Snow Day Four...It's FINALLY NOT SNOWING!

Snow Day Three...

Snow Day Two...

Snow Day One...

YO: Today is the first real day of winter, snow and all. While some look forward to warm days inside, Jarred and I don’t. We tend to drive each other crazy. I become a cleaning maniac while Jarred gets into zombie mode while watching kayak and mountain bike videos on the internet. We usually end up bundling up and heading outside. So while we could still manage sitting around, I thought I’d start the annual Widdop-Jackman or the Wackman update.

Here’s the down and dirty for this past year in a handy-dandy third person timeline format.

January- During the first week of the new year, Jarred discovers hernia #1 in his groin and sprains his ankle by getting it stuck in a rock after swimming out of his kayak at the base of a waterfall. Surgery (on the hernia) follows. Sarah quickly discovers that she is not a nurse or sympathetic towards those who are hurt and whiney.
February- Jarred’s back in shape and kayaking. Sarah ramps up for a great show season with Nic, her horse.
March- Jarred whines about inability to kayak. Bike trips are planned, cancelled, then re-planned.
April- Sarah and Jarred embark on their first multi-day bike trip. After purchasing a bike trailer, loading it up with minimal gear, and heading over to “better” weather, they head out of Ephrata to bike a loop up through Bridgeport, Chelan, Wenatchee and finally back to Ephrata. 200 mile trip is completed in three days. Sarah competes in her first derby with Nic, does well but whips out a great score of zero because she can’t count and over-spins.
May- Jarred makes his infamous whitewater run on the Little White Salmon. While continuously refusing to admit a near brush with death, a story Jarred wrote about the incident is picked up on website’s across the US (no money though, bummer.) Jarred discovers hernia #2, surgery follows. Sarah promises herself that she will NEVER become a nurse and is reminded that men are babies. She is reminded that abdominal cuts hurt though!
June- School’s out for summer! Sarah and Jarred finally put house on the market…only to be met with recession and 19 other people in North Bonneville who also put their houses on the market. Sarah and Jarred head off for a summer in Idaho. Nic, Sarah’s horse becomes lame, which begins a summer of vet and farrier visits/bills.
July- Mountain biking, mountain biking, mountain biking. Nic is still lame. Sniff, sniff, sob, sob, Jarred sells his Jetta and replaces it with a teal (despite Sarah’s grumbling about HATING teal vehicles) Mazda B2200, affectionately know as the wheelbarrow for it’s power and carrying capacity.
August- Road biking, mountain biking, road biking. Jarred raft guides for Zoller, a great company that guides the Middle White Salmon. Jarred’s career as a raft guide is cut short by a brutal road bike crash which left Jarred with little skin, a broken collar bone and scapula (shoulder blade.) Sarah begins to believe she’s done something to make the nurse gods mad because here she is again, playing nurse to a fly infested, puss laden, VERY grouchy Jarred. Nic is still lame.
September- Back to school. Sarah begins a new job at Camas High School. Jarred attempts to teach ceramics at Mountain View with broken bones and crusty skin. Nic is still lame.
October- Jarred is back in action. He tentatively mountain bikes and purchases a new road bike (the crashed bike was not reparable.) Nic is no longer lame but now really FAT. Sarah is glad that she has her biking partner back and that he now bikes at her pace!
November- Great weather continues. Jarred starts kayaking again Nic is back at work and Sarah and Jarred get crazy with the bikes. Sun Valley is no longer the mountain biking mecca of the Northwest, it’s been trumped by Washington…the promised land!
December- Nic is ready to show…but wait, he missed most of last show season! Sarah and Jarred now have six bikes total, recently adding two single speed cyclocross bikes to their collection. Now if they could just sell that stinking house in North Bonneville so they could bike to work!

We’ve discovered that life is only as boring as you make it and we’re both dedicated to making the most out of what we have despite injuries and the necessary evils, like work. At times both of us feel that we could be doing so much more but maybe there are not enough hours in the day, and we’ve not yet figured out how to live our lives the way we want to without working. We’ll get there. But in the meantime, we’re having copious amounts of fun.
As always, we invite any of you down for some good hiking, biking and boating. Jarred is a great raft guide, he took my parents down the river this summer and they’re still alive!
Merry Christmas and enjoy 2009! Sarah, Jarred, Shuksan, Gretta, Bella and Nic

Many of you also received our Christmas letter in the mail. I thought I'd also post it though, in case I forgot about you!

Enjoy the Holidays and the snow!

The Downfalls of Snow in the Northwest

I love the snow, only if my life can exist as it normally does, while the snow falls and sticks to the ground. This worked well in Idaho, a place where snow is normal, people can drive in it and do not think that life ceases to exist outside of one's house when snow falls. As you all know, this does not work in the Northwest.

I only worked one day this week, therefore we had four snow days. Now some of you may be writhing in jealousy, let me remind you that the state requires we make these days up. Not in Feb, or Jan when we have holiday's abound. Nooooo, we make them up in June when the sun is out, horse shows are in full swing and there are more important things to be done than to educate students who can't sit still because the sun is shining.

Northwest drivers also seem to believe their cars are incapable of working when snow lies on the ground. As I sat in Jarred's ceramics room yesterday, waiting for him to get out of school, I actually heard a student tell him that she needed to leave school early because her car was old and didn't run in the snow. WHAT? Jarred's response was a quizzical "OK?" but he was really thinking, "What a lame excuse, your car does run in the snow, you just need to get out and drive it." So here, I sit on Friday, stuck in the house knowing all my students are also in their houses when we could be sitting together in school, there's nothing else to do now, right?

Before the snow hit, Jarred and I did manage to get some final biking in for the year. Jarred got me a single speed (no gears, just pedaling) cyclocross bike for Christmas. I love it!

The Gift That Never Stops Giving

Since this is the season of giving, I thought I'd pass this video along.
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
It squealched any idea I had about Christmas shopping, not that I've really done any yet, anyway, but it reiterated my belief that Americans need to change their views about consumption. I am a recent Costco member and while I love only shopping once a month, I despise the amount of plastic Costco uses. EVERYTHING they sell comes in plastic and what gets me more is that even the small stuff, like batteries (we just bought some rechargeable ones), are encased in a large plastic container. I go back and forth between being the green shopper and sticking to Whole Foods and being the convenience shopper and reveling in the large amounts of food I can buy at Costco. This video made me feel guilty about shopping at Costco. That guilt might not be a bad thing.



Enjoy and try to be a conscience consumer this Holiday Season!

What an awesome fall!

So I guess I have another week or two to say it's still fall. Jarred and I have been biking maniacs this fall and we've counted ourselves lucky with the weather! This past weekend we headed out one of the better trails in the Gorge. We rode through a lot of frost and frozen ground but the day was beautiful and Shuksan loved the trip. We were hoping to get some more rides in soon, but winter may be kicking in this weekend!

A Man and His Big-Ass Chainsaw

No man is complete without some sort of big-ass tool, whether it be a power tool, oversized lawnmower or chainsaw, they all have one. Jarred's big-ass tool of choice happens to be a chainsaw.

I was first introduced to the big-ass chainsaw idea as we lay in our tent one night at the City of Rocks in Idaho. I happened to comment on the great fencing many of the ritzy homes in Sun Valley had and asked how one went about obtaining such fences. Jarred's reply (the seriousness was evident from his tone), "A big-ass chainsaw." Not long after this conversation, we purchased one, the 55 Rancher. Or should I say, Jarred purchased one. Upon it's arrival at our house, I eyed the thing cautiously and was careful when picking it up for fear that it would come alive and take control of my body. I've never been opposed to the idea of a big-ass chainsaw but don't find myself ever wanting to use one. I do, however, love heating my house with wood. And for this endeavor to remain affordable, we must use the big-ass chainsaw.

So, each year we tromps out into the woods to cut firewood. Because I don't aspire to ever use a big-ass chainsaw, I'm always in charge of carting the wood from the woods to the truck. I sometimes think using the chainsaw would be the easier job as Jarred typically aims for fairly large trees.

This year, we waited until the last legal day to cut wood. Between Jarred being injured and just having too much fun doing other activities this fall, we procrastinated. Needless to say, wood cutting is always somewhat fun...makes me feel a little like Dick Prenicky. If you're not familiar with Dick, PBS did a film about him. Dick went up into the Alaskan wilderness and proceeded to build his own cabin (prior to building the cabin, he built his tools) and lived in it for 30 or so years. He shot all his own food, made his own dishes and built his own canoe. When in wood cutting mode, Dick Prenicky is a bit of an idol.

This year, Jarred picked a downed tree on a failry steep hill. Not only did he enjoy being a man with a big-ass chainsaw (he even grew a beard for the occasion), he also enjoyed rolling the logs down the hill to the road and watching me chase them so they didn't roll off the other side of the road and down another hill. I have to admit, I don't mind the work that goes in to having wood but I'll never understand the thrill of the big-ass chainsaw.