Dinner Time

Like many toddlers, Gavin isn't afraid to play with his food. Last night he decided he wanted to make an edible hat.

Fat Tuesday!

And I'm not just talking about his thighs.

A Stroll in Avon Pass

With the weekend running out and nothing but freezing rain in the forecast, we decided to get out for a hike today. Gavin enjoyed the view from the backpack and the girls (myself included) relished in being able to run free. We saw cows and horses and grouse and deer and SIX golden eagles and Gavin saw the backs of his eyelids for an hour or so. When we got back to the truck he was in a playful mood and once we got home and he got some lunch in him he went down for ANOTHER nap for almost three hours! Its amazing what a little fresh air will do.

Pals

Gavin loves Joie and Joie... well... Joie's just in it for the snacks.

Fun with Grandma

Brandon's mom (aka Grandma Debby) has been staying with us to help out while I'm broken. She has changed a multitude of diapers, watched hours of baby sign language DVDs, supplied me with ice pack after ice pack, and provided valuable support in all aspects of housekeeping. Thank you, Grandma!

Julie the Acrobat

We LOVE snowboarding. I've been snowboarding with Julie for 12 years. She's good and can hang with all the shreddenist fools! Her first major injury in her snowboarding career occurred yesterday at Powder Mountain on the randomest of traverses. Bad light and woop-tee-doos sent her for a loop and she ended up upside down and breaking her collar bone. They always say "it's not if, but when". Well, it happened. Julie, being Julie, talked about the last time she had a major injury and that it put a damper on her fun times. That was when she was 11 and ran through a plate glass window at a Howard Johnson's (had to have a tendon repaired and lots of stitches) and kept her and her brothers from going swimming. While I was with her for an hour before the ski patrol showed up with a snowmobile to take her down, she kept saying how pissed she was that she couldn't keep riding and find the sweet turns that we were searching for. It was a scary experience, but I thank the Powder Mountain Ski Patrol for their expertise and making sure my lovely lady got off the mountain and we were able to get her help. However, nobody worry their little bones, because I know my lady and she will be shredding the Nar Nar before you know it! ;)

On the bright side, it hurt less than childbirth.

I'm no stranger to emergency rooms. I've had more stitches than Frankenstein and during my formative (clumsier) years I was practically on a first-name basis with the ER doctors at my hometown hospital. In my adult years I've been much less prone to injury (with the exception of a few altercations with sharp objects in the workplace and in the kitchen), allowing my husband to assume the title of "most likely to crash and burn". So when I performed a post-crash personal assessment on myself yesterday at Powder Mountain and discovered that my shoulder had crunchy stuff inside it, I was stunned. This sort of thing doesn't happen to ME! But it did, and a glorious first-of-the-season day of snowboarding was cut short (ok, an entire season of snowboarding has been cut short). I will rest and I will heal and I will get back on my snowboard and I can't wait to ride again. Meanwhile I'm too much of a wimp to try and take my shirt off and I'm really starting to stink. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for Brandon!

Hay is for Horses

One of the neat things about where we live is that there's a horse pasture directly to the south of us. We visit the horses on occasion and sometimes give them a fistful of grass to eat. There's not much grass to be found around here in February, but I guess the horses aren't that picky - yesterday one of them took a little chunk out of Gavin's finger! It bled a lot but it turned out to just be a little nick. Nevertheless, Gavin was outfitted with his very first band-aid. I'm surprised it took this long!