A purty good weekend

Last weekend was a purty good weekend. And, that's a big time understatement. Two of my stisters (What Kiki and Debris call each other, and the term has stuck) and my Dad and Mom came up, and we had a great time.

Saturday AM started out with local friends, some friends from Seattle, and family doing the MS Walk. And, strength tests, somersaults, and otherwise silly things in the park afterwards.

Then Saturday evening we cooked dinner, packed it up in a cooler, and headed up Burch Mountain for our first Going Losting trip of 2011 to eat dinner and watch the sunset and hopefully get to break in our winch.

The winch breaking-in was successful. Sadly, we have no pictures of this epic event, because when Frank and I are working the winch, whose gonna shoot the pictures? I basically went up-up-up until we hit snow, and then went up-up-up through the snow until it became marshmallowey, and got stuck. Then, we winched ourselves out, turned around, and came to a place not quite so snowy for dinner. With not quite the sunset view we were hoping for, but still pretty good. It was really fun.

This would be dinner. Hot stir-fry.

It was quite delish, if I do say so myself. I have a secret stir-fry sauce I've developed in recent past, and I love it. Maybe I'll un-secret it on my blog sometime.

We had some pretty happy babies... Frank, Me, Kiki and Debris have ALL been itching to get out in the woods in the Land Rover. The girls were so excited they were in the Rover and buckled in before we were ready.

I love this picture. :-)

What we were viewing while we ate dinner.

My Daddy, who loves to go off-roading with us when he gets the chance.

My other happy baby.

Rovey, whose had some work done on him this (early) spring, getting ready for more work to be done, and more adventures this summer. Yay!

Me: You can't tell, but I'm really dancing and screeching inside. I love pine trees, and sage steppes and especially being n them with my peeps. And who can resist that vibrant, and yet somehow washed-out magical glow that is the few fleeting moments before a sunset?

My jacket is the Marmot Precip: We bought one for Frank and me here with an emailed coupon as well. The girls have this one... not quite as nice and feature-ful, but does the trick for little people who grow out of stuff every season. Things I LOVE about the Marmot Precip jacket. It is most definitely waterproof. The only time I've ever sweat faster than it can wick sweat away from me in it was when I was running intervals in a spring rain storm, and even that wasn't nearly as bad as I'd imagined it would be, as I have horrible memories of claustrophobic feelings from dripping sweat inside raincoats. There is NO nasty clammy raincoat feeling in it. The pit-zips are awesome, and did exactly what they're supposed to when I started getting hot in the jacket. The range of motion for my arms is awesome. It stuffs into it's own pocket, and weighs approximately nothing. The hood does a great job of keeping rain off my face, but I still have my peripheral vision... that's a big deal when you're a momma. The only thing slightly weird about it at first is that the pockets are high... like if you start to do the chicken dance, that's about where you're going to be putting your hands in your pocket, directly below your breasts. But, I KNOW I'm going to LOVE that when I'm wearing a backpack, (or if someone else was wearing a baby on their back with a waist strap, perhaps?) so that's really a good thing. It breaks wind very well, (heh heh!) and I'm seriously considering just getting a 200 weight Polartec fleece to stick under it for wintertime wearing with thermal underskivvys, instead of getting another winter shell. It was a bit cold on a windy ridge on this day, but if I'd had my lightweight fleece underneath it, it would have been perfect.

(I thought that instead of doing huge overwhelming blog posts about outdoor gear we love, I'd do short little snippets inside posts as photos of things come up, and just do an Outdoor Gear We Love label so people can find the posts with all our favorite gear in them at a click.)

And, as we headed back down into the valley, the sun set completely... thanks for joining us on our first going losting trip of 2011!