Laid Back January

Not many blog posts this month as we laid pretty low on the weekends without any major adventures.  After Leo’s first backcountry experience we took him back up to Timberline with us for a day of bluebird skiing while he chilled in the car.  Emily and I found some great snow out of bounds and took a couple fun runs until I lost her and she ended up skiing far off down the mountain.  She called me and I told her to backtrack up her tracks.  

She then spent the next 2 hours on a spirit quest in the woods making her way out while I was lucky enough to meet up with Rob and Kate from Corvallis randomly and get a bunch more laps in.   Poor Emily.  When we were getting ready to leave we let Leo runaround the snow by the parking lot plenty before we met up with Chris, Arley and her roomates at Charlies in Government Camp for some dinner.  The bar tender was a complete ass so I didn’t tip him or order food while we were there.  Arley’s roomates were totally stoked to meet Leo and he was excited to see Chris again too.  

The following weekend was a surprise 3 day MLK weekend for me and Emily as WSI let us know we could have the day off last minute.  This worked out good for us as Leo got snipped on Friday morning so we needed to stay with him all weekend while he wore his “cone of shame”.  It was so sad to see him banging around the house with that awful plastic around his neck that they called “an elizabethan collar”.... He couldn’t hold any of his toys down with his paws and I think he was depressed with it.  We took him for a walk and every time he sniffed the ground the damn thing acted like a shovel scooping everything right up with it into his neck.  He didn’t seem in much pain and we made sure he got his medicines as he needed them and we picked up a bunch of treats to spoil him with during his recovery.  On Monday night, 4 days prior to when we were told to take the cone off we couldn’t take it any more and removed it keeping an eye on him.  He didn’t bother his stitches so I left it off when I went to work on Tuesday and he was just fine.

On Friday the 25th we headed down to the Dixie outside of Shedd, OR near Corvallis for Sarah’s big 30th birthday bash.  They had tons of food prepared and a whole gang of her friends were there.  We went to the Dixie for some beers and to sing karaoke.  Holm sang Jimi Hendrix if I remember right and Sarah and Adam’s friend Bill was a big hit as karaoke appeared to be his favorite thing in live.  At around midnight Emily and said our goodbyes and headed into town to stay at Kevin and Alexa’s who ironically were actually staying at our place in Ridgefield for the night.  It was a convenient house trade.   

When we got back to our place on Saturday they stayed over again to look for tattoo artists.  Emily and I met with Videographer on our way back to Ridgefield on Saturday so we all decided to get some Sushi in town and chill back at the house for a great relaxing night with our old housemates.  Leo and Dromi got along great together although I think Dromi wanted him to play a bit more with her.  On Sunday Emily and I got up and had a fun afternoon skiing at Timberline again in good weather, this time without her getting lost :).

Finally, to end the month, my friends Logan and Eric headed to Ski Bowl on a Tuesday night after what was supposed to be an epic storm on Mount Hood.  We were hoping for some deep powder but what we found was about a foot and a half of white cake frosting all over the mountain.  So thick and heavy that skiing through it was almost like skiing bumps.  We did find a few fun drops off a cliff band but even with a slope under them we all came to nearly dead stops due to how thick it was.  Instead of skiing the whole time we found ourselves at the base enjoying a couple pitchers of good beer and chatting.  Before the lifts closed we got a couple more runs in while it rained on us.  Regardless of the weather and crazy thick snow we had a great time skiing together.