Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Hi Mom, We hope your Birthday is a great today! Here is some videos to enjoy. We love you!~Love Bri, Ben, Ginny and Vi

P.S. Here are some pictures of my sister Lily after her ballet. We went down to see it last week. She did a wonderful job! We gave her pink roses.

The Ash, the Ice, the Glory

So I decided to climb Mount Saint Helens. I duped my brother-in-law into going with me by claiming that "it's just like Mount Si, just a little higher". When I said it, it wasn't really a lie. That's because I didn't know at the time just how epic this years snow-pack was. So with the normal trailhead snowed in we found ourselves in late June staring in the face of a twelve-mile round trip on solid snow with 5,665 quad-demolishing feet of elevation gain.

I decided to introduce Grant to the alpine start. That's when you get up early in the morning and climb the mountain before the snow gets too slushy. So we camped at the trailhead and got up at 4am to climb. Here's what we saw:

That's Mount Adams. The weather was beautiful. We climbed up the south side to the crater rim. The snow was deep but it was not too hard, not too soft. We had great views the whole way up. Here what that looked like:

Grant seriously kicked my butt, especially near the top when I was running out of energy. There was just one steep part and it wasn't too bad. When we reached the top it was REALLY windy. Grant's hat blew out of his pocket and into the crater. We could see Mount Rainier, Adams, Hood, Jeffereson, and even a bit of the Three Sisters in central Oregon. Here's a little video for you:

That's when the fun began. The beauty of climbing on open snow is you can slide down on your butt. It was like a 4,000ft tall sledding hill. Thus it took us six hours up and two hours down. We were back at the car by noon. Even though it wasn't my original intention, climbing this on snow was a lot of fun.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day!


Fathers Day 2008 with Violet

Fathers Day 2006 with Ginny


The girls and I wanted to say how much we love and appreciate Ben. Ben has been on morning patrol since Ginny was born. He wakes up with Ginny and feeds her breakfast. All this just so I can snooze a little longer. This is coming from a guy who loves his sleep but also is a morning person. Ben also spends every night reading to Ginny and brushing her teeth. Since Violet has come all this has been extra helpful. He also changes all the late night/early morning diapers. These are usually the blow out ones too. So besides being the bread winner and my personal chef (a marvelous one too!) he is an exceptional father! We love you Ben.
~Love Bri, Ginny and Vi

Here is a photo of Ben opening his fathers day gift

We got him two movies from yesteryear
Ducktales Treasure of the Lost Lamp (childhood fave)
and The Rocketeer. Ben you are our hero.

Chocoholic Party

It was an evening of elegant chocolate desserts, I can say so because I made all of them. Chocolate is my forte! To your left is what Marcel Desaulniers calls Midnight Truffle Cake. This is a black cocoa sponge cake, with chocolate sour cream icing and truffles of the night up top, garnished with ganache. Other creations inspired by Marcel were Essential Chocolate Mousses served in Chocolate bowls and Deep Dark Chocolate Fudge Cookies. The mousses were both white and dark chocolate and the Cookies were dipped in chocolate and made into ice cream sandwiches. The final Creation was inspired by my Grandmother, Angel Mocha Pie. This dessert was invented when my Grandmother realized she didn't have all she needed for a lemon meringue pie so the meringue became the crust and the filling deep dark chocolate. The night included great conversation and games played with six lovely ladies, Shellie, Annie, Arrow, Robin, Allison and Erin. I had such a great time serving them these are the only pictures I have, sorry to disappoint. I look forward to next year!
















Last years dessert photo below (nice blond hair)



These are the same cookies, other desserts here are triple layer mousse, a chocolate torte, and a Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. The guest that time were the Romishs, Alderks, Taffs, and Scotts. Sorry didn't take a photo that time. I guess I get so caught up in serving.

Violets Blessing Day

Violet in Bri's Blessing dress (Ginny wore it too)

Little Violet Iris was bless Sunday the 25th of May. We couldnt have asked for a more beautiful day to celebrate. We were able to have a lot of family over as well. Ben was joined by his brother Brandon, brother-in-laws Josh and Garrick, my father, and my cousin Kevin in the circle. His other brother Mark couldnt make it because his wife had a baby that morning. After sacrament meeting we gathered together at our apartment for sandwiches and giant cupcakes from costco. Thanks to all for helping us celebrate our new little addition.

Our Family












Bri's Extended Family











Bri and her sister lily













The kids enjoying the sunshine













Bri's mom and Violet













Bri's Dad with the girls

"Baring" the Pain

About the time this picture was taken I was realizing that climbing Mount Baring was turning out to be a little more hard core than I had anticipated. I'm actually in the process of climbing down a seventy foot wall of soft snow backwards. It was a little nerve racking.

At 6,125 feet Mount Baring is not that tall of a mountain, but it is very imposing. It's slightly overhung 3,000 foot sheer north face has claimed the lives of many insane climbers and base jumpers alike. Luckily we stayed as far away from the north face as possible.

Can you see me in this picture? The town of Baring is a mile below us and Mount Persis is on the horizon at the right (I climber that in April). The weather on Wednesday was absolutely gorgeous. But that didn't keep this trip from taking 11 hours! Due to the complete lack of a trail, the crazy steep slopes, and the 4,000 foot elevation gain I was planning on maybe 8 hours. Throw in getting lost, scaling 45 degree mud slopes, questionable route finding, waffling, equipment failure, equipment recovering (after falling out of the bag and rolling downhill a LONG way), the aforementioned slush wall, and a little loitering and the extra three hours is understandable.

Despite all that this climb was awesome. My new crampons worked like a dream on their first run (thanks economic stimulus package and REI spring sale!). The views were dramatic and I caught a glimpse of ten of the mountains on my to-climb list. Most importantly, we actually made it to the summit.
Not bad for a Wednesday.

Mothers Day

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Its a hard job but somebody's gotta do it! After two months of two kids I think I am finally getting the hang of it. If only we could get that little Violet to sleep better. Luckily theres a day where you get french toast in Bed, and everyone cleans up for you while you take a load off (I could use a longer break but I bet some of you are thinking that too, lets get together and go to a spa for a couple days, what do you say?).

Here is the card my family made for me.
The Flower Ginny made me and the chocolates Ben brought me from San Jose (he returned from a conference he was attending and presenting there only two days before mothers day.) If you are interested in these fine and large chocolates check out http://www.jsc.com/ for the scoop.
I'll leave you with two photos of the proof I have of motherhood:
Viriginia InesAnd Violet Iris

Hope you all had a great Mothers day!