Do You Bivy?

Do you bivy? I don't bivy... or let me re-state, don't want to ever have to bivy.  Will, he's excited to bivy.  He was going on an overnight back country ski tour this pas weekend but it got cancelled due to high avy danger.  But to prepare for the trip he had to purchase a bivy; the plan was to build a snow cave and sleep inside it. To protect your sleeping bag from moisture you put it inside a bivy.  I do not get the allure of this but he was stoked and sad when the trip fell through.

For a more detailed description of a bivousac sack "bivy sack" please click here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivouac_sack

I think Will looks like a bug caught in a net!

 Happy camping.

February

Hello :)

No particular excitement going on this week, but did want to share a few photos.  The weather has been really nice and yesterday was the clearest day I think we've ever had since moving here over a year ago.  We could see Mt. Baker in all her glory.

We haven't lived in our house for a full year yet, so we are still learning surprises from the yard.  This week we saw a single bloom open up on a camellia tree by our front door.  It's going to be beautiful when the whole thing is flowers!

The white peak behind the tree is Mt Baker in the distance.  It's a shot from the corner of our dining room; I've never seen it before from our house and told Will our value just went up because we have a view! haha... sort-of ;)

Cascade Mountains in the distance, view from the dining room.







Peach cake I made for dinner at a friend's
house this week. It was good; I also added a
lime glaze made with powdered sugar.

Hope you are enjoying your Saturday -- I've spent mine sleeping in and piddling around the house (which I must admit, I'm very good at).

Cooking, Skiing, Grilling...Oh My!

Goodmorning (or afternoon, or night)!
This will be a hodge-podge of a post but will show you that I'm staying on track with one of my goals for the new year --- cooking.  I've been using a lot of recipes out of Barefoot's new book, Foolproof, given to me by my sweet friend Gwen. 

But before we eat...we exercise :)  A few photos below from a backcountry ski trip last weekend to Yodelin.  Also below are some photos from two weeks ago; we stopped on the way home from Stevens Pass to watch some kayakers come down the Skykomish River.  It was a beautiful day and if you look closely, you can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance behind the kayakers. We've had a temperature inversion the last few weekends, meaning that it was warmer at higher elevations and cooler in the lower elevations, very strange. Anyways, it made for beautiful, sunny days in the mountains. Who wouldn't want to ski when it's sunny and in the 40's :) Made me happy to get sun!

And now for the cooking!  I've been making all sorts of things, photographed a few.  Let's see...I've made: two soups, chocolate chip cookies, kale chips, home made vegetable stock, orechetti with broccoli rabe (and chicken sausage for Will), seared scallops on tomatoes, and we grilled on our new grill!  My parents got us a grill for Christmas and we decided to order a Weber. We got it on Amazon (duh) and it came in two days; however, if you don't buy at a store, you have to put it together yourself!  It came in a ton of pieces and looked quite daunting.  It was actually pretty simple and was a success!

Orechetti with broccoli rabe; I added the meat
separately at the end.

Success, looks good, AND works!!

Kale chips

Seared scallops on tomatoes with crostini..
Sorry, can't get the photo the right orientation.

Home made tomato soup

I am going to a Superbowl party today so am going to make mini-pizzas or mini calzones for an appetizer.  Will kind of laughed when I said I was going to a sporting event party and asked me if I even knew who was playing.. I didn't.  But, I told him I knew it should be intersting because the 'brothers' were involved.  "Which brothers are these?" he asked me.  Hum... he called my bluff. I had just overheard someone at work say the 'brothers' so I said, "Oh you know, Payton and Eli Manning." He just laughed... anyways, Happy Superbowl day!

Backcountry Ski Tour: Chair Peak Basin

***I'm doing a bit of 'back-posting' with this entry, but wanted to document the trip and share some photos.***

Will and I ventured into the back country for a ski tour, all by ourselves (!!) a few weeks ago.  We headed out to Snoqualmie Pass and parked right behind Alpental in a very popular lot.  The plan was to do a loop out and back to Chair Peak.  We set out on our journey early very early and followed the path through a woodsy trail for roughly a mile or so then broke out to a basin right by Source Lake.  We headed up towards Chair Peak and then decided not to pursue because of signs of unstable snow, although avy danger was moderate to low.  Instead of pursuing Chair Peak, we skinned up the basin just to the east, somewhat following the trail to Snow Lake.

The sun was glorious and the snow was pretty good.  The sun beat down all day so towards the afternoon the snow was a little more unstable, sloshing off when it got wet, but overall, a very nice day.  Sorry for my lack of trail and location detail, it's been a few weeks so some of the specifics escape me.

What is this giant orb in the sky??

Update from Cali

I've been working my hiney off this week preparing for our campus events but have managed to enjoy a few things this week that are share-worthy.

Sunset on Pacific Coast Highway
One of my work events was in Santa Barbara.  I drove up from San Diego and hit Santa Monica and Malibu just as the sun was setting.  It was a beautiful time of day.

Snapshot below is from right outside the UCSB bookstore.... um, why didn't I look at this school as an option when I was going to college?  It's on the beach, has beautiful desert mountains in the background, is laid-back, is 70 degrees in January, and everyone rides beach cruisers with cute baskets.  And did I mention that it's on the beach??!

After Santa Barbara, I headed down to LA, which is where I am now.  What can I say... LA is a hot mess.  UCLA is a cool campus, right in the city and near great shopping.  USC is a beautiful campus but is in the ghetto.  I could never live in LA because the traffic is horrendous and the air quality is visibly harmful to my lungs (I could see smog from miles away as I drove into the city).  It's a fun city to visit; I got to see the Hollywood sign on the side of the hill, drove through Beverly Hills, saw Bel Air (no Fresh Prince though) and ate at a cool restaurant that used liquid nitrous and sciency stuff to make their food.  The restaurant was at the SLS Hotel, called The Bazaar (http://www.thebazaar.com/).

 

That's all for tonight, packing my bags and heading east.  You'll have to check back to see what exciting places I go next :)

See you on the flip side.

Traveling for work sometimes has its benefits.  This week I'm in Southern California enjoying the sun, water and warm temps.  This must be my reward for traveling to Buffalo last winter :)

It's nice to be greeted at the door with champagne and sun.

Saw a double rainbow on the walk back to my hotel.

Walk down to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean at sunset.

Paraglider

I ended my evening with a soak in the hot tub and a little swim in the heated, salt-water pool.  Ah, life is nice.

A New Day, A New Year

2013
Every January, or sometimes December 31st if I'm feeling ambitious, I write down a list of about 10 things I want to accomplish in the upcoming year.  These aren't New Year's resolutions, per se, rather things that I aspire to do throughout the year. If I don't get to each and every one of them, I didn't fail, but isn't half the battle putting pen on paper?  I'll share my goals with you for this year and would love to hear yours.

In no particular order...
1. Heal my knees so I can run.
2. Work on my posture.
3. Maintain my current, healthy weight. (Last winter I put on a few extra pounds and am happy to say that I've taken them off).
4. Save XX amount of money, pay down XX on the mortgage...sorry, no details ;)
5. Lead climb a 5.11 A.
6. Visit a new country (going to France & Switzerland in March --- check!).
7. Cook something once a week.
8. Blog 3 times a month.
9. Read more.
10. Update our bathroom and dining room light.
11. Learn to sail.

Now that they are on paper, hopefully I'll complete at least half of them; that wouldn't be half bad!

 For last year's words belong to last year's language and 
 next year's words await another voice. 
                                                                      - T.S. Eliot