Friendsgiving!

When Emily and I got back from a long wintery drive over the pass Kevin and Alexa invited us over to Tim’s as we were unpacking for a “Friendsgiving” dinner. Who could turn down another meal of delicious turkey and fixings?? Of course we went. We had just enough time to unpack and clean ourselves up a bit before heading over for dinner. Tim had cooked a sweet ham and there was plenty to go around. There was about 10-12 of us at the table including Loomis and Amy Joe, Tim’s neighbors upstairs and Mischa & his new interest Erin. With my reputation as the endless stomach (I will change this after New Years) everyone was encouraging me to take seconds and thirds, amused by my ability to put down so much! A trip to the store was made for more wine and everyone had a great night. Thanks Tim and Lindsay!

Thanksgiving in Eagle Crest

We had a great Thanksgiving this year with friends in Eagle Crest out

side of Redmond, OR. Eagle Crest is a similar resort community to Sunriver which we usually go to for ski vacations and holidays but it is closer to Sisters and Redmond which is great if you want to be closer to the pass and Smith Rock for climbing. Emily and I picked up food Wednesday night afterwork and a bottle of Captain and Baileys (which I love over ice on holidays). It was a bit snowy over the pass but I was able to fly by all the slow drivers in the 4x4 truck. Brendan, Emily and I got to rental house around 3pm. It was a pretty nice place with a gas fireplace and beautiful carpeted living room with a 36” flat screen tv which I hooked up my PS3 too for movies and games over the weekend. I immediately started to prepare the turkey for dinner because the 10lb bird wouldn’t be ready until

about 7:30 or 8pm. We watched football for the rest of the afternoon until dinner was ready. We all chipped in making dishes and by the time the bird was ready had a ton of food to eat! My first turkey came out great too!

I of course retained my reputation for eating a lot but there were still a ton of leftovers. We all had food coma after dinner and passed out around 11 after watching a movie.

On Friday Emily and I got up early and headed to Mt. Bachelor to get some skiing in with our free ski tickets we got from the Warren Miller film we went to in October. Bachelor had a lot of snow but there were still some thin cover in places so I brought my rock skis the pocket rockets. It took us a few runs to scope out

the area but we soon found ourselves in a great tree run of powder that we basically lapped for the rest of the day. When Emily’s legs were shot from skiing powder we left and returned back to the house after stopping briefly for some groceries and gas in Bend. When we got back to the house around 5pm Jen, her friend Kali and Jason had shown up for the night. For some reason Jen had it in her head to get me drunk.... she accomplished her goal. She had brought mulled cider which she poured a lot of captain into for me.

Danielle made some amazing Chili for dinner, but it was vegetarian so Jason and I chopped up the rest of the turkey and put it in which definitely helped the meat-eaters of the crew. After several hours of drinking, a great game of Apples to Apples and a movie we decided to find the hot community hot tub. It was closed of course so we had to jump fence. It was a pretty big one and the water was the perfect temp so after a day of skiing it felt amazing. Of course things broke down and there was a lot streaking around and snowball throwing, including an

epic naked run by Jason several blocks back to the house for more beer and cigs for Danielle. How funny would have been if someone drove by him buck naked with just a bag of beers in 30 degree temps! haha! Awesome! After a couple of hours in the hot tub and drinking the whole time when we got back to the house we all crashed pretty hard... (we left Kali and Brendan in the hot tub...) and unfortunately for us all forgot to drink a tall glass of water to hydrate after the tub before bed...

Saturday was rough... real rough. Jason, Jen and Kali took off to Smith Rock to check it out and Scott and Danielle went for a short hike. Emily and I hung out at the house for the day only going for a short walk around Eagle Crest to check out views of the Sisters and the pass. At 4 we all went to the 7th

Street Bar and Grill in Bend to watch the Beaver game but after 3 quarters it was clear Stanford was kicking our ass and we were playing like crap so we took off to head back to the house for some movies and a relaxing night.... We actually didn’t have much booze left over after the epic previous night anyway.

Sunday morning we took our time cleaning up. We had Oliver inside with us the whole weekend while Arrow and Poa remained in a crate or in the car. Oliver doesn’t shed much but we did a thorough job cleaning up anyway to make sure we got any possible hair. Getting back over the pass was a bit slow. It was a such a good weekend and Danielle definitely got a great deal on the house from her boss which owns it, only $75 a night. So happy that Jen, Jason, and Kali decided to hang out with us Saturday night as well. Perhaps we’ll get the house again later this winter for some backcountry skiing or Mt. Bachelor.