Home Improvements

When Dave & Vicki were here last weekend, Dave helped us fix a door molding and some mop board moldings. This weekend we painted them and rearranged the furniture. It's so nice to have those things completed!

Skiing Tamarack

Last weekend Dave & Vicki flew in then we all drove north to Tamarack where we met Mom & Dad for a day of skiing. We had a great time; the weather was great and it's fun to ski together. Tamarack seems to be better each time we visit...

Skiing Brundage

Mom, Dad, and Andrea met us in McCall last weekend where we rented a condo and skied Brundage. It was cold (-10 F) in the mornings, but it was probably about 20F on the slopes on Sunday afternoon.

It had been a long time since Andrea and I skied together; she's a good snowboarder!















In the afternoon we saw this cool pillar of light shining down into a few trees on the slope. I've never seen anything like this before.

Skiing Crystal Mountain

We skied Crystal Mountain on Thursday and enjoyed new snow, clear skies, and great views of Mount Rainier.

Here's a picture of the moon over some of the chalets at Crystal Mountain.

On Saturday, I went to Bainbridge Island to have lunch with my college buddy, Brian Taylor. I took this picture of Rainier on the ferry back to Seattle.

The Nutcracker

This past weekend HP flew Steph and I to Seattle to work a Demo Days customer event. We sold HP products to holiday shoppers in a Best Buy on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. As you can see, we had a nice view of the Space Needle and the Macy's Star from our room in the Fairmont Olympic.





























On Sunday morning Dave and Vicki met us for brunch at the Georgian Restaurant in the Fairmont, then we watched Kristi dance in The Nutcracker. She danced beatifully!

More Pictures of Christmas in Gifford

Here's a picture of Uncle Tim and Jenny and Grandma's house from just south of the Apple Tree.






 

Johnson Christmas

We went back to Gifford last weekend for the Johnson family gift exchange at Grandma's.

There was about 18" of snow so Aunt Barb and Uncle Eric brought their snowmobiles. We all had great fun riding them over the fields around Grandma's house in the evening and then under the full moon. It was so great! It reminds me of the snowmobiling we used to do on those same fields when I was about 8 years old.

Here you can see pictures of Stephanie and I, Jenny and Mara, and JZ and Colt.
















 

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving in Gifford this year. On Thanksgiving morning Dad, Ring, and I took a brisk walk before we all went up to Aunt Helen's for dinner. We watched some football and played the board game "Battle of the Sexes" after lunch.

It snowed on Thursday night so we went for a horseback ride on Friday morning. It was cold but beautiful.

We rounded out our weekend with some games of Apples to Apples, dominoes, and Password and went to the theaters to watch Flushed Away.

We're very thankful for our family and had a great time with those we were able to be with.

Brandon & Allison's Wedding

My college roommate Brandon Sheltrown married Allison Marrs yesterday. It was a great wedding and we're so happy for them! The ceremony was at Eastwind Community Church and the reception was held in the Penthouse of the C.W. Moore Building downtown.






























After the wedding Stephanie and I took in Opera Idaho's presentation of the Barber of Seville at the Morrison Center. Like Die Fledermaus it was self-satirical and fun--not stuffy like a lot of people expect opera to be.

Since it was all in Italian there was a screen above the actors translating their lines. Some of the translations were especially amusing too ("she could give a seminar in working the system"). I'm sure they were a oft-used idioms in Rossini's Italy. ;-)


Stephanie has been thinking about the horn solo from the overture all day and is in the study playing it now. :)

Halloween

On Halloween, our friends Adam & Tiffany Greyson invited us and another couple to their house to play games and hand out candy to the trick-or-treaters. We went in costume--dressed as Adam & Tiffany!














Adam is a great cook (and made delicous chilli for dinner), so I wore a chef's hat marked with some of his trademark sayings. Tiffany loves cooking and is an electrical engineer at HP, so Stephanie wore her apron and a little circuit board necklace. (Tiffany's also pregnant, so Stephanie stuffed a pillow under her apron.)

We took the new game that the Kristi, Kyla, Kim, and Elissa bought us--Apples to Apples. It was a big hit! 

Biking in the Foothills

Today the weather was clear and in the upper 60s so this afternoon we took our bikes out to the foothills and rode a 5 mile loop on some trails. Here are some pictures we took (including a promotional shot for my X Games sponsors).

Testing Picasa Web Albums

Here's a test of Picasa's web albums. This seems like a much easier way to share photos!

Kamiak Girls Visit

Invasion of the Kamiak Knights

Kristi and three of Steph's high school friends flew in from Seattle to spend this weekend with us. Yesterday we went out for tapas and toasted the Vandals' and Huskies' wins over Utah State and Arizona. Today we picnicked at Ste Chapelle Winery's harvest party and danced to the High Street Band. We had a great time with them!

SoCal Visit

Last weekend HP flew Steph and I to Glendale for a customer visit. We worked two afternoons trying to sell HP products in a CompUSA there.


















Ryan, Amy, and Bentley graciously hosted us and Andrea came down from Santa Barbara for the weekend to join us. Andrea recently accepted an internship with Sue Firestone and is enjoying it so far.

George Winston

Steph and I had a fun time on Thursday night eating at Boise's new Spanish restaurant, Tapas Estrella and then catching the George Winston concert in the Egyptian Theatre. This is my fourth Winston concert and I was pleasantly surprised to see that about 40% of his set list is new; the previous three shows were carbon copies right down to the jokes.

New Bikes

On Friday we bought a couple of Diamondback Response Sport mountain bikes from Reed Cycle in Eagle. Steph's is green and mine is charcoal.

Today we took them for a 15 mile spin on the Greenbelt. We rode from Veterans Memorial Park east to Harris Ranch. They're great!