Gnarly Sick Pow Day

Squaw Valley and Many Feet of Fresh Gnarly Pow

Hi all, this is a quick BOO update (stands for "Boys Only Outing"). Carson and I took advantage of a Monday school day off, a light schedule for me, and a super-gracious co-worker who lives in Tahoe City and happens to have a cottage in his back yard, and headed to the hills for a day of amazing skiing at Squaw Valley. The place had just been dumped on to the tune of 90+ inches of new powder snow!

We drove up Sunday after the various church and Destination Imagination commitments, hit snow on I-80 at about the 2000-foot elevation, and arrived to a winter wonderland in Tahoe City. 

Carson, Murphy, and Reilly shooting hoops

We ate a delicious lasagna dinner with my co-worker and his family, Carson had a great time playing hoops and watching the college tournament on TV, then nestled into our cozy cottage for a good night's sleep before hitting the slopes.

Our little Cottage in the snow

 The next day was pretty-much epic - we arrived at the base lodge at 8:15 on Monday morning, and even though it was a weekday the powder hounds were already lined up at the lifts for first tracks. We got on the first few gondolas and actually got some fresh tracks in too, albeit on the beginner and intermediate runs. I was forced to watch the whoops and hollers up on the steeps from afar, but still got some good floating runs in with Carson.

Untouched corduroy with snow sparkling in the air like diamonds

Carson the Powder Hound!

On Siberia Bowl - we dug for a ski on this one!

Our reflection in the windows of the Gold Coast Lodge; Headwall in the background

View over Tahoe

What a day!

Anyway, after nearly a full day of skiing with no lines and lots of fresh powder, we headed back down the mountain to home. I tell you, skiing on off days and driving against traffic is definitely the way to go! Even though it may be the last ski day of the season, it was great and we are even more excited to get going again next year. Now, on to baseball and soccer seasons!!

[For those of you wondering, the ladies elected to stay home and execute a monumental sewing project - a new home-made from-scratch revolutionary-war-era dress for Maggie to wear in the upcoming "Williamsbubb" event at school!]

Hope all's well!

Yucatan, Yahoo!

Hi all,

Annett and I just returned from the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico, where we spent about four days with some other Merced folks as the final Merced President's Club trip before Merced disappears into NICE Systems. It was wonderful, and thanks to Mom and Mary Beth we were able to leave the kids in good hands at home while we had a pseudo-honeymoon!


We stayed in the luxurious Grand Velas Riviera Maya, just south of Cancun. It had great pools, nice restaurants, and a nice beach. The seawater itself ended up being fairly heavily littered, so we mostly stuck to the groomed beach and pool areas.

Main Pool at Grand Velas

Beachfront

We pretty-much ate ourselves silly, starting out with an amazing breakfast buffet that included amazing juice, fruit, seafood, and Mexican fare.

This was actually only about half the juice selection!

This is actually Annett's plate after the first helping...

 On our first full day in the Yucatan, of course we had to go see some Mayan archaeological sites, so we hired a bus with some friends and drove the 2.5 hours out to see Chichen Itza, one of the amazingly restored Mayan sites in Mexico.

We drove through small towns with names like X'Calacoop

We arrived in Chichen Itza, which receives about 3000 visitors/day 

 The site was amazing, with several different areas of restored buildings, and many more areas of unrestored buildings. Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chichen_Itza.

Highlights were the Temple of Kulkulkan...

...the Royal Ball Court (largest in Mexico)...

 The famous Mayan ball game was especially intriguing - the captain of the winning team was rewarded by being beheaded on the spot! More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_ballgame

...here is the hoop, through which warriors shot rubber balls...

...the skull-decorated platform for displaying real enemy skulls...

 

...the Temple of Warriors... 

...so named due to the many hundreds of columns decorated with portraits of warriors.

...the Royal Observatory, with an unusual domed roof for observing astronomical phenomena...

...another lower pyramid conjectured to be a tomb...

...and another temple or palace building of unknown distinction.

 The whole place was just magical, and of course back in its heyday in around 900 A.D., the entire area would have been paved in smooth stone, stucco, and all the buildings would have been painted immaculately with vivid colors and incense would have been burning in the many incense holders.

Now of course it is just partially restored, and many vendors of trinkets crowd the walkways.

After our tour of Chichen Itza, we went for lunch and a swim at Cenote Ik-Kil, a beautiful clear underwater river which was the primary reason for the Mayans to have built a city of 30,000+ on that location. This particular cenote (pronounced "say-NO-tay") was open for swimming to the public, but there are many others that are connected by underground rivers and limestone cave systems. Anyway, an amazing trip well worth it!

On Friday we took a morning snorkel tour out onto a nearby reef, where we saw many fish, starfish, and a sea turtle swimming around. No underwater photos, unfortunately, but beautiful clear blue water.

Saturday and Sunday we stuck around the resort and swam, lounged, read our books, and sipped pina coladas by the pool!

Anyway, it was a wonderful long weekend and we returned last night feeling refreshed and relaxed, ready to get back into the Silicon Valley rat race!!

Hope all is well with you, and lots of love!

Skiing and Planting the Garden!

Trails and Heltzels and Gefkens at Squaw Valley

Hi all,
We had a fun week last week skiing up at Lake Tahoe. The kids had all week off, so we rented a house with another family and headed up the hill. We were expecting the snow to be scarce due to the fact we've had such a dry winter here in California, but the conditions were fine and the kids had a great time! We ran into some other friends from home, the Heltzels, and Maggie had  fun skiing with the girls while the boys went up to the tippy top.

Delicious soup courtesy of Lisa

We rented a nice house in Tahoe Vista, just up from the lake in the woods, with a comfy living room and lots of jigsaw puzzles and games to play with.

Snowball fight - the kids took the high terrain...

The kids somehow found more energy to go out and make snowballs, build a snow fort, and slide over ramps on sleds! We did take a day off from skiing halfway through the week - for me, it was harder work than skiing though!

...leaving me at the bottom winging balls uphill fruitlessly.

The top of Headwall - not quite ready for the double-black!

In the Funitel for one last top-to-bottom run

Mom and Maggie relaxing in the sun at Base Camp

A couple of days after we came down the mountain, of course, the next big storm blew in and dropped almost four feet of fresh powder. So now we need to find a way to get back up again and breathe that beautiful clear crisp air again before it all melts again!

The first herbs, greens, peas, beans, and carrots are planted...

Speaking of summer, after we got back to Mountain View, the weather was absolutely gorgeous - 77 degrees F, so we decided to go ahead and plan the vegetable garden and get some new plants in the ground! The pictures here are of Maggie and Annett planting, but it was late in the afternoon (since I had toiled away all day digging, hauling, building the irrigation, etc etc).

...next week we'll add more.

Now it's been nice and rainy this week but hopefully will clear up next weekend for us to plant the next batch of goodies! And we have our whole side yard for zucchini and tomatoes, a new orange tree, some blueberry bushes, and lemon/lime to come!

OK take care all!

The Land of Milk and Honey

On the Palm Sunday Road into Jerusalem

Hi all,
I had the good fortune to take a business trip to Israel as part of the acquisition of the company I work for, Merced, by an Israeli software company called NICE Systems. I went and spent the week in Tel Aviv for the Global Sales Kickoff, and also had a chance to visit Jerusalem while there! In sum: Amazing. As in the "Amazing Grace" kind of Amazing.

South Tel Aviv

View from the hotel room

I stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel along with a couple dozen of my colleagues from the USA, right on the Mediterranean promenade in Tel Aviv. Got a couple of nice runs in along the coast.

Old Jaffa

One of the afternoons we had a team building exercise with some of the other folks from around the world. It was a combination of scavenger hunt and team building activities such as drumming, chess, and cooking in and around the old town of Jaffa.

Alleyways in the old town

Jaffa port waterfront

Challenging the expert at chess...and losing!

Cooking Shakshuka - a delicious tomato and egg concoction

Then on Friday we had a company tour to Jerusalem. It was such an Amazing (see above) experience, when we had some additional free time before the flight on Saturday I went back for some more Grace!!

Temple (right), City of David (foreground), Old City (left)

I won't recount everything, but we started at the Israeli Museum, seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls and observing a scale model of Old Jerusalem to help get our bearings. It is amazing to imagine what the Temple there must have looked like!

Herod's Second Temple

Temple Mount with Al-Aqsa Mosque

 We then went to the Western Wall on the Temple Mount. The history of this spot is incredible, and the source of an unbelievable amount of holiness and strife. Read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Mount

Western (Wailing) Wall

We were allowed to go into the sacred area wearing yarmulkes, and the tradition is to write a prayer on a piece of paper and wedge it in the wall somewhere. I didn't get a good picture of this, but because this section of the wall is closest to where the Holy of Holies used to be when the Temple was still standing, God actually is there.

Of course now the Dome of the Rock stands on the site of the old Temple; this is the spot where Mohammed went up to heaven to meet with Moses and Jesus. Talk about some serious holiness!

Dome of the Rock (background), Western Wall (foreground)

Damascus Gate

We also spent some time walking around the Old City, from the Western Wall to Damascus Gate. The streets are super-narrow and packed with people.

Market on Main Street: Souk Khan El-Zeit

Hommos and Falafel with fresh, I mean FRESH, bread

I could spend weeks just sampling the bread!

 

Once in a while, Israeli soldiers would walk past

Under the street level, remains of the old Roman roads can be seen here and there.

Then we saw many of the Christian sites, starting with the Mount of Olives.

View up the hill with 2000-year-old olive trees

We walked up the hill for the view of the city, and to see the Chapel of the Ascension: where Jesus ascended. His footprint still can be seen in the bedrock!

Then we descended down the Palm Sunday Road, where Jesus rode triumphantly into Jerusalem so long ago. Now the Dome of the Rock stands on the site of the Temple, but from the model you can imagine what a sight this must have been!







Further down we visited the Church of St. Mary Magdelene, the home of the Russian Orthodox church. It is situated in a beautiful garden on the mountainside, in the cool shade and off the busy streets.

Continuing down the road at the bottom of the hill is the Garden of Gesthemane and the Church of All Nations, where Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion.These trees are >2000 years old and would have stood witness to Jesus' prayers.

Inside the Church of All Nations - Domes of Mosaic

Mosaic of the same

The rock Jesus prayed on in Gesthemane

Entrance to Mary's Tomb

Finally, at the very bottom of the Mount of Olives, is Mary's tomb.

Next, we walked the Via Dolorosa, the Way of the Cross. This also happens to include the fourteen Stations of the Cross - not the figurative ones, but the ACTUAL route Christ walked the day of his crucifixion.

Ceiling of the Chapel marking the spot where Pilate sentenced Jesus

Wall Jesus leaned against along the Way

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Stairway to Golgotha

The actual rock of Golgotha

Altar on the site of the Crucifixion

Down the stairs again, mosaic above the Stone of Unction

The spot where Jesus' body was embalmed

The Tomb where Jesus was buried and rose again

Into the Sherut, private buses driven by Arabs on the Sabbath

Overall, an Amazing trip. Every Christian, Jew, and Muslim should visit Jerusalem. It is a dynamic, spiritual, and richly cultural city that could become the symbol of Grace for man, instead of division and strife...