I really needed a day like today.. I didn’t do anything I had to do .. only stuff I wanted to do.. We woke up late and puttered around the house for a while until Gabe and Trevor got up to go to the mountain. I took advantage of the downtime to begin installing the new PC we got for video editing..   As I was putting new memory in the machine I started thinking about all the memories already in there.. we have about 300 Gig of movies .. most of them called Untitled_xyz.avi or something like that.. Many of them are Max’s old projects.. many are by or about Sam. As I move them to the new machine I wonder what I need to keep.. and what I can clean off. I opt for saving everything for a time when I’m strong enough to look through and catalog what’s there. Computer disks are the new ‘attic’ of our lives.

I took the boys up to the mountain and came back for a snowshoe with Diane and Chai. today we began our normal route.. then opted to turn and bushwhack back towards the house . That simple turn makes all the difference (as Mr. Frost so aptly said.. ).. once we were off our trail we discovered an amazing playground of steep descents, ravines and cliffs we’d never seen and it was all  less than a quarter mile from our house.

I got home just in time to leave for lunch with my friend Dave D. who’s up visiting from Austin.  Dave’s a cool and eclectic guy.. we like the same books and have many of the same interests.. though he likes Jazz.. which I guess is not a major character flaw.  Diane stopped in and ate some sushi with us which was great.. It was fun catching up with him.

I got home just before Diane was leaving for the Girls slumber party over at Deb’s.. It was a perfect cold, blue sky late winter day.. the back door window captured the blue of the sky and the red of the barn.,

 I was lying by the fire with Chai when I noticed this log in the shape of a valentine burning in the stove.. I thought it was a cool image.

After Diane left, Abbot showed up with an idea to make some light up ear plugs for his gaged earlobes. He had these clear plastic plugs We drilled them out and I glued in some of these very cool color changing LED’s that I picked up in shanghai 2 trips ago. We managed to find small lithium batteries that were exactly the same diameter as the plugs. They look really good and seem to work well.. Last time I saw Abbot he was blinking red, green and blue…

The girls had a lovely party going.. they were coloring mandala’s Eating great, healthy food, listening to quiet music

… playing with Hannah’s kids.

We were so inspired that we guys came back and cooked up some fast fried junk food and sat around and had belching contests… and worse…

To be completely  honest, I must admit that we did have one girl here or part of the night.. Juli Z. was here with Nate.. but that didn’t throw the testosterone/estrogen balance off too badly..

The boys went outside to use the rail that Gabe and I had put in there.. It seems to work well for the skiers.. looks like we’ll need to move it back a bit for the boarders.. Right now they don’t have room to get set up quite right.. Still it works pretty well for our flat backyard !

Here’s Gabe using his head !

I called the kids in once more toe at the Chocolate fondue that Dine had helped us prepare.. It was so good..

Then we hatched a plan.. an evil, sinister plan.. we decided to stage a daring midnight raid on the girls… Why you ask ? Because we’re nasty, evil, male pigs.. .. and we were wired from all that chocolate..   We all got dressed in black pants and black coats and wrapped our heads in black shirts.. we were now a band of silent ninjas.. We drove up to Deb’s in 3 cars.. and parked about 3 houses down.. we got out and finalized our plan for attack.. we were to surround the house where the girls were .. then, at a signal from one of us, start pelting the house with snowballs.   We got to the bottom of the hill.. then realized that the driveway was too exposed.. we all climbed up a gully to the right of the house.. the snow was over my waste.. so it was heard going.. we had to keep hidden as we slogged through the deep snow..

Finally we were all in position. Nate and Matt from on the roof.. Gabe and Tim F were near the hot tub. Tim K, Zion and I were near the back porch.. All of a sudden the girls stated coming outside to use the hot tub.. we started yelling .. but no snow balls… the snow was too cold (about 6 degrees) to pack.. I put a ‘Boys Rule’ sign on the back porch then we all started running down the driveway.. as Gabe lit a big showy firework out in the snow..

We were all laughing hysterically by the time we got back to the car.. We’d been in and out in something like 10 minutes.. I hope the girls thought it was funny.. otherwise.. we have some major apologizing tomorrow..

We all got back here and peeled off our wet and snow filled clothing..

The boys went in to watch a movie… and/or play xbox…