Mochi - wearing my clothes

In an effort to purge - I'm getting rid of some old college t-shirts. Nick HATES this one and has been after me to get rid of it for a while. So before I got rid of it, I made Mochi wear it. He actually wore it around the house the rest of the day.

Mochi - asleep on the couch

This could be comfortable. Proof that Nick lets him sleep on the couch while I'm at work.

Mochi - asleep on the floor

He looks a little scary in this one....but it's a typical pose. Depending on how tired he is, his tongue may actually be on the ground.

Mochi - asleep on the stairs

I need a buffer for a few days, so the next few posts will be random pictures of mochi.

Here he is, asleep on the stairs.

Neighbors

Unless you live on a farm in the midwest, you probably have neighbors (and even the people on farms in the midwest have neighbors....they just never see them).

Living in a condo, our neighbors are very close. We share a wall with 2 other condos. Most of the "neighbors" we've met have been great. But our immediate neighbors are quite the opposite. Let's start with Mom and son - that's as much as we know. And really, she might not be the mom - because there is clearly no discipline going on here.

Son is 18-22 in my best guess. He LOVES bmx bikes. So much so, that he built a quarter pipe in his garage....which is great, because their garage shares a wall with our kitchen.

He also likes to go off roading with his SUV - keep in mind that "mom" drives a beater, and why this kid has a VW golf and a SUV is beyond me. Takes the car off roading and then rinses it off in front of their garage....in early December. We'd all been driving over it, waiting for him to clean it up. Alas, Nick got a broom in early January and swept it up in front of their garage.

We figured he'd move it. We were wrong. It's still there. It's been 2 months.

BTW, the license plate holder on his car says "I love MONEY" - he's a winner.

Our other neighbors are relatively anti-social. But they let their dogs pee on the deck....which shares a drainage pipe with our deck. So we didn't use our deck this summer because it smells like pee. They are moving soon. Thanks goodness.

Like I said, we love almost all of our other neighbors, we just got stuck between 2 odd balls.

More skiing

Post skiing, by the car. It's funny, the best part about skiing (aside from the actual skiing) is taking off your boots at the end of the day. Glorious.

Epic Skiing....

...for Nick.

All the rain that's been pounding California meant 7 feet of new snow in the past 5 days. 7 feet as of Friday. We were already scheduled to head to the mountains and Nick was chomping at the bit to get out and ski in some "freshies" - as they are known to the skiing elite.

I'm not a bad skier. I'm a solid intermediate/advanced. I can get down almost anything but it might take me a little while and I might be slightly annoyed by the time I get to the bottom, but I can keep up.

So we get to the top of the lift this morning, taking it easy down a groomer when I see Nick b-line for 2 feet of fresh powder. We hadn't discussed where we would meet if separated and the website said "Deep snow conditions exist - ski and ride with a buddy and keep your buddy in view." I figured he was my buddy and I needed to keep him in sight....I'm such a fool.

He made it to the bottom in about 30 seconds flat. I started going down, promptly buried both of my skis and flew head first into the powder - leaving the skis behind me 6 feet. I then proceeded to dig out my skis and spend another 5-10 minutes trying to get it back on in the powder. Getting skis on in powder is like trying to run a half marathon - it can be done, but you're really tired after and probably a little bit sweaty. I get it on and proceed to fall at least half a dozen more times. Nick is no where in sight, but Lisa was doing her best to coax me down. I kept burying my skis and somehow managed to fall with my foot and ski flying out from behind me....not once....not twice....but three times. I think it was really entertaining. At this point I had expended all of my energy for the day. I had snow up my back and my goggles were starting to fog. I was a mess.

I ended up making it to the end of the day relatively unscathed. Nick was in powder heaven and thankfully neither of us had to drive home. My quads will be hurting tomorrow, in fact.....they're already starting to stiffen up. But it was an awesome day and we had a great time....I just need to figure out how to ski in the powder.