Weed Winter Visit 09'

Another great weekend with Erin and Gabe in Idaho! A dinner of tortilla soup with all the Lathams at MoLo to welcome the Weeds + Wanda to Idaho kicked off the weekend.

The next day we had first attempts at skate skiing on the SNRA trail. Gabe's first time EVER on any skis and he did amazingly well! It can only be completely awkward as an adult to learn a funny sport where you strap wooden planks to your feet and then try to get around on a slippery surface. Not to mention girls telling you what to do the entire time. The dogs of course did laps around us. Pretty sure Erin is addicted to a new sport.

A little home-town Sun Valley Suns hockey on Friday night landed Erin with $100 for winning the raffle prize. The Suns didn't fair so well against the BC Toolbags but we had a great time.

Then we headed North for the remainder of the weekend to get in some snowmobiling and cab-ansion time at Fisher Creek. We are so lucky to have the Nickums let us check in on there cabin from time to time. Gorgeous blue skies! Can't wait for the next Weed visit!

*Pictures courtesy of Zach and the Weed's.

Bench Yurt

See that peak in the distance? That's where we are headed.

The yurt is to the left underneath the snow. Troy dug it out when we got there. I have a whole new respect for Eskimos!

This past weekend Zach and I joined 10 of our friends on a backcountry excursion to the Bench Yurt above Redfish Lake. Geared up with backcountry gear and overnight equipment we managed to hike up to the yurt in 3 1/2hrs with temperatures dropping to -30's! Gorgeous blue skies and great mountain views kept us busy talking and moving. As soon as you stopped moving you could feel the cold creep up your spine. The yurt easily slept 12 after a pasta and whiskey dinner. Ian rightfully called it our circus tent because of the bright canvas roof and walls that need to be taken down in the summer. The floor was creaky old pine logs barely covering the ground below. But lucky us there was a sauna with a little wooden stove that heated right up when filled with splintered logs. Most of us couldn't really handle the intense heat but Willie, Michael, and David tried to out do each other, running into the snow banks to cool off every now and then. More then entertaining to the rest of us. The Sawtooth mountain range is spectacular and more then once did I hear comments on how lucky we are to live here! As usual thanks to Zach for documenting our journey! And thanks to all for a great time and hope to do it again soon!

Of course you can see more great pix on Zach's blog: http://zlatham.blogspot.com/

Holiday Season Ketchup

I know, I know, I've been procrastinating on posting for Christmas and New Years. I was kind of waiting for my computer to be back up to speed after I installed a new operating system but it looks like I have to keep working at it. So despite the lack of pictures I'm going to post as vividly as possible.

Christmas was wonderful and relaxing celebrating with the Lathams! We had a great breakfast a' la Jean of tortilla egg casserole and then managed to open gifts like we were kids for the next few hours. We got a lot of snow on Christmas day so we spent most of the morning digging out ourselves, our cars, and our driveways. Zach and I managed to do a short ride on Nick's snow machines before I found myself stuck sideways in the powder. Zach went right into action digging out the sled and getting it back into action. No time for napping so we gathered again at Nick & Jean's for a fabulous turkey dinner with Mark & Patsy. Mark was the lucky receiver of this years re-gift Hostess fruit cake. Only 4,000 calories and will last for centuries! Lucy was in puppy heaven by the end of the night with her new stuffed duck thanks to Jen Lyons and Puckett!

The week of New Years we were excited to have the Winslows from Boston visit with us. We managed to squeeze in skiing everyday and a favorite restaurant every night. The Pioneer, DeVine, CK's, Christina's, Apple's, we really got around. It was fun visiting with dear friends and we appreciate all the effort it took them to reach us in our little mountain retreat. Hope they come back soon!