she saved it in her pocket and brought it home. The snow had drifted in behind the car, so I trampled it down a bit while putting everything away, and I didn’t have any trouble pulling out the space. Visibility was poor all the way to the turnoff for Highway 26. We took it slow, and then slower still as the traffic was bumper to bumper through Government Camp and down to Rhododendron. We stopped at Outback Steakhouse in Gresham on the way home for dinner and had the girls to bed by 7pm. We followed not too long afterward.
Sunday was our usual day of errands trying to get shopping and various instrument practices done. We visited some friends to finally drop off Christmas presents before Phoebe and I went to our guitar practice. Jada made soup. It was really good. I’ve heard that soup is good food, well, Jada’s is the best.
January 25
What a crummy week. I started getting sick Sunday, and I went to work on Monday. However, by Tuesday I had a fever and a headache, and I was just wiped out. I stayed home from work. I couldn’t even look at the screen without my head hurting so I couldn’t catch up on mails or anything. Ellen and Jada got to go look at the middle school that Ellen would go to next year if she can’t get into one of the options schools. She came home pretty excited about the drama and music. I didn’t get to go, but they told me all about it. Apparently, they share lockers until 8th grade which I found odd, but Jada said it was the same way when she was in school. I don’t think I would have liked that very much. Phoebe also found out that she’ll be a chess club tournament team alternate which she’s pretty excited about. I stayed home again on Wednesday. My fever had broken, but I was still pretty miserable. Not much screen time again today. Although by the end of the day, I was able to deal with the screen a bit more. I guess I’ll try to catch up as much as I can on work tonight and try to get to bed early so I can get to work tomorrow. The middle school counselors visited Ellen’s class today to talk more about their options. She’s decided that she really wants to do band in 6th grade with an eye toward being in marching band in 7th grade. Her band instrument preference would be clarinet, but from the sounds of things, you provide preferences, and they give you what makes most sense. We’ve heard from others that they are prone to give kids with a musical background the French horn.
January 29
Thursday was the kindergarten Big Rig day. We had Ellen stay home by herself for the first time while Jada, Phoebe, and I drove the quad over to the school to park in her classroom until it was time, and then I went to work while Jada and Phoebe went back home. I came back to the school at 11:30am to pull the bike out and help setup. We did the display until 2pm ending in the rocket club firing off their rockets on the field. Friday was an in-service day so Jada had the girls just sit in her room and read while she did her meetings and planning at school. In the afternoon, we had the piano tuner come to take care of the piano on. There was a faulty hammer that he had to glue for us, but otherwise, it was in good health.
Saturday was the girls’ last day of their Snow Blasters class for January, and it was going to be a lovely day. We got their pictures taken for their season passes. The winds were blowing, but they weren’t oppressive. They were enough to keep us from taking the lift up to Cascade, and we only took one trip up Vista just before we went in for lunch. That’s when we spied Phoebe from the lift coming down Fireweed. I was not in the best of shape after being sick all week, but I did ok. I did fall several times when I let my mind wander. The temps were in the upper 30’s, so the snow was sort of a mashpotato-y consistency. We went in to see the girls at lunch. Ellen was in early. She was raving about going on the Shooting Star express lift which is one that I had never done myself. It’s her new favorite. Phoebe came in closer to noon. We sat with them while they ate their lunch, and we left when they went out. They were going to get their pictures taken with their groups before spending the rest of the day out. Ellen’s teacher took them up on the slalom course for some runs. Phoebe went to Vista with her class which she really liked, then headed to Stadium and Hood River Express. Jada and I skied Shooting Start Ridge since I’d never been over there. It was really nice and there was no line. Mt Hood Express was full, and it kept stopping so it was nice to just get to the bottom and head back up again. In all, we must have ridden 10 lifts that day which was a new record. The sun was poking through, and it was just a really pleasant day. It was disappointing when we decided to call it quits after I had fallen a few more times and Jada’s knees were aching. We had been hoping to find Ellen on the slopes, but they never made it back over to Shooting Star. The rest of her class was enjoying Lady Slipper off the Stadium Express lift. The roads were pretty dry when we left, and we made good time on the way home. We stopped off at an Olive Garden in Gresham for dinner. It had been a long time since we had last been there.
Sunday morning, we went to OMSI to use our free passes to take a tour of the submarine, USS Blueback, parked on the river outside. We were the only ones in our tour group, so that was nice. It was the first time I’d been in there. It’s the sub that was used in filming some of the scenes in “the Hunt for Red October” as well as the original Hawaii Five-O television series. The girls got to sit in the pilot seats. The tour was 45 minutes and given by a retired naval officer who, though he had not served on a submarine, had actually served on the USS Midway aircraft carrier that the girls and I toured in San Diego several years ago now. We got to see the torpedo bay (full of real, not live, torpedoes), mess hall, living quarters, and bridge. It was a neat tour. I can’t believe I had never been on it before. There were only a couple of really tight hatches to get through. Then we picked up some books in the gift shop. We just can’t seem to help ourselves. The girls each chose a new placemat as well. Ellen chose our Solar System and Phoebe another version of the periodic table with pictures of examples from the elements. The rest of the day was spent on chores until guitar lessons.
January 31
I finally got to ride my bike to work again on Monday, and I broke a spoke in my rear wheel again. I took it in to the bike shop to get a new wheel. They applied the warranty on the old wheel towards the new one so it wasn’t too bad. And the first month of 2012 is already in the books. Hard to believe we’re only 10 months from the end of the world. (He’s only mentioning that because we finally watched the movie on cable…and wow, was it bad!jp)
Journal entry: February 1, 2012
