Sparkle's excellent adventure

Part of the fun of this past weekend's visit to Mt Bachelor near Bend, Oregon was toting along Sparkle. 

Sparkle is one of Clare's "littlest pet shop" dolls, although she's hardly even big enough to be called a doll. More like a happy meal toy, really. 

But I decided it would be fun to take one of Clare's favorite things with me and photograph it along the way, so that's what she gave me. 

She flew with me to Portland Thursday. She observed as we ate and drank at the Gates' condo in Sunriver, OR. And she made the trip to the summit with me for view and some skiing at Mt Bachelor. 

Clare was totally amazed to get her back this morning when I pulled her out of my jacket pocket.

"I kept her safe, honey. She enjoyed the skiing!"

sign reads "caution, icy conditions"

and note you can't see the bottom!

I had a great time hanging out with my brother and his friends for the weekend as well.

We kicked off the weekend in Portland at The Lincoln School, one of the many McMenamin's pubs all over the city. They rehabbed on old school and now have a bunch of different bars, restaurants and even a hotel and swimming pool inside. It's nuts.

It was a great spot, too bad I was running on empty as it was 2 am CST. I managed to keep up with the boys for the most part, but getting up roughly 4 hours later at Krause's was kinda brutal.

We made the 4-hour trek out to Bend, stocked up on supplies at Costco and then headed to the Gates' condo at Sunriver, just 25 minutes from Mt. Bachelor.

It was a great place and worked out perfectly for the 5 of us. We ventured into Bend the first night for dinner at the Deschutes River Brewing Co, home of Mirror Pond Pale Ale. (freakin' awesome). We left however, with a new favorite beer. Hop Henge IPA. 

The stuff is insane. If you like your beer hoppy, come on down. And with a whopping 8% or so ABV, it's sure to take the bumps out of your day!

The two days at Bachelor were mostly sunny and mild, great temps for skiing. They need some new snow though, and we did hit some icy patches here and there. The ice storm they had earlier in January wreaked havoc on the mountain - the top of the Northwest Express lift looked like the Fortress of Solitude.

But Sunday was a little better as the warmer temps softened things up just enough.

The rest of the troops opted for less skiing and more bar/superbowl time on Sunday while I decided to shut the mountain down myself. I closed the Outback Express lift and then skied the Pine Marten Express area until they closed that down too. The last few hours of skiing were the best of the weekend. A bit painful in the shins, but awesome. 

Up and down the mountain with no lift lines, not many stops on the way down, and plenty of time to contemplate all sorts of things while surrounded by some fantastic scenery.

Just as I was paused near the top of "coffee",

 soaking in the scenery and having a little visit with God, I got a text from the girls. 

"i love you from clare and addie. i miss you so much i cant forget about you daddy...we are eating pizza and watching narnia and sometimes the super bowl"

It can't get any better.

Well, they could have been with me.

Breckenridge, 2010. Book it.