Last night we colored Easter eggs. The kids look forward to this every year. It's such a fun tradition.
After a great week with family in CA we returned home to a nice sunset with storm clouds over the mountains.
Today we built shelves in Noah's room. Barn wood stained the same color as our trim, with pipes holding up the shelves. Noah was a great helper.
I wanted to give my home office a slight industrial feel so I decided to build myself a desk using metal piping as the framing material. I browsed around on the internet and found some ideas and then sketched out my design. It would have two shelves on one side and a single shelf on the other. Here is my initial design sketch.
First, I went onto Zoro.com to order black metal 1" piping. Because I had different structures on each side (2 shelves vs 1) I guessed at my pipe lengths to make the entire puzzle go together. I wasn't quite sure how the fittings and threads would match up to the pipe lengths, but figured I would give it a go.
Once the pipe and fittings arrived, I cleaned them with a de-greaser so that my hands would not get as dirty but also mainly so that when it came time to paint that the paint would adhere to the metal better. Here are all my ordered parts based on my plan above.
Next I started putting the parts all together. My part count requirements were dead on, however my fear about the fitting design on one side possibly not matching the other were realized, and one portion of my desk ended up being about 2 inches too long.
So I went back onto zoro.com and bought a couple of 4" pieces instead of the current 6" pieces to hopefully correct and make everything match. This time I got it right!
Next I needed to build the top. My goal was to build the top and the shelves from reclaimed barn wood. I found a place south of Bend in La Pine and went down and picked out some awesome old 2x8's for the top and 1x12's for the 3 shelves. Here are the 4 2x8's after some sanding. One of the pieces was actually the edge of a tree so decided to use that for the front edge of the desk. Note the great old cut marks from a large circular saw when they were originally cut. Next I put clear polyurethane on them to harden the surface and bring out the grain/color better. I ended up putting 3 coats on the top.
Meanwhile I took the pipe frame and painted it a hammered brown by Rust-oleum.
Now with the frame and the top both complete, I put them together! I used some 1x6's to tie the desk top pieces together and also attach the metal pipe flanges to the desk top.
Lastly I took the old reclaimed 1/x12's, and did some minimal sanding just to get the burs off the wood. Since they are shelves only and not a work surface, wasn't as worried about getting them smooth. I cut them to length to rest on the pipe framing and gave them a couple coats of clear polyurethane. They turned out really nice with a very rustic look.
Here is the finished Product in my office!
Fresh off last weekends avalanche course, my neighbor, friend and fell classmate Abe, wanted to head up early and ski Tumalo (across the road from Mt Bachelor) mountain this morning for his birthday! Hunter was up at the hill yesterday, Noah had a friend over, so I was able to head up.
Here is Tumalo mountain in the summer.
A trip up Tumalo mountain last winter in Jan 2016 (snow conditions were much much better today)
We got up there at 6:30 and headed out just as we got some nice morning alpen-glow on Mt Bachelor.
It was a cold morning but clear and beautiful as we headed to the top. Note in the first photo down low that is the parking lot at the main lodge of bachelor still empty at this time.
Couple shots of the top before taking our first run down the bowl on the north side.
Shots from the bowl (our first tracks)
Video - me laying some fresh tracks on a section of the bowl
Erin and her girls, Charlotte and Anna came to visit us in Bend. We had a wonderful time together and took so many pictures that I could get them posted fast enough. Luckily for us, Erin took some great pictures and posted them on their blog. It was such a sweet time together and we were all sad to see them go. We look forward to the next time we are all together.
To see the pictures of our visit they are on Erin's family blog on the link below.
Over the presidents day weekend, I did the first 2 of 3 days doing an Avalanche course (level 1). Last day will take place in march. As I have started doing more back country skiing, it felt like a good thing do get some additional training on. Obviously best option is to avoid getting into situations where there is likelihood of one happening, and actually that's exactly what we spent a large portion of day 1 working on. Mostly training but still got out and a couple runs near the end of the day in some nice powder.
If you are wondering - the picture of me in the hole with the shovel - this is called a compression test, where you dig a pit, and test the different layers, and how well they hold together. Interestingly when we probed the snow to the ground we were standing on about 7 feet of snow.
Hunter wants to be a pilot when he gets older. At winter fest there was an air national guard display and Hunter got to put on the helmet of a fighter jet pilot!
I took these this morning as the moon was setting over the mountains and the sun was rising. The moon looks huge as it gets closer to the ground.
Each month our school focuses on a character trait and then once a month at chapel recognizes students for demonstrating them. Last month we had a snow day on our chapel day, so this month they recognized two traits. We had been informed that Hunter was up for the December award but we didn't know that two of our kids would be getting them and it was such a wonderful surprise. So proud of Hunter for getting the Character Trait Award for Self Control and Abbie received the award for Gentleness. Great way to start out the day!
