Christmas tree hunting

We took the dogs Christmas tree hunting on Monday. We purchased a permit through the U.S. Forest Service, and then drove into the wilderness to find a tree. While driving along, we encountered some cool frozen waterfalls. Here is the biggest one we saw (I had Tyler stand next to it for size).



Besides waterfalls, we did find a tree to bring home. It's not as large as the one last year, but it sure is pretty.

Family

For Thanksgiving, Tyler's family and my family came to Bellingham to celebrate the holiday and to meet each other. We had a great time visiting, eating, drinking, playing cards, staying up too late and waking too early.

Before our families showed up in town, Tyler and I decided to get an engagement ring for me. We went to the jewelers with my grandmother's old engagement ring, and had the stone placed in a new setting.

Now the whole week reminds of my ring — the joining of not just Tyler and I, but of both our families that have been our support systems for our entire lives. We're combining what is familiar to us, with something new.

And we couldn't be happier.

Fun in the snow

Tyler wanted to do something really fun on Tuesday. Since winter is coming early this year, he wanted to go up to Blue Lake before the snow got too deep.

We headed up with Julius and Natasha, and found snow quickly. As we were driving, the snow began to get deeper, and I thought we should turn around so neither of our vehicles got stuck. Our Pathfinder ended up getting stuck anyway, and in the process of pushing it out, a tire went flat. We managed to get down the road a little ways to change the spare. To our surprise, the spare was also flat. The boys then drove back into town to fill up the spare, while Natasha and I waited for thier return.

Thank God we had beer.

You know it's almost payday...

...when you can only pay for Bloody Marys with change you rolled the day before.

We are one class act.

Happy Halloween

Tyler carved a scary Jack-O-Lantern, while I carved a scared pumpkin. I'm not very good with scary things, mainly because I get scared easily, so I thought an afraid squash was a better fit for me.

Chain Lakes

We hiked the Chain Lakes trail out by Mount Baker on Monday with Eric, CJ, Rhino and Bix (Eric's dog). The sun was out, and so it was a gorgeous, dry day. Blueberry bushes were all along the trail, so Tyler and I filled 3/4 of a Nalgene with blueberries (he made jam today, but I haven't tried it yet).

As you can see at the end of that slideshow, the boys decided to jump in the lake. It wasn't cold outside — but it was warm either — so we all thought Eric and Tyler were crazy for going forward with their plan. Here's a video of their plunges:



After that, Eric decided to jump in again. When he was out of the water for the second and final time, he said that it wasn't any better than the first time.

"I could cut a diamond with my nipples," he said.

We all then hiked back to cars, and drove straight to the North Fork Brewery for some pizza and beer. The brewery is staple end-of-the-hike stop out the Mt Baker Highway. Tyler and I stayed for the first quarter of the Bronco's game, and then had to hightail it back to town to watch the rest of the game at Coconut Kenny's. After the game, Tyler's phone wouldn't stop ringing because everyone was calling to talk about the Bronco's victory.

6-0...who would've thought?

Sailing in October

We encountered a lot of wind when we went sailing on Tuesday. All of us got sprayed from the water, but Steve managed to take shelter for a few minutes.

Fall hike

We made it

Tyler and I have now been living in Bellingham for more than a week, and the dogs are finally settling in to their new home. The drive was long, but we had some great friends to help us move.

Ryan and Kent followed us up from Lake Tahoe in Kent's truck. We managed to fit almost everything we own into his vehicle (below), which was pretty impressive.



We left on Sept. 14 and drove about eight hours to Sutherlin, Oregon to stay at Memoree's and Russ' place. They are both good friends of my parents, and when we showed up Mem cooked us veal, potatoes and gravy.

The next morning we decided to drive up the Oregon Coast and camp by the beach. We found a great spot at Cape Lookout where the dogs could run around and stretch their legs. In the morning we were rained out, so we booked it up to Bellingham to sleep in a dry place.

Since we've been here, we've seen a lot of friends and family. Tyler's aunt and uncle — Missy and Larry — were in town when we arrived. We had dinner with them, plus Steve, Karen and Catherine on Monday. My mom arrived Tuesday and picked up my dad at the airport Thursday, so we've been busy visiting with everyone, nesting and getting back into a routine.

Both of us are happy to be back in Bellingham. Our house is in a great location — a bakery and a produce market are just around the corner from us, plus Trader Joe's is within walking distance. Life is good.

Alaskan home

Last day of work

Who would've thought my last two days of work would include the return of Jaycee, an international news story and an interview on BBC Radio?

Isn't that ironic...don't you think?

Random Russian event

Quinn and our friend Kent met two Russian girls trying to hitchhike from Zephyr Cove to South Lake Tahoe. They both thought Quinn's name sounded funny because they couldn't hear the difference between "Quinn" and "queen." As a result, they both started calling him "kоролева," which is Russian for queen.

Flip-flops (and Moses) the talk of the top

Tyler hiked up Mount Tallac — 9,700 feet — in his flip-flops. If you hike with Tyler a lot, this isn't an unusual sight — but for everyone else on the trail that day, it was something that made them stop and make a comment. The other popular comments that day were in regards to Moses, because not many had ever seen a Great Dane climbing a mountain before.

Now if we can just get a sandal deal with Reef, our monetary issues would be solved...

Logan's visit

Logan came and stayed with us for a week. The time went by way too quickly, but we had a lot of fun. On Saturday night we took off down Highway 4 to go camping. We stayed the night at a drive-in campsite so we could get a head start in the morning.

We backpacked in to Bull Run Lake — which is in the Carson-Iceberg Wilderness. Once we got there, we jumped into the lake, played a lot of cards and ate the food we packed in. Tyler and Logan finally got to eat the freeze-dried food they bought seven years ago to use for a backpacking trip they never went on. We thought that was kinda cool — and gross.

I packed in the nice Cannon camera from work because I wrote a story about it for the paper.

Me want hamburger

iObsession

Tyler and Quinn try to find the coolest apps for their iPhones during an afternoon trip to the lakeshore.

On Sunday morning Tyler and I headed down to Carson City to switch cell phone plans and purchase iPhones. We thought the trip was going to be quick, but it turned into quite the adventure. The first store we tried had closed, the second and third stores were unlocateable, and the fourth store was an AT&T phone re-sell store.

At this point we'd been driving around Carson for about an hour, and I've never seen Tyler so cranky before. So we had to get him an iced tea, and then he felt a little better.

On our way back home, we finally found the store we were looking for. We found out later we could have saved ourselves the trouble and just went to Best Buy — avoiding the state capital altogether. It was just one of those days.

Busy, busy, busy

We've been pretty busy lately with planning the next steps in our lives, Tyler taking a trip to Bellingham (I REALLY wish I could've gone), discussing a business plan and submitting a resignation letter.

For those of you who might not be up to speed, Tyler and I are moving back to Bellingham where - if everything goes according to plan - we'll be opening up a restaurant with Eric.

It's a little crazy, but it might just be crazy enough to work. We both really like Bellingham and would love to move back, so this is a plan Tyler thought of. I also want to start up my own Web site, but that will probably have to wait until this restaurant gets up and running. After living in Tahoe for almost two years, we both really want to work for ourselves.

I submitted my letter of resignation on Friday, so my last day at the Tribune will be Aug. 28. Then I'm flying back home in September for a week, then it's back to Tahoe for the big move back up North.

I'll let you all know more as this story unfolds.

Newspapers

Donations accepted.

Bye, bye Palin

You just can't trust a Sara that spells her name with an "h."

Summer is FINALLY here

Summer is finally here, which means we'll be spending plenty of days at the lakeshore. The boys decided to jump off the pier on Sunday, but I'll wait until it's a bit warmer...

Boys and the dogs

B'ham remembers Michael Jackson

Happy Birthday Tyler

So you're 25 now, which means we've been dating for almost three years, and who would've guessed we'd end up where we are today — in Tahoe, with a Great Dane, golden retriever, beat-up Pathfinder and engaged.

Soon we'll be entering the next phase of our lives, and I'm happy to go along for the ride with you. I'm excited to see how much you will grow in your profession. One of the reasons I fell in love with you was because you were so passionate about cooking — and a lot of people go through life without that intensity for anything. Since I met you, your dishes have evolved from being crazy concoctions that worked most of the time, to ones that are deliberate and complex. I have no doubt that you will always pursue your education through any opportunity that comes your way. I'm glad I get to be the lucky one who shares that with you, and also get to sample all the tasty treats along the way.

I can't wait to find out what this next year brings.

Happy Father's Day

My editor thought I should write a column for the paper (since I have a lot of colorful stories about my dad), so here it is.

And Happy Father's Day to Steve and Caleb too.

Getting married

It's probably not a surprise to most of you out there, but Tyler and I are engaged.

It happened last Thursday when we were chatting about our future plans, and he decided to ask me right then and there. We've pretty much been planning out lives around one another, and it feels natural for us to make this next step.

How it all happened didn't surprise me at all. I had been talking to my friend Tracy a few weeks earlier about the marriage subject, and I told her that if he ever asked, it would probably during some conversation we were having, instead orchestrating a whole evening. That would be too obvious for Tyler, and not really our style.

We haven't set a date or a place yet. We need to figure out where we are going to be, and what we're going to be doing first. Both of us are very excited to start a new phase of our lives with each other, and our careers.

But don't worry — we'll keep you posted.

Prepared after all

Tyler asked me the other day: "Who let us become adults anyway?"

It's a good question — one that my friend Tara and I have often discussed. We've known each other since we were 8 or 9 years old, and it's hard to imagine how far we've come from playing battleship at elementary school sleepovers, to moving out of our folks' homes in order to make news ones for ourselves.

My dad always said that all he ever wanted was to raise my brother and me so we'd be equipped to make decisions on our on. He never told us what we should do with our lives — he just made sure we had all the proper tools to handle situations and opportunities that came our way.

And I think those tools are what brought me into adulthood, whether I wanted some of the responsibilities or not. If you ask my mom, she'll tell you've I've been ready for more responsibilities since I was little. When I was in preschool, she didn't buy me the Barbie car I wanted (remember those electric cars for little kids to drive?) because she knew I'd try to take it on the road to see my friends. I guess I told her that I thought it was the kid's version of an automobile, and it was my way of getting around the 16-year-old age requirement.

But it's one thing to think you're ready than to realize you're ready. No matter what is waiting around the corner, I know I'm set to make those choices now.

I guess I'm prepared after all.

Home

Nothing like some juicebox wine on top of a mountain for Memorial Day.

We made it home from our trip, and decided to go for a hike on our vacation decompression day. When we got to the trailhead out State Route 4, we found that it still was covered in snow. Tyler had hiked the trail before, so he led the way. Needless to say we didn't find the lake we were hoping to picnic at, but we did see a bear and get to the top of a pretty cool mountain.

Boulder

Logan graduated from high school and is now ready for his party.

And we made it to Boulder — just in time to party. There were two celebrations on Saturday: Logan's high school graduation and Mazie James' first birthday. One of the highlights was watching Mazie attack her birthday cake:

Madison

Shortly after some beer and brauts, a quick trip to the neighborhood zoo, a bike buddy blunder and a potluck — we're now headed to Boulder. Here are some pics from the zoo:



Mazie, Tyler and Katie.

Chicago

The trip got off to a rough start, partly because Tyler, Quinn and I thought it was a good idea to shoot pool at The Goalpost until the airport shuttle arrived at 6 a.m. Quinn dropped me and Tyler off at the shuttle in pretty poor shape, to say the least.

But Tyler and I thoroughly enjoyed Chicago — especially the Lincoln Park area. As for our culinary adventures, we ate a fabulous meal at Avec. It's a small, simple restaurant that doesn't take reservations, but the food is great. One of our favorite dishes featured dates stuffed with chorizo. And to top off the visit, we ate at Alinea — where we ate an awesome 24 course dinner with wine pairings.

Now we're headed to Madison to see the Dickinsons, and ride in a car for 16 hours to get to Boulder...

VACATION!!!

I'm usually not the type of person who likes to use excessive capitalization and exclamation marks, but I"M ON VACATION!!! It's the only way to truly express the excitement welling up inside me. Tyler said he'd be just as excited as soon as he gets off work at 6 p.m.

Now I just need to clean the house, run a few errands and pack. Chicago, Madison and Boulder — here we come!

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day Mom! I wish I could be hanging out at the house with you, Dad and Grandma. I love you, and I can't wait to see you this summer.

And Happy Mother's Day Tracy and Katie! We'll be seeing you in less than two weeks.

Taste of summer

Hiking season is almost here, so I took the dogs on part of the Tahoe Rim Trail today. There's still a lot of snow, so we had to turn back when we lost sight of the trail about four miles into the hike.

Sidenote — I didn't put anything in Aspen's backpack, but I wanted her to get used to wearing it again so she can carry her own food when we go camping. Now we just need one for Moses so he can carry everything...

Johnny Mac and me

My mom just sent me this picture of me and Mac going to visit Beulah in her trailer. I'm the short one...

Postseason snowboarding

We decided to stick with tradition and hike up the Stagecoach lift this year since Heavenly closed a bit early. After the hike and ride down, the humans went to Bistro Danielle for drinks and grub, while the puppies napped at home. Here are some of the documented shenanigans:

Blast from the past

My old flatmate from New Zealand just sent me a link to this photo. Every week we entered a lottery to win the leftovers from a bakery in Dunedin. The shop owner wanted to have fresh goods, so he (or she) would give away the stuff that didn't sell. This picture documents the day we actually won, and the bounty we all shared.

Oh the wonders of Facebook...

MS Dixie

I got to ride on the MS Dixie today for my reporting assignment. The catch was I had to go with a more than 300 fourth graders to cover and Earth day story.

The one funny thing (and also kind of sad) was that most of the kids were afraid the boat was going to be boarded by pirates. I assured a few kids that security measures were in place so Somalian pirates couldn't launch a boat in Lake Tahoe — plus it would be hard to make a clean getaway.

I guess it doesn't take much for media hype to infiltrate a 9- or 10-year old's imagination.

Easter plunge

Since it was a beautiful day on the South Shore today, the whole household packed up and went to have a picnic on the beach. Tyler, Quinn and I decided to toss the Frisbee around at the beach, and whoever accidentally threw it into the lake had to go get it.

I shot some video of Tyler going into the lake to get his miscalculated toss, which was pretty funny. Aspen doesn't fetch Frisbees, so we usually have to go chase them down.

Or does she?

April Fool's

Check out what my co-worker Jim Grant pulled in 1992 for an April Fool's prank.

Six Saltines

Have you ever tried the Saltine challenge? You have to eat six Saltines in a minute — which is impossible (challengers soon realize this after the first one sucks all the saliva out of their mouth).

Quinn had never tried the challenge before, so decided to give it a shot tonight. None of us succeeded, but Aspen managed to eat 10 Saltines in a minute. I don't think the challenge applies to dogs...

American River

Tyler and I had an urge to get off the hill on Sunday, so we drove down to Auburn to go for a hike. We decided to hike along the American River so Aspen could go for a swim. Moses was a wuss and only swam for a little bit. The trail went past some old man-made tunnels and through abandoned rock quarries. The area was close to Sutters Mill — the site where gold was first discovered, and thus started the California Gold Rush.

After the hike, we went and ate at Monkey Cat — a bistro in Auburn. The waitress was very impressed at the amount of food we feasted on after our eight mile hike.

Love the booties

It snowed here last night, so we all thought we'd take advantage of the powder day (which might be the last one of the season). We decided to do some "out of bounds" snowboarding with the dogs. One driver would drop the dogs and the snowboarders at the top of the hill, and then meet them at the bottom to shuttle them all back to the top again. Since the dogs were going to be running in the snow for a prolonged amount of time, we decided to put their booties on. This is what happened:

And I caved...

I feel a need to explain the reason I finally caved to Facebook and Twitter since I've been holding out for about five years (just two for Twitter).

I cover the business beat at the paper, and many of the business owners I talked to have started using social networking sites to promote their business — especially since they don't have many advertising dollars.

Since I like to cover all my bases, I thought it would be irresponsible of me not to set up social networking pages of my own, then and check out what South Shore businesses were doing. From a preliminary investigation, it appears that Twitter is great if you want to find people heading to town, and to provide recommendations for them. One of the casino reps I talked said she's followed up with a handful of people who she contacted on Twitter and found they sought her advice. Facebook is great to build a network of fans, and appeals to an older, educated demographic. MySpace is good for younger people, who might not have gone to college, and also has lots of pages for gangs, bars, clubs and musicians (for the record, I did not get a MySpace account. I just used Jensen's login).

All in all, it should be an interseting article when it comes out — probably in Saturday's edition.

Goodbye...

...Seattle P.I.

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