My Birthday Weekend

so instead of christmas presents, my siblings and I decided to just all get together for a long weekend and hang out. since my brother justin has two little girls (isabella and giavanna) we decided not to make them travel and we’d spend the time in sun valley idaho. this year it just so happened to be my birthday while we were there.

i headed out on wednesday and got picked up by justin and we headed out and grabbed some beers and caught up. he just finished a huge job (engineer) at a geo-thermal power plant start-up in turkey that went months over the estimate.

after beers, we headed back to his house were his wife gabby and our mom were playing with the girls. had a lovely pasta dinner and then sat outside and chatted as the sun went down.

the next day justin and i had big plans. i have been biking a fair amount as my source of transport in the city so i thought we could go for a nice mountain bike ride. mistakenly, i had bragged about how about how huge my calves are now (i always try and catch up to my big brothers who both outweigh me by like 60-70 pounds of muscle). well justin picked out a nice trail and we had a blast. from there, lunch and beers. from there, the gun store for ammo. now, i am not what you call a gun freak. in fact, i just shot my first gun a year or so ago with my brother. but now i think i may be a little more in touch with the kids that we were when we ran around moscow and blew sh!t up playing army.

after all the fun, we headed back to the house to stern looks from from our mom, gabby and even isabella. after making the peace, it was time for dinner so we went to a really good pizza place nearby (nearby, that’s kinda funny, EVERYTHING is nearby)

first son matt and his wife brenda and the kids ryan braden and bella were due to arrive in at 2 am so we stayed up and watched movies till they got in.

the next morning, after breakfast we wanted to go on a hike. we loaded the whole gang up and headed out to the hills (behind the house, see, EVERYTHING really is nearby).

after a little ways, justin ryan and i blazed our own trail to the ridge line while everyone else stayed on more level ground.

after the hike, it was time to get

down with the celebration. being

my birthday, i got to work on the

cocktails. matt got to work on

dinner and gabby on dessert. i

made scratch margaritas and

for dinner there was carne asada

tacos and fish tacos. dessert was

homemade oreo ice cream. a bit

of a rainstorm rolled through so

matt ended up barbecuing and

taking a shower at the same time.

well worth the sacrifice in our minds.

after dessert it was poker time. and scotch time. justin brought back a nice bottle from his travels to celebrate the job’s completion, my birthday, our belated christmas, etc.

lots of funny stories recounted. gabby even brought up one or two that i am sure my unconscious mind had forcibly suppressed. thanks gabs.

saturday morning was the day we had decided to head out to a cabin in the woods. groceries and beer on the way out of town and then diverted ourselves on the trip with the standard road trip fare. if you’re thinking “i spy” and sing-a-longs, you are off the mark a bit. more like, each kid to his own iPod and then parents to the sisyphean task of getting them to make conversation and enjoy family time. we did have a nice little stretch where we found that ryan is excellent at guessing riddles. we stopped at a viewpoint shortly thereafter and learned he is not as skilled at climbing trees (i am not posting any pictures here to save his embarrassment).

once to the cabin, and after settling in, we went for a walk up and down the road. forgive me if i took to many pictures of isabella but i have a bit of a soft spot for her.