Funny

So there are times when life cracks me up! December brought such a time. Brady and I had planned on taking a snowboarding vacation the week before Christmas, and as may of you know just as we left to go find snow, the snow came to Las Vegas. I have mixed feelings about missing it. It would have been cool to see that much snow everywhere, but this city is not equipped to handle snow and pretty much shut down. I heard lots of stories about the madness and how school was closed for a 'snow day'. Crazy! I'm sure it was quite the time. We had fun traveling though. We first went to Bountiful so Brady and our friend Gene could have a real snowboarding day without me. I have only been once and that was for about an hour in my Junior year of high school so I needed a lot of assistance. Anyway that day I went 'malling' with Grandma/Grandpa Okuda. I had never heard of the word 'malling' but I guess it is another word for shopping. It took me a few seconds to figure it out, but we had a good time. That night we went to Brady's favorite Japanese restaurant, Kyotos. It is really good and we take off our shoes and eat on the floor. It's fun.

Here we are at Kyotos
This is me sledding down Grandma/Grandpa O's backyard stairs!



Us riding on the lift
Me with all my snowboarding skills :)

We then headed to Boise, Idaho, well Starr to be exact. We stayed with my aunt and uncle and went snowboarding at Tamarack near McCall. Idaho didn't have too much snow at that point so the only lift that was open was the bunny hill, which turned out to be perfect. We brought a non-perishable item and so out tickets were only $5. The hill had rails and jumps so Brady and Gene had just as much fun. I am not too bad! I have pretty good balance so that part was fairly easy to pick up. My problem comes we I get going. I don't like going fast, which is not a good characteristic of a snowboarder, so I would get going then make myself fall. By then end of the day my wrists were killing me, but I had so much fun! I even contemplated getting a board, which I still might do. Being so small I only need a 138 so it should be cheaper than an adult size board. I was surprised at how NOT cold I was even though it was below 20degrees. I was actually sweating sometimes. The next day Brady and Gene were going to go boarding again without me, but there wasn't enough snow. Brady and I just chilled that day and went to eat at this little diner. I can't believe how WONDERFUL the tap water is there in Idaho. I wish I had been thinking and bottled some of it; it tastes better than Las Vegas filtered water. The last few days we ditched Gene and went to Lake Tahoe for a couple days. To tell the truth I was a bit disappointed. It was beautiful, and I think it would be a blast in the summer, but it was so windy that I was too cold to do much of anything. I guess it would be fun if you went skiing or snowboarding, but that was too expensive to be worth it for me. We did drive all the way around the lake and made a stop at Olympic Village. It was cute and we planned to go up to the top of the mountain to go ice skating at the outdoor Olympic Pavilion. It was too windy and cold to be much fun and it was a bit expensive for just ice skating for 2hours. It was a nice little get-away, and it was nice to be back home. I decided that one of the best parts of this vacation was that I got to wear almost all of my wonderful scarfs!! I love scarfs so this was a huge bonus!

Beautiful!

I was a bit obsessed with getting a picture of the Olympic rings

I am sad that this was the best we could get, :(

We loved our stroll along the beach! Freezing!!!