My special book

At my high school, yearbooks arrived in the fall. So at the end of each school year, many students brought in cool journals for their friends to sign. I was just rearranging some books and decided to flip through my three special books from 1992, 1993 and 1994.

This one's from my senior year:
This is the entry from my long-time friend, Jared:
I'd been in school with Jared since 2nd grade. Our families lived in the same neighborhood. We attended the same youth group at Tigard Church of God. We planned to go to George Fox College in the fall. We were both assigned to Pennington dorm. His soon-to-be roommate was, apparently, a guy from Vancouver named Brad Wood. Brad was bringing a popcorn popper.

On moving day in August 1994, I ran to room #203 on the men's side of Pennington to see my friend, the only familiarity at this strange new place. That's when I met Brad. Pretty cool story, huh?! :)

Pocket Creek (3/6/09)

Finally... some fresh snow on Mount Hood!
Laura, Jacob Lindsey and Christine piled in my parents' studded minivan Saturday for XC ski trip to Pocket Creek off Highway 35, just past the Mt. Hood Meadows nordic center. We stopped at Mountain Tracks in Government Camp (our favorite rental place) to get skis for our ski-less friends. Soon, we were gliding along the trail with the sun peeking out from behind the clouds.

The first half mile of the Pocket Creek Trail is slightly downhill. Then we hung a right on the tie trail and climbed steadily for about 2 miles before emerging from the woods at the top of the PC trail. The tie is more narrow and had a few tricky bridge crossings. We managed to find a couple small hills to go up and down and up and down and up and down. Still working on her downhill technique, Lindsey had a couple spectacular face plants! Luckily, she has a great attitude and kept getting up for more :)

We ate lunch where the tie connects to the main trail. Brad's missing from the picture because skiing some "sweet hills" behind us was more enticing than sitting for a short meal.
After lunch, it was all down hill... literally. The road is smooth and wide, and we coasted nearly the whole way back. What a blast! The snow was dry but dense, not fluffy... kinda strange. It was fairly slick, helping make for a fast return trip.

Christine wasn't feeling great that morning. She had sinus pressure but decided to take some DayQuil and tough it out. Unfortunately, her ear didn't pop coming off the mountain, so she was in some serious pain. She headed for an urgent care clinic while we went in search of Chinese food.

Jill, the voice on Brad's GPS, took us to Happy Restaurant in Gladstone. The food wasn't great, but it also wasn't horrible -- there was a lot of it, and that's what we needed. Jacob, in particular, announced that he was deciding based mostly on the size of his dish. However, he stopped eating after just a few minutes and got a sad look on his face. Then he told us that he forgot that Chinese food makes him sick. Duh! Next time, hopefully the hunger won't cloud his judgement and he'll remember that before we choose the restaurant!

Overall, it was a great day!
-Liz :)

Training time... again!

The Tilikum 10K is just 6 weeks away... that means it's time to start training! Two years ago, Tim, Brad, Eryn and I trained for the 10K - the first and only one I've ever done. I worked my tail off and finished in 66 minutes. Last year, I was battling the creepy crud and only attempted the 5K. I finished but with a little walking in the middle.

This year, I've been doing a lot of running (with several awesome workout groups/partners) and think I need to train for the 10K again. Yikes! I guess I'll start tomorrow with my Friday run.

And I'm super excited to say that, so far, Lisa, Jenna and Christine plan to join me for this year's event! YAY!!!!! Look for us in our purple (CE)2 Runners shirts :)

-Liz

Play-Doh art

I set out a couple mini Play-Doh containers, and Dustin and Jon turned the contents into this:
They later added an oozing volcano, but it vanished before I got out the camera.
-Liz :)

Disney Anniversary

In 1998, Brad and I spent our honeymoon at Disneyland. So for our 10th anniversary, we knew we had to make the trip again! We went in October and had a blast, but I just realized that I never posted the pictures.

We've finally figured out how to stay hydrated and not gag from the nasty SOCAL water:

German Chocolate Cake

Irene said her favorite cake was German Chocolate, so for her birthday Wednesday, I thought I'd give it a try. I've made very few from-scratch cakes, so I was nervous as I searched the Internet for a recipe. I found this one on MyHomeCooking.net and figured I'd go for it.

The recipe was easy to follow and included many good photos. But it was a long process from start to finish. I made a double batch of frosting to make sure I didn't run out. I didn't have time for the frosting to cool completely, so it ran a bit down the sides of my three layers. It looked fairly impressive, but I forget to take a picture before it was cut. It was a bit crumbly, but I'm much more concerned with taste than appearance.

The birthday girl (actually, we were celebrating FIVE February birthdays!) said it was delicious, so I guess it's a keeper :)

Bend

Michael, Kendra, Jacob and Lindsey joined us for a wonderful Valentine's ski weekend in Bend. Here are some highlights:

First stop during the long, snowy drive out was a yummy teriyaki place in Sandy. (Notice the heart-shaped green onion I found in my dinner!)

French toast casserole for breakfast. Thanks, Lindsey!!!
Saturday was a cross-country ski trip from Mount Bachelor to Todd Lake. We got off trail to play in the thigh-deep powder! Michael navigating the slope:

Time to stretch. Notice the snow depth at the street sign!
Lunch break at Todd Lake.
Brad's turn to make some turns.
Now Brad's icing his groin pull. (He's done this before on the same trail!)
Jacob ended up wearing MY party pants covered in little hearts.

I brought along a little plug-n-play Ms. Pac-Man video game. We (mostly Jacob, Michael and Brad) spent hours and hours and hours playing Pac-Man and the other games on that thing.
We skied to Tumalo Falls for Sunday's outing. It was amazing!
Lunch in the sun.
We hit the Madras Abby's Pizza on the way home, and Jacob tried his hand at the Big Buck Hunter game while we waited for our pie. (Apparently, he's addicted to video games!)

A good time was had by all! :)