South Lake Tahoe!

This past weekend we took a weekend get-away with Mike, Laura and Mike's brother Derek to South Lake Tahoe!  We rented a cabin in South Lake Tahoe that had a hot tub and a nice fenced in yard for Alee and brought all the fixins for great home-cooked meals.  When we arrived Friday evening, they were getting 3 inches of snow per hour!  Luckily we had our Subaru so there were no concerns on our part, but we definitely saw lots of people struggling to get up the pass on the way there! On the way down we stopped at the Reno REI and saw they had some garage sale remnants left. (Because REI has a 100% no questions asked return policy, they sell their returned goods through a "garage sale" twice a year.)  Boy did we get lucky - Ed and I both got "almost-new" snowboarding boots for $9.95 each!

Saturday, before we headed to the mountain, we dropped Alee off at Tahoe Best Friends - a no-kennel doggie day care!  She started playing right away!

By about 9am we hit the slopes at Sierra at Tahoe - a resort with a nice variety of runs for all our skill levels.  Ed and I checked out the 2.5 mile long green run - Sugar and Spice.  There was 2 FEET of fresh powder on the grounds, so it made falling a little softer!  There were a lot of people falling down in the powder so by the afternoon the slopes looked like golf balls with little holes everywhere.

 The drive up - TONS of snow!

 The Slopes - heading to the top of the mountain

 On the lift!

Lake Tahoe in the distance

After a lot of falling and some pretty cool moves, we headed back to get Alee and go back to the cabin to make dinner - hamburgers, potato salad and Tres Leches Cake!  Of course we had to sit in the hot tub a little to start recovering...

 Alee helping to cook...

Relaxing!

Sunday the forecast was calling for heavy snow so we decided to head out a little sooner than expected.  There was so much snow we couldn't even see the lake, but we headed to a little park to try and get a group shot.  With so much snow there was no place to even rest the camera - so we have a "2 part" group shot!

 Alee was sad to leave the cabin...as we all were...

 Group shot Part 1...

 Group shot part 2 - even with Alee!

Cloudy and snowy Lake Tahoe

We said good bye to Derek in Reno after a fantastic lunch at the Wild River Grill and then finally headed back to Klamath Falls on perfectly dry and clear roads.  Great weekend!

Another Fun Weekend!

Since our last post we took 1 rainy weekend off to relax and clean house and prepare for the next several snowboarding weekends!  This past weekend we started off with the Run for the Music 5K!  This was a local K-Falls race to raise money for the music department at Klamath Union High School.  The high schoolers actually ran WITH their instruments!  (Although they didn't play them...)  It was quite fun watching 3 band students running while pushing a "mock" piano down the road! (not the real piano thank goodness!)  We didn't get any photos since we were busy running (along with all our friends who ran it with us!) BUT I pulled this from the local running group's blog:

 One of the students carrying a tuba...

We ran with Mike, Laura and Mariah: Mike impressed us all with his time around 28 minutes! Laura came in behind him at 30 minutes, Ed made a new PR with 31 minutes and Kristin and Mariah did better than they expected at 38 minutes.  Not bad for very little running this winter!

After running our hearts out, we headed up to the WONDERFUL City of Bend on Saturday to enjoy some of the City that hadn't seen yet.  We checked out a local winery (Maragas Winery) who had a Pinot Noir that we loved!  They also had some fantastic Tapas food for gourmet snacking!  Next we let Alee play her heart out at one of the local dog parks before heading to our hotel with some great local pizza and a new bottle of that fantastic Pinot Noir. 

Sunday we dropped Alee off at Strutt Your Mutt for some back country hiking and headed to Mt Bachelor again!  Ed and I really got down our turns and switching from front edge to back edge.  With this under our belts we're ready for Tahoe next weekend!

Mt Bachelor and Hogsback again!

This past weekend we had many high hopes of hiking some of our unique volcanic peaks here in Southern Oregon, but unfortunately all the roads to get to the trailheads were snowed in...so we chose the old faithful Hogsback Mnt for Saturday with Mike and Laura.  When we arrived there were even some other pups there for Alee to play with!

Hiking around in the snow...

Alee!

"Lone Pine" at the top of Hogsback...well...near the top at least!

Alee and the other pups fighting over a stick!

My good lookin' husband!

On Sunday we headed to Mt Bachelor again for more FREE snowboarding!  We started learning to link our turns where we switch from front edge to back edge without stopping...lots of falling, but we're getting it!

Ed and I showing off our new goggles from Sierra Trading Post (super discounted!)

The Mountain Crew!

Wyatt's First Backpacking Trip!

This weekend we made the long trip to head out to Houston to be a part of Wyatt's very first backpacking/camping trip!  Wyatt is the new Gosling family member and he is only 3 months old! When we arrived we gave Wyatt a present from Auntie Kristin and Uncle Ed - his first camping outfit!

In case you can't read it, the outfit reads "My 1st Camping Trip"

Of course we had to play around a little with Wyatt before taking off...

Happy baby!

We headed out to Lake Somerville State Park for a nice 3 mile hike-in backpacking trip.  The weather was absolutely gorgeous with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s!  We hiked to our campsite along the lake and enjoyed some of Ed's famous tuna quesadillas for dinner.

 Momma (Christina) hiking the trail with Wyatt AND her backpack!

Wyatt was definitely ready for dinner...

The next morning we relaxed and had some pancakes and "ghetto mochas" (instant coffee mixed with instant hot chocolate) and enjoyed showing Wyatt a little more of the wilderness.

 Our tent site

Ed playing around...

 Wyatt lovin on his daddy

Dad hiking with Wyatt AND his pack...

Lake Somerville - only 90 min from Houston!

After backpacking we did a little shopping and then said goodbye to mom and dad (Christina and Paul) and Wyatt and hello to Christy, Rohit and Eshaan!  We enjoyed a fantastic dinner of Lupe Tortilla (yay for good Mexican!) and really enjoyed catching up.

Monday morning we left the 70 deg temps of Houston and headed to the airport to take the long flight back to Reno and then the even longer drive back to Klamath Falls. 

Back in our winter wonderland!

Hogsback and Bachelor

For Valentine's Day weekend Ed and I decided not to spend time and money on flowers and food but instead on hiking and snowboarding!  (are you surprised?)  Saturday we did Hogsback again (this time with NO Snow!)  and we finally got all the way to the famous "Lone Pine" with Alee!  We started the hike with Mariah, Joe and Alee's friend Daphne and ended up meeting at least 12 more dogs on the trail!  It was definitely a dogs day!

 Ed and Alee on the trail - Alee was off leash the entire time!

 The famous "Lone Pine" - this tree is beat up, leaning and all brown...people wonder how it's still standing...

Alee doing a little off-trail hiking to look for "snacks"

 Needless to say...Alee was pooped after the hike!

On Sunday we headed up to Mt Bachelor in Bend for FREE snowboarding!  The resort makes it's easy hill (aka bunny hill but very large) free Thurs - Sun - so it was ideal for 2 people who didn't know what they were doing!  We were so busy on the mountain we didn't get any pics except of the gear before we left - we just love our Subaru!  We had a great time though and plan to go back in 2 weeks!

Reno and Snowboarding at Tahoe!

After being in a work conference all week in Reno, we met up with some friends at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno and had a fantastic fun weekend!  The Grand Sierra is a blast itself with a bowling alley, movie theater, indoor golf facility, etc - we could have spent the whole weekend there and never ran out of things to do!  BUT instead we decided to head out on Saturday to Mount Rose for some snowboarding!  Ed had never been snowboarding before and Kristin had only been once when she was a teenager, so we were both brand new at this!

 Kristin and Ashley before they got their gear on!

 Laura and Mike and geared up and ready to go!

 Ready for snowboarding!

 Matt and Ashley on the lift

 "I'm actually standing on the board!!!"

Modoc National Forest Hike

This past weekend Kristin wasn't feeling well, but with no fever or achiness, we decided to head out for a calm hike in the Modoc National Forest along Willow Creek for some petroglyph hunting!

Alee was very attentive while we were eating lunch...waiting for any leftovers

One of the petroglyphs we saw - the biggest one!

Alee along Willow Creek

A little pond near Clear Lake

Another, smaller petroglyph