A day at the Zoo

The girls went to the zoo today (thanks GaGa for the annual membership!) and saw all their favorite animals.

Click on the photo to see what they did.

The girls help grill a red snapper

We picked up a nice large red snapper for supper today. The kids were helpful, and assisted as I stuffed it with lemons, thyme, and other seasonings. They could not resist poking the fish eye as it reposed on the counter, feeling its strange squishiness on their fingertips. The snapper was fresh and quite delicious, having just been flown in from New Zealand. It's crazy how far seafood is sent in our modern world.

Click on the picture to see the final stages of the fish's path up the food chain.

A few ski pix from February

These were pictures that were taken by the mountain staff, and mapped onto our electronic ID's.

Pretty slick technology. [Click on the photo above for the slide show]

Unfortunately, not as many from Vail, as we did not see as many cameramen there as we have seen in Tahoe.

It appears that Kirkwood has joined the Vail family, so perhaps if there is some snow in the next month, we will make a trip there.

Vail

We had a nice trip to Vail the last few days, thanks to my mom and sister who watched the kids for us. J. has a new powder blue ski shell style jacket which seems to do a good job keeping out wind/cold/snow. I've still got my multi pocketed jacket (14 years plus of hard usage) and it's still going strong, other than maybe some Velcro losing its stickiness. We also got to use our new glove liners, which worked well. These are synthetic and are better than the cotton/Lycra ones of the past, which got threadbare fast.

There are some pictures (and captions!) if you click on the slide above.

Super Bowl Sunday at Heavenly

In the last 20 years, I've probably only watched one Superbowl. It's a great day to ski, since crowds are thin, and usually the mountain will offer some kind of deal to get business on what will be a low traffic day. Today was no exception: cold temperatures which are good for soft snow and nice conditions, clear skies with bright sun, and so little people that we could park right at the top of the California base lodge.

J. got both our RFid tags working so we could track our vertical, and get pictures as well. Click on the pic above to see what we did today.

There were two odd things that happened today at the mountain: a glider crash landed on one of the lower California mountain runs, and they had to clear out the parking lot (where I was waiting) to land a medevac chopper (which I don't think was related).

It was a long day trip, but thanks to my mom for watching the girls today, so we could go for the day.  

Group picture from the top of Lookout

This picture is of our whole group, on the backside of Northstar, in the new area called Lookout Moutain.

 

The terrain in this area is much steeper than the rest of the mountain, and is a good area for advanced skiiers to play in.