Funny Story

Yesterday I was washing dishes and told Jake to go get his underwear on so that we could go to the store. He vanished and came back holding up a pair of pants. I said "no, those are pants, go get your underwear." He said "OHHH" 5 minutes later he came back wearing pants so I figured he was going 'easy breasy' down in that area. At the store I noticed that there was some white material bunched up by his waist line. He was wearing grandma Olsen's new jogging pants, and they were a little big so I just thought that it was the linning of the pants. Later that day Jake pulled down his pants and thats when I realized that he was wearing Matts briefs (that he wears when he goes and works out). Of course they were giantic on him. The only thing keeping them up were his pants. Matt and I had a good laugh out of this one. Sorry no picture on this one!

Happy Birthday Jake!

So I finally posted Jakes B-day pictures. He had a really fun birthday. The other pictures were taken later when it got cold.

No More Battle Wounds!

Just when I think that Aiden is in a safe place he manages to get hurt. So this time I was taking a shower with him and he was on the floor of the shower playing with the soap. Then he puts his finger down the shower drain and when he pulled it out started to scream. Blood was everywhere! Good place to be when theirs blood. The cut is actually big but we really don't want to have to pay another $900 doctor bill. So we bandaged it and then Aiden kept sucking it off so it would bleed all over again. Being a frustrated mom I bandaged it and then wrapped his fist with bandage tape so it looked like he had a boxing glove on. He wasn't liking his hand being taped into a fist so Matt and I taped his two fingers together so that he could at least have a thumb. Of course this happened right before church so we were late. If I can just keep him from sucking off the bandage I think that it will be okay. He also learned a new word. "Ow" he kept saying it over and over again. So far he can say, Hi, Ma Ma, Ow-(like ouch) and Ooo. Who would of thought that a shower drain could be dangerous?


Oh yes, and today is Jakes Birthday. I will post all the details later.

Any Resemblance?

Every time Matt goes into the gas station to pay for gas he sees this sign and thinks this is Vaylene's twin. Good thing she doesn't drink beer or she might have a problem. P.S love the earrings.

Hair Cut

I always procrastinate getting my kids hair cut because it takes away his baby face. They go from looking like a little baby to a big boy. Well I was at the store the other day and someone commented on how nice it was that I had a boy and a girl. So the next day I whacked it off. I took off like three inches!


BEFORE:


AFTER
It still makes me sad when I look at his before pictures. I love the one where he is posing like a model in his highchair. What do you guys think-does he still look like an Olsen? I think so.

Nebo in the Bag

From the time I first went to Snow College and laid eyes on Mt Nebo I knew it was a mountain I wanted to climb. Ten years later and after two failed attempts, I achieved my goal Feb 21, 2009. I used to look out the window of the Snow College library, when I got sick of studying and think about climbing the mountain. My first attempt was in the fall of 2002 (no snow) when newly married to Teresa while attending school at Snow College. I took the crappy dodge neon up and it ended up overheating, before I even reached a point to hike. The second attempt was my first winter approach, last year. While working up one of the bowls in a switch back approach, my ski binding broke, while still somewhat attached, I locked my heal back down and made my way back to the starting point, while my partner (also named Matt) reached the ridge and skied a chute on the other side, but not the main part of the mountain.

So Friday afternoon, out of the blue I get an email from Matt saying the conditions are great, lets go. After I made arrangements with Ski Patrol training, we were off the next day.

View of Mt Nebo from our North Approach.

(The left chute is our decent path)

We made the same approach as last year, except we traversed a different bowl to reach the ridge line, this worked well and were soon on the ridge. The ridge began easy but become more technical the closer we got to the peak. I began to feel the effects of altitude around 10,000ft. Traversing under one of the minor peaks and baking under the sun, I would rest my head on my ski pole and just feel like taking a nap. Reaching the main ridge line again, I felt slightly closer with Nebo insight. The ridge got narrower and steeper, the skis came off and it was booting from there on up.

Looking back on our upper ridge traverse
(Hold'er steady!)

My friend Matt with Mt Nebo.

The pitch before the top, skis off and booting

The tip top of Mt Nebo and chute entrance

Traversing across the chute entrance in an attempt to summit the peak

When we arrived at the entrance of the first chute, the peak looked literally a couple of feet away. I thought we should at least summit the main peak just for the heck of it. My friend Matt traversed across the entrance of the chute and made an attempt but the mountain all of sudden got really techinical. He came back and I thought I would give it an attempt with rock climbing manueverus. All of a sudden I realized what looked trivial was not. The rock was very loose, vertical and irregular, plus a fall hazard was very consequential and this was not a place to get hurt. The other option rather then the rock ridge was up the snow pack. But the grade increased so steeply that without an ice axe, it was sketchy at best. We both decided that it was not worth the risk, just to have to come back down. Later I checked on my GIS maps I found that we had reached 11,825 to the mouth of the chute. Mt Nebo was another 103 vertical feet, and 414 horiziontal ft away. We had essiential summited, but to actually summit was not worth the risk.

At this point we began our decent. I have to say, entering into the chute, I was a little sketched. My friend Matt stepped through the rocks with his skis, stating that he gets them for cheep anyway. I don't, I replied and down climbed the rocky section until I reached a good point to put my skis on. Its funny, at nearly 12,000ft, seemily easy tasks become labored, for example I was almost out of breath just putting my skis on and buckleing up my boots.

Looking down from the side of our decent route

Looking straight down the gut

My friend Matt working his magic

A short clip to get a feel of the exposure

I felt better once in my skis and more secure but the grade at this entrance point and the width of the opening, plus the fatigue of climbing and the exhustation (and dizzyness) of elevation, were all playing with my mental status, and I knew it. The snow was hard, variable and wind blown, increasing the difficultly of the decent. I side sliped a bunch of terrian before making my first couple of turns. But with every quick turn, I would have to slide slip so much terrian before regaining control, I decided that actual turns at this point were usless and only increased my chances of a fall, which if had happened, I would slide down the giant slippery slide for quite a ways before being able to self arrest. So I side slipped until the chute opened up a bit wider. At this point I caught up to Matt, who told me to keep going, my legs were absolutly hammered at this point and I wanted to stop and chat but kept going. The snow became softer but more wind blown variable which meant very tricky turns, you never knewn at what moment your ski would pop through the crust sending your momentum off in funny directions. Near the bottom thrid of the Chute I ran into a party of 2 guys attempting to boot up the chute directly. They were attempting to do this by foot from the valley floor in two days. I had to hand it to them. But with our description of the peak being difficult to summit, they sounded discourged, plus the day was getting late. Once we had reached to bottom of this main drainage I saw them skiing down, bailing out of their main attempt. It was probably a good idea as when I ran into them next down Mona pole road, they were taking down camp and it was nearly dark. Anyway back to the bottom thrid of the chute. The snow conditions were greatly improving and when I reached the exit point which opened up into the large talus field, the snow turned into super powder with excellent turning conditions. We did our best to enjoy this section, taking turns filming each other and resting our legs until we reached the bottom of the cirque.

Looking up at Matt about half way into the chute

Looking back at the chute exit and the nice open apron

The best for last

Out of the cirque and homeward bound

To exit we began the traversing out across west facing, sun baked, lower elevation snow. The traversing was necessary to conserve as much elevation as possible for Matt to go and retrieve the snow mobile. The traverse across the wettest section would send huge roller balls of snow tumbling down the slope, this made me nervous (but looked almost cartoonish). Matt laughed at me and said I should spend some time in California. We reached Mona pole road and Matt began trudging back up to get the snow mobile. It was only 0.7 miles and 414 ft of vertical but actually that's quite a little hike, especially after the day we had. He said it was quite gut wrenching. So I skied down Mona pole road, which wasn't terribly enjoyable either, trying to carve turns in a narrow, winding, steep road. I would have to take rests along the way, which is where I ran into the other party taking down camp. One of the guys whistled at me, then he said, "oh I thought you were my partner", to which I responded, "and I thought you were Sasquatch!" Once in the truck and down, there was a place called Big Burgers or something like that run by some people from India, in the little town of Mona, where we had dinner. (how you go from India to the little town of Mona to open up the only burger stand has got to be a cool story). Anyway, it was good long day and I was glad to get home. I was also glad to be able to tour with my friend Matt. He was a great partner to be with up there. I felt comfortable with his decision making and route finding and he also seemed to be looking out for me through some of the more technical aspects of our routes.

Dead tired

Map of the tour

Mrs. Handyman

So my dishwasher has been having issues with keeping up with my dirty dishes. For some reason the top rack of dishes weren't getting clean at all. The spinner on the top rack for whatever reason wasn't receiving any water. So for the past few weeks I have been having to do most of my dishes by hand. Today I decided to be ambitious and got out my bag of tools-yes I have my own and dissembled the entire unit out of the inside of the dishwasher-down to the motor. The inside was caked with hard water disposes, toothpicks and the unmentionable nasty stuff. Three hours later I turned it on and WA la it WORKS! I was so proud of myself. Matt's schedule has been so crazy with his ski patrol classes and work that he hasn't had time to even think about the dishwasher. He said "let just get a new one" and I thought about having a repair guy come but that's at least 75$. So now I can fix the dishwasher and the garbage disposal. -Yes I have done that twice, and it's way nastier than the dishwasher.