Jan 30th

Great week of warm weather and near perfect surf. Michele and I have been a little under the weather with a cough that won't quit. It's frustrating but it doesn't stop me.

I took the varsity scouts skiing to Big Bear. The first photo is a picture of half of our crew. 

The next photos are Trevor Joyce with the ski patrol and in the First Aid center. Trevor broke his arm flying off a jump and landing on ice. The snow coverage was minimal at best and unsafe at worst. He broke it at 11 am and our other leader, Ty Mathis, took him and his brother Weston and Jadon (Weston and Jadon are the two scouts that were with me last year when I tore my ACL while skiing EPIC conditions at Big Bear). Luckily they all had their passes reimbursed due to Trevor's arm.

This picture is of me standing where I landed when I snapped my ACL. The huge cliff to where I'm pointing is where I came flying through the trees (we had 5 feet of snow over EVERYTHING last year) and flew off the rock/cliff and landed on the flat main frail. It was snowing very hard, blizzard conditions so I didn't realize that I was flying off onto a flat run. I thought it had some slope and that it would have powder. It felt a lot bigger without all the snow on it like it did last year.

The rest of us staying and skied. I shot video for most of the day and created a little ski video for the boys. They LOVED it. Probably the first time they've really ever been filmed skiing before. The day was great besides Trevor breaking his arm in 3 places and Jacob Banks  blacked out after an ugly wreck. He literally was beating the stuffing out of his head falling off of ramps and killing himself on the terrain park - not that he can afford to lose any stuffing by the way! Yehaw!!

I also signed up to go to Philmont Scout Ranch this summer from July 24 - August 8th, 15 days in total. One of our leaders who planned the trek can't go so they needed a leader. Granted that all the boys are varsity scouts, my boys, I was not planning on taking 15 days out of my family's summer vacation plans but I felt impressed to go. And Rachel Hazen wants me to go to Philmont because RJ is going. RJ is 14 in March and he's 6'1" and still growing. Wow! So I'm getting geared up and educated on what exactly Philmont is all about. After reading more about it tonight, I'm a little surprised I made such a big decision without reading what exactly I'm in for. It's going to be tough. We hike over 100 miles with 30-35 pound packs and literally campout in the total wilderness for 12 straight days. As I remember from Colorado, it rains almost every afternoon as the thunderstorms come over the Rockies. Philmont is in north New Mexico and is due south of Denver. Now I need to get into P90X shape because it's rough.

Kate had a HUGE birthday party at Kayla Parry's house and she was gone for most of Friday and all of Saturday, taking time to sleep at home for a couple of hours in between days. They had so much fun. Emily and Andrew are doing very well as we have gone bike riding and enjoying the summer-like weather.