Erich's Photo and Travel

FINALLY! The backyard deck got approved by the HOA. We have been working on the approval since September. The contractor started the work today. He dug the post holes and had to jackhammer the rear stoop. They only charged us $300 to remove the stoop. I think he undercharged us since he worked on it from 10am to 2pm. Did I mention that Lowes came in with the best price? They use a third party contractor so I hope that he gets paid well for the job. The deck will consist of redwood decking, a railing and a stairway leading down the side (by the sliding glass door). Here are a couple of pictures taken after they left. I will post more as the deck progresses.  

The overnight temperature was negative 15. Fortunately I was in a nice warm bed at that time. I had to go to the store this morning and my car thermostat said it was only -2 degrees. I would have taken the Wrangler but somehow Michelle got all of the instrument panels to read in metric. Time to dig out the owner’s manual :(

3:45am wakeup call! Need to hit the road by 5am…which means 5:30 am Michelle time. Winterpark is only 82 miles from home. Much better than going from the bay area to Tahoe! We figured that it would take at least 2 1/2 hours to get there since a lot of people going skiing over the Christmas holidays. It turned out that a lot of people decided to sleep in so it actually only took 2 hours to get to Winterpark. This included a stop at Starbucks for caffeine. Since we didn’t actually have to arrive until 8am, we had time for a recon downtown and look for a place to eat lunch. We decided to eat at Smokin’ Moe’s. As the name implies, this is a BBQ joint. We actually ate here a couple of years ago during our first snow mobile trip. Good food. A little pricey but what do you expect in a tourist town? There wasn’t a lot of people so we were able to check in, grab a helmet and insulated suite. We already had goggles, scarf and baklava. We bought some kick ass gloves at Cabella’s a coup

I was just making sure that my GoPro camera was ready for the snowmobiling trip and found some video that I took while painting the new house. I guess that I didn’t film the whole painting process. The living room and kitchen are painted (several colors). There are some still pictures of the kitchen so you will have to look at earlier posts to see them. While waiting the house, we remembered it was mom’s birthday the following day. We took advantage of the tools at hand and made mom a card she will never forget. Here is the building process:

Snowmobiling tomorrow! Need I say more? Time to shovel the driveway. Travis! Get your ass back here and shovel the drive!    

Not only did we have a White Christmas! We had a smoked turkey for dinner. They have nothing to do with each other. I know that. I mixed some butter, sage, oregano, rosemary, garlic and salt etc together and rubbed the glob under the skin of the turkey and all over the skin. Seven hours in the smoker and viola! Dinner is served. We also made fresh cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. NO rolls (dammit) or Michelle’s kick ass stuffing (dammit, dammit, DAMMIT). It was still good. Our stomachs will attest to it under oath.       Oh, and Michelle (and I) made baklava (our first time)….must say, it is fucking good!

Well, since the family decided that we were not worthy of their presence (and presents) this year, we are forced to spend Christmas alone and unloved. You would think that after all the time effort we put into the annual Christmas calendars we would at least receive a Christmas card. At least Sam, David and Shaela remembered us. We thought it might be nice to drive out and surprise everybody at Joan’s house Christmas Eve but the weather forecast quickly changed our mind. Right now, we would be stuck somewhere in Nevada or California in a snow storm. We were really going to go but the weather is just not in our favor. Damn Joan and her ladder! We are expecting a good foot plus of snow in the mountains in the next couple of days. The weather is supposed to be nice this weekend (a high of 18 degrees but clear) so we decided to go snowmobiling this weekend. We booked a four hour trip in Winterpark, CO. The lady who took our reservations talked us into a snowmobile upgrade (600CC Yama