WOOHOO!!!! what an awesome game!!! we just watched the champtionship
(on tv…unfortunately not at hp pavillion) of the pac-10 women’s
basketball… stanford vs. ucla…. went into OT and we WON!!!! 
it was def a physcial game… and awesome threes… like WAY beyond the
arc 3s….. and awesome steals…

YEAH!!!! it started again!!! woohoo!

it’s been SUUUUUUUUUPER windy out here and really stormy…. so with
that… many trees fall… accidents… and with it… power outages….



so our power went out at around 630pm… it went on and off twice…
and ultimately just went completely out…so we were stuck in the
dark… my aunt’s house was out… but my other aunt’s house was
okay…. pat sat in the dark studying for awhile… with our head lamps
of course… and ended up heading over to the gym….



i was on the tread mill running and  part way into it there was a
power surge or something… b/c for a second, the tread mill stopped
which totally threw me off guard… even the guy next to me felt it…
it was weird…… in any case… power was out all over… but on our
way back we saw the gas station lights back on that we had passed…
and we hoped ours would be back on when we got back.. but it wasn’t…
so drove over to my aunt’s to take a shower… and pat went to go back
to get something… and apparently in that time the power went back
on…. we were without power for like 3.5 hours…. bleh…YEAH for power!

The Drive



so we left friday night… just like everyone else…. but we left at
like 830 after dinner… i drove to auburn and switched with pat b/c it
started snowing…. and from there… we went slowly for about 20
miles… and around there we were pretty much in traffic… like if we
went 5 mph we were happy!  literally it took us almost 2 hours to
go 5 MILES!!!!! it sucked big time… we finally got to the condo at
around 430 in the morning…. pat didn’t go to sleep and i slept for
like 3 hours or so….

Heavenly
we were staying in tahoe city on the west side of the lake but pat’s
company got tickets for heavenly in south lake tahoe so we drove over
there… it was snowing when we left so we thought it was gonna be
freeeeeeezing and snowy… but after driving a little ways it was
nothing but sunshine!  it was about a 30 minute drive but it was so beautiful…

the road to south lake tahoe

got to heavenly and spent most of the time getting over to the
desginated meeting place for the group picture… while going over we
saw AWESOME views!

views of the nevada side

lunch was super expensive but at that point i’d eat anything!  i
had a snickers to hold me over right before b/c i felt really
faint…  bleh… met up with some of pat’s coworkers and saw some
pretty gnarly injuries… this one dude went around a tree and hit a
short limb right in his mouth… so he had a FAT LIP and puffy mouth
area… pat’s other coworker was trying to on his bindings but ended up
slipping and his board came around and hit in the head and twisted his
knee…. he had a big bump on the side of his head!  i guess we’re
lucky nothing happened to us….

right about when we were finishing up eating there was a mini
blizzard… it got super cold and we sought shelter in the mini bar…
after that we found out we missed the group photo… boo….spent the
rest of the day getting back to the car… at which point i was getting
pretty tired… so going down a run my calf decided to cramp! 
ended up going on my heel edge the rest of the way…. took a nice
break for some expensive hot chocolate before heading back… and pat
took a last run…

views of the lake

drove over to pat’s coworkers house they rented for the weekend…
pretty much laid out with our feet by the fake fire…. so nice… and
almost dozed off a few times and then headed over to their company
pizza party…. and headed back right after… b/c we had to drive back
to tahoe city… i totally knocked out and pat drove…

Squaw
headed over with everyone to squaw… so much fun! got a few
inches of snow during the night… so it was nice and fluffy except for
the hard layer of ice… had to be careful where we were going… ended
up finding this awesome run we went on over and over again b/c there
was awesome powder… i got stuck several times… but it was
soooooooooooo much fun… ate a quick lunch by a fire (not as expensive
as heavenly and they toasted our buns) and went back up… the last run
though i was sliding on my butt on ice for part of it… really
scary… bleh…

pat’s friend ended up stopping for part of the day b/c her ankle was
totally bugging her and then twisted it a bit so the crossed skis in
the picture is where the ski patrol went and picked her up… luckily
it was horrible, her boots needed some adjustments and she was on her
way… but it still bugged her… towards the end of the day i was
pretty much done b/c i was tired… so went with her to get her boots
fixed again…

we left in the morning and didn’t hit too much traffic… stopped off in the east bay to eat here
for some SUPER yummy pizza… i guess i could have taken a picture but
we were SOOOOOO HUNGRY!  and then came home and crashed…

all in all it was an AWESOME weekend!

WOOHOO!!! i finally get internet on my computer now!!!! it works!!!

NOGGIN PROTECTION

so hopped over to rei really quick today… after scoping out the sale
this past weekend checked stuff out… decided to get a helmet for
snowboarding…
1. for safety… recently my aunt got hit by a snowboarder and
apparently flew and landed on her head and got a concussion…luckily
she was wearing a helmet…god knows what would have happened had she
not been wearing one!
2. to keep my head warm… esp since it’s probably gonna be REALLY windy and snowy and chilly this upcoming weekend!

i tried the one on sale on… and i thought i was gonna get it but part
of padding was squishing my head… and i didn’t want to get it and
wear it the whole day and get a major headache… that would suck… so
decided to go with the next model up which was much nicer and luckily
they had my size…. so anyway… yeah for the new helmet

i can’t believe it’s freakin’ freeeeeeeeezing here now… just this
past monday was in the high 70s!!! now we’re in the 50s… and
chilly…brrrrrrrrr!

i  the olympics!

buzz decided to sleep in between us and when i went to go to the
bathroom and we turned on the light… there he was…apparently he
found that comfortable…

IDAHOLIDAYS

so xmas morning (not having slept at all after xmas eve festivities) we
all piled into the car at about 430AM to head over to the airport…we, as in pat and
i PLUS my mom, dad, and sister….the lines at sfo were LOOOONG! 
but we were in the shorter oversize luggage line but my mom and sister beat us when checking in… after the crazy lines we made it into the terminal….

hopped on our flight and pretty much everyone knocked out…. except i
woke up one time to really bad turbulence and i thought we were gonna
die…

we arrived and managed to lug all our stuff and checked in early at the
hotel… and headed over to xmas eating at the restaurant in boise…
mmmmmmmm food! lots of fun… everyone was tired so we crashed
early…the next morning headed over to twin falls

Twin Falls

amy this is for you since you were still sleeping when we showed mom and dad the snake river….

we headed over to the restaurant for, seriously, a HUGE feast…
sooooooooooo much food and sooooooooooo yummy…. so much that we had
leftovers to take home…. (sorry no pictures)… then we all got a
tour of the restaurant front and back and inside out…

we headed over to shoshone falls after lunch… i think it was my first
time during the winter… i saw it a few summers ago but not too much
water… i guess it’d be best to see it in the spring time….

after the falls, we stopped by pat’s parent’s place where my family got
the grand tour… and had some refreshments and kat’s yummy cheesecake
that she baked fresh that morning…

we left around 4ish b/c we had to pick up my sister’s bf later that
night around 8… got back to the hotel and ate the yummy leftovers from lunch….picked up eric…

afterwards pat and i went to visit pat’s elementary school friend, whom
i FINALLY got to meet… and pretty much his whole family… and then
went over to his grandma’s to hang out a bit….

Sun Valley

the next day we headed over to sun valley… showed my parents the
lodge… walked around and did some shopping and then we all went snow
shoeing… my parents stopped and rested and the rest kept on going…
we never really made it to this cabin that the trail takes us to b/c we
needed to head back to return the rentals…show snoeing is fun!

dad trying to put on his snow shoes…me & pat….me & amy…. eric and amy (she was chasing me..ahhhhh)…

amy trying hiding behind the tree to scare my dad…  and my mom taking a break…

we went into town and did some shopping at elephant perch and this
ketchum outdoor store….and went back to the lodge for dinner…
defintitely underdressed but we didn’t know where we were eating
anyway… so couldn’t be helped… anyway the food was DELICIOUS… had
a spinach salad, a really tender steak, so tender that it was like
cutting into butter…. and lastly pat and i split an assortment of
sorbets and berries… mmmmmm… and it with it entertainment…a live
jazz band… and then an acapella group dressed up as carolers who were really good…

after dinner was a really long drive back b/c of bad weather… but pat
was an awesome driver… my mom was like mesmerized by the snow storm
that we were driving through…got back to the hotel and crashed…

Boise

my sister did her own thing that day… mainly chill and pat and i went
to have lunch with his family for his cousins’ birthdays… mmmmmmm
pizza…. and after that… nothing but MAH JONG….
except a break to have dinner…started playing around 3PM… and
didn’t end until 1130PM… maybe half an hour break for dinner… i
couldn’t hang… i think i stopped playing at like 10PM… b/c i
couldn’t think straight… i’d throw out tiles and a second later
realize i should have kept it…. anyway…. it was fun!

the next day we took my sister to the airport and finally got to go to
best buy…. went to lunch at this nice viet restaurant.. and headed
back to his grandma’s house and we went with his other cousins to go
bowling….played 2 rounds and then played some air hockey… and went
to hastings… i got a pretty good deal on some dvds… woohoo! and
then we all went out to dinner at this chinese buffet place that his
grandpa really likes….

Tamarack

 so on the last full day in Idaho we decided to head up to tamarack
despite the weather…. especially since we brought our boards up and
had not gone snowboarding at all the entire week….i think if we were
in a different car we would have gotten there faster but we left around
730AM… drove up through the mountains and in some slush… and then
snow… and one time pulling over we got stuck in the snow…. so
there’s pat putting on chains… and then a little later this dude
stopped to help us… he was gonna try and tow us out but we didn’t
have any rope so he kept on thinking of ways to get us out… and
finally we pushed the car out of the snow… yeah!

we FINALLY got to tamarack… took us like 3.5 hours or so….almost 4
i think…. but we made it… did a quick bunny slope run… and ate
lunch…and went up higher… takes about 15 minutes to get up there so
plenty of time to come down…

we ended up stopping… b/c we were tired and we wanted to watch the
ucla game… which we did… missed the 1st half but watched most of
the 3rd quarter and then the tv went out… when we realized it was
time for us to go…. went to the bathroom and then the power went out… but came back on…

here’s what all the cars looked like when we left….

later that night we checked out the boise night scene…headed out
to meet one of pat’s friends and hung out this one place… the lower
place was giving out free pizza… too bad we had dinner before… and
like cheap drinks….

Last Day

we packed up everything (LOTS of stuff) and headed over to his
grandma’s… hung out a bit and went to lunch with pat’s mom and
sister… ate at this place called goodwood… had bbq ribs… i ended
up getting a steak sandwich but it was super yummy… went back and
found out our flight was an hour delayed… hung out a bit and ended up
playing mah jong with his grandma and grandpa….  finally got
back…but sfo was PACKED…so it took awhile to get our luggage but
luckily my parents just parked… made it easier… and had a very
chill new years eve night… mainly cleaning