The boys (the grown-up boys) had a fabulous time in the snow this past weekend. Our wives were generous enough to give us a weekend in Bend and a day at Mt. Bachelor for Christmas. We had a great hotel room in the city, and Saturday morning, we drove up to the mountain in the dark to get an early start. The snow was DUMPING the entire day. It was a little blustery, so higher on the mountain the visibility was low. This made for some interesting and humorous moments. Further down, however the air cleared and we could see where we were going. Even when I could see, on the first run down, I crashed and lost my ski in the deep snow (7 1/2 feet in the previous 7 days!). Eric and I dug for about 20 minutes before we found it. Thank goodness Eric's foot bumped into it under the snow, otherwise I would have had to rent gear or go sit in the lodge!

After the slow start, we had a great day. It was not an easy skiing day, by any means. Lots of hard work to turn and stay up in such deep conditions. But we had a blast. Here's some footage of me and Eric skiing through the trees. If you can't tell by the audio...we were sooo tired.

After a great / exhausting day, we stopped by the Nike outlet in Bend, bought some swim trunks (Trent thought ahead and brought his own) and hit the hot-tub at the hotel. It was the perfect way to relax and soothe our tired bodies!

Sunday morning, we headed into downtown to find a TV with the football game on. We ended up a at little sports bar with All-You-Can-Eat eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast, biscuits and gravy for $5!! That was a good meal and a good football game. Unlike most of the bar patrons present, we held off drinking vodka since it was only 10 am.

Jim and I hadn't quite got enough skiing on Saturday, so we decided to stop by Hoodoo on our way home for an afternoon shift of skiing. It was just the perfect way to cap off the trip. The sun was shining and the snow was soft! Although we were exhausted from the previous day, we had a blast. This is Jim on the west face of Hoodoo.

...one of me on Hoodoo.

Unfortunately, the only video we got of Trent was with a pile of food in front of him. It'll have to do.

All in all...what a great weekend. THANKS to our wonderful wives for thinking of such a great idea and for giving us the gift of fun, sleep and guy time.