Easter morning we went to church and the older kids sang in the children's choir. After church we went to brunch and walked around Drake Park. It was a great Easter.
After some continued stormy weather this past week up at Mt Bachelor, Saturday rose Sunny! Close to a foot of snow has fallen at the mountain over the past week and with fewer people skiing at this time of the year we were hopeful for some powder... which we got! Amazing for mid April.
We met up with our friends - the Bercots (Eric and Joe) for some runs and had lunch at the mid-mountain lodge out on the sunny patio. Great day!
Today was Good Friday and we had our good friends the Warricks, their grandparents and the Dittmans over. It was a wonderful evening celebrating Easter. The kids played outside, painted bird houses and decorate cookies while the adults visited and had lots of laughs. We couldn't have asked for a better evening. When you live far from family your friends become like family. So thankful for the rich friendships God has provided.
Hunter received the character trait of "Responsibility" in chapel this morning. We are very proud of him. Well done Hunter.
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.