Gaaaaa – I’ve just spent 30 min trying to fix my blogging software.(Scribefire) . now I’m too sleepy to blog properly.. Whats a blogger to do ?

OK.. Here’s  a quick recap of a very nice day. I got home last night around midnight to find the whole house asleep.. Woke this morning after a great 8 hours sleep and tumbled downstairs. Our niece Elizabeth from Boston is here visiting with her friend Chris.. We sent Chris off with Gabe to Bolton, while Diane, Elizabeth and I went on a mornign Snowshoe…

We took her to see the tiny sweatlodge we found on the mountain…

We found a mysterious piece of birchbark that looked suspiciously like an old IBM punchcard…

And we wandered into an impromptu dog parade… .. a lady waled by with six dogs.. our two made eight.. It was quite a party. ..

I left a SamStone at the trailhead just for fun…

We wern’t gone long.. but the dogs were tuckerd out when we got home.. I found Satori asleep on her favorite toy.

I spen t the rest of the day workign on my talk… and on the upstairs coputer that had gotten messed up by a microsoft code push (grrrrrrr)

Around 3:30 we all got in the car and headed to Stowe. Gabe was competign in a Red Bull sponsored rail jam…

It was a surprisingly big crowd considering the weather.. It was just below zero when we arrived.. and the temp started droppign as the sun set.. .. There was a 20 MPHZ wind with it.. making it feel quite… ‘refreshing’.

The sponsors were giving out free red bull.. even to lazy dads.. they had my favorite.. Diet Redbull. what a great invention !

Gabe went to practice the course while we walked aroudn the grounds at Stowe. I’d never actually been in or around the lodge.. it was quite ritzy and nice.. We were lucky enough to cathcch the tail end of an ice carving competition.. The things were amazing .. Take a look at this ‘ice mantis’.. it won the $1000 top prize.. and rightly so.

I like all of the pieces.. there a bit hard to see in this light..   This is a bear on his back drinking a bottle of beer.

This is a lady taking an outside shower..

Here’s a bear and an eagle..

And a frog with a peace sign on her/his tongue.

We made our own called ‘fire and ice’ out of scraps we found around.. This fire sure felt great !

This one was amazingly tall and elegant .

two eagles fighting.

a fish head.

And lots of worded signs..

We went inside to wai for Gae’s event.. while thawing , we ran into our friend Sue

Finally it was time for the event.. but that poitn it was about five below zero and blowign a very brisk 20 miles per hour wind..
It felt like we were on mars as we stepped outside.. They’d set up a small half pipe filled with a variety of butter boxes and rails..
They also had a huge projector shining the red bull logo on the side of the mountain .. pretty cool !

Was we waited we checked out some of the racy boards.. including friend Luke’s ‘love board.. the one that’s stirring up the controversy.. Here are a few less provocative ones..

There were lots of kids we know.. Sawyer, Sumner, Cameron,  Luke, Jessie , Dylan.. and here’s Ralph !

Gabe had  good night.. . His style was really nice . He’s now a younger guy in an older age group..he’ll learn a bunch doing that.

Had to do these without a flash.. so their blurry.. but I like the effect with the light ray…

We kept having to duck in to thaw.. -5 with 20 MPH wind is what in windchill ?

Ahh.. a balmy -29 degree equivalent.. it was brutal..   It was -8 by the time we got home. -12 now.. Not the coldest night we’ve had this month.. but cold enough for me with this wind.. Brrrrrr

One last event for the evening was Elizabeth’s birthday cake..She just turned 25 !  Diane made one of her yummy carrot cakes
and we dug in.. it was about 10:30.. kinda late to be eating.. but … there’s always time for cake..

OK.. gotta get to bed.. I’m GOING TO FINISH MY TALK TOMORROW… so I can start practicing.. If you see me doing anything else tomorrow.. tell me to get back to work..

OK.. now off to bed.. night folks.. night Sam
-me