Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

And this is what I woke up to!!! Thank you sweetie, I love you!

Valentine's Day 2014

An Afternoon at Washoe Lake

Washoe Lake-and if you look closely there are two big helicopters flying overhead

We started the day very slowly on Saturday.  It was a nice relaxing start to the weekend.  Dan made us some bacon and eggs, tea and coffee.  We wanted to get out and explore, but we wanted an adventure that Dusty could join us on--meaning nothing too long or too rough.  We decided Washoe Lake, would be a good option as we could hike around, but also hang out by the lake if dusty was tired or we just wanted to sit and read or take pictures.

Washoe Lake is south of Reno, north of Carson City.  It was a beautiful sunny day, but it was brisk.  Brisker than it had been in Reno lately.  I was unprepared for how cold it was.  Luckily, Dan had an extra jacket in the car and I was smart enough to at least bring gloves and a hat--thank goodness.  My fingers turned to ice every time I took my gloves off to take i-phone photos-silly touch screens, I can't wait till they figure that one out.

The last couple of winters have been pretty bad, not a lot of precipitation and our area needs as much as it can get.  I must say though, that I am happy to see there is still water in Washoe.  When I was a kid Washoe dried up quite often, it's been several years since it has and hopefully it will be a long time before it does again.  We got some more precip yesterday and hopefully there is more to come, keep keeping your fingers crossed!

Dusty enjoying the lake

My sweet family

Light on Washoe Lake

Dan and Coco Enjoying the Lake

Crafty, Crafty, Crafty!!!

I admit it, I am not all that crafty, but sometimes I like to pretend that I am, especially around the holidays. So, this Christmas I got to feeling crafty and decided to paint wine glasses, mugs and bowls. It was quite the endeavor though, especially the wine glasses. The mugs were the easiest, which was a nice surprise, since I did them last. Painting glass that you can't lie down or it will roll away, is trickier than I would have thought, the paint runs, the glass doesn't hold/accept the paint readily and I accidentally kept putting my fingers into drying paint, arrrrg! After awhile I did manage to find a technique that worked well for me--the main part of that technique was being much, much more patient than I really wanted to be. In the end I think all the projects turned out relatively respectable. Here are some pictures:

Mom and Erin's wine glasses--mom loves putting strawberries in her wine!

More wine glasses

The mugs

Crafty!!! Apparently I forgot to take pictures of the kids bowls, which is too bad, there were some cute penguins and snowmen and stockings and whatnot.

Warm Hike into the Hills in January

The weather here in Northern Nevada is finally starting to get a bit chilly. It has been incredibly warm all through December and most of January, which is a bad thing of coarse, but has made it nice for hiking and playing outdoors. A week or so ago we took the kids out on family hike into the hills just behind our house. Check out how gorgeous the day was, unfortunately it appears I had a smudge or something on my lens :(

A Few of My Favorite Things

Mountains and awesome cloudy skies are most definitely a few of my favorite things--although this is not a great picture

Alright, while reading this post you must hum and/or sing the Sound of Music's, My Favorite Things. This can be done silently in your head, out loud, at the top of your lungs or anywhere in between--your choosing.

There is very little that is better than a long holiday weekend spent with a few of your favorite things. On Wednesday evening I came home from Paradise Valley and stopped by the condo where I got to visit with my favorite sister, Erin (fresh in from Flagstaff, AZ) and my favorite mother. I then headed to our house and pretty much fell into a delish pre-thanksgiving meal with my favorite Dan and our housemates.

On Thursday we were lucky enough to spend the morning with a few of our favorite peeps enjoying one of our favorite pastimes--ultimate frisbee of course. After that, we picked up that favorite sister of mine and headed down to Carson/Douglas to have Thanksgiving dinner with my Dad's family. My brothers were super cute, as always and Tanner loved being a ham. Friday we slept in, then took the kids (Dusty, Coco, Bodie and Casper the friendly goat) for a nice, little hike--another favorite pastime of ours. Friday night we did a post-thanksgiving dinner with mom and Erin at one of our favorite restaurants, Bangkok Cuisine, which was yummy as usual. Then we met up with some more of our favorite peeps for a beer at the Tap House.

Ultimate-favorite sport

My favorite puppy kids

My favorite kid kids and their handsome papa--also a favorite of mine

My favorite and gorgeous mother and sister at the yummy Bangkok Cuisine

Saturday morning we met up with my sister and mother for a great breakfast at the Squeeze in then headed off to afternoon pick-up, where we got an ultimate surprise! Our good friend, Wayne, Wayne-O, BTW, Big Tall Wayne--who now lives in Colorado, was in town for the holiday and showed up for some fantastic, frisbee fun. After pick-up we went to Craft for some beers with more of our favorite people.

If you thought we were done with big meals, we were not. On Sunday our good friend Wayne wanted to get some sushi, which we hadn't had for quite some time and definitely did not want to miss out on. We were also supposed to go to a friends' Late-giving, but we had to bail on that because we had to get our house ready for the landlords "walk through" on Monday. Overall it was a great weekend spent doing great things with great people. And, even with all of this, we still missed out on seeing some of our favorite people, but hopefully we'll catch up with them soon. I love my life and the amazing people and critters in it, thank you all!

My sister the pool shark

Ham

Dad and my favorite brothers-the things- at Halloween

What, a Fire?!

Thursday night Dan and I talked on G-chat. We talked about how it's supposed to snow on Friday and how hopefully the roads won't be too bad for my drive back into Reno on Friday night. Friday morning I woke up in my little bed, in my little bunk house, in the quaint little town of Paradise. Since I was expecting snow, I went over and I looked out the window, but there wasn't any snow. So I shuffled back over to my bed and I got on my computer--as I do most mornings--to check out what's going on in the world and very much to my surprise this is what I saw:

What?!

My first reaction was "What?!, it was supposed to snow, how is there a huge fire in Reno?" My second reaction, once I looked at the picture a bit closer, was a sinking one, "holy shit, my house is in that area. Dan, the pups, and the goats all are there!" I called Dan as fast as I could. I was so glad I was able to get through to him on my first call. Lucky for us, the fire was just north of our place. Dan had been woken up around 4 in morning by the wind and went outside, when he looked up the whole hillside to the north was on fire. He said it was pretty crazy. We were very lucky, even though the fire was fairly close to our neighborhood, the wind was blowing it the other direction. We were in the volunteer evacuation zone not the mandatory one, so Dan stayed, but got things ready in case the winds changed and he had to get the family out.

I left work a little early to come back and be with the family. By the time I got to Reno homes were no longer in danger, which was great to hear. This was a devastating fire for Reno, 21 structures were lost many of which were residents. There was only one death, which is a sad story of on older gentleman who had a heart attack while evacuating in the middle of the night. The last I heard they hadn't identified how the fire started, but they think it may have been caused by downed power lines from the wind. My heart and thoughts go out to all those who were affected by this fire. Northern Nevada has had a run of hard times lately--but it's been amazing to see our community come together and support each other during these times. I love my community, my home!

*Update on numbers: As of the morning of 11/20/11, a total of 29 homes declared destroyed/uninhabitable, 7 partially damaged and 1 with minor damage. In addition to the man who passed from a heart attack, one firefighter has suffered serious burns and is in the hospital.

Weekend Fun in Fall

Chicken Creek, where we branded the first day

In between my weeks in Paradise Valley I have been keeping myself quite busy, this past weekend was my first weekend in Reno in four weeks. The first weekend we were at the ranch branding, which is always a good time. I switched between giving shots and branding calves. The next weekend was Halloween, we went to the ranch again to celebrate with family. And last weekend we went to San Fransisco to sell books at the Basque Cultural Day where we danced the evening away to a great Basque band whose name I can't recall, but I'll try to find out. These weekends have been a lot of fun, but it was really nice to finally have a quiet weekend in Reno, we went hot tubbing and had dinner with friends, I played ultimate for the first time in quite awhile and we went out and had a wonderful dinner with my mom. She is such a great mom and person, I love her soooooo much, thanks mom! Here are some pictures of these fun filled weekends, although I don't have any of my nice, quiet weekend in Reno, oh-well.

Dan excited about branding...or our new truck?

Branding, in action

Lunch time after branding

Gopher snake we found on our way home from the branding

Halloween I was a flower and Dan, a bee

Our friends, dead skiers

Basque Cultural Center, where we celebrated Basque Cultural Day

Making friends at Basque Cultural Day

Twin Lakes Reunion

The upper lake with mountains

Last weekend I went to Twin Lakes, CA to visit some friends of the family. Several of the people I grew up with, but hadn't seen in something like 10 years. It was wonderful to spend time in such a gorgeous place, catching up with old friends.

Twin Lakes is an amazingly beautiful place and I feel lucky that I have had the opportunity to spend as much time here as I have. Our friends own a couple of cabins in the area and as a kid I would come up with their family on holidays and in summer to play. It was a lot of fun. In summer there's swimming, hot springs, hiking and backpacking. In winter there's skiing, sledding, snowshoeing and hot tubbing. So much fun for a kid...and adults as well!!!

Unfortunately I did not take many pictures on this trip--I was too busy catching up and playing with everyone's cute kids.

Les and Dick on a morning hike.

Getting ready for the ice cream hike with the kiddos.

Enjoying ice cream in the sun!

Two of my great friends, father and daughter.

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

Man, it's been a really busy month or so. I'm finishing up my job with Friends of Nevada Wilderness, which is keeping me hard at work. My last day with Friends is Friday the 24th and I don't think I'm going to finish everything that I wanted to get done. There's still an area in Gray Creek I would like to get to and I'd also like to get further into the west side of Hunter Creek.

I'm very sad that this awesome job is coming to an end, I have enjoyed the experience immensely. I can tell, however, that my body is a bit tired and is in need of a break--my knee has been hurting and I've been feeling fairly tired overall. I don't want to take too big of a break though, I'd like to stay in as good as shape as I am in now or, if I'm lucky, get into even better shape--that will be hard if I'm not hiking 8-20 miles a day like I am now. I want to start swimming again,maybe start running too. I'd like to do a marathon...I think. I also would like to get back into climbing, it's been a few years and I miss it. As for work, I hope I can find another job that is as awesome as this job. I think I'd be happy if my next job is even half as fun as this job. I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity to explore the Mount Rose Wilderness and to get to know the people at Friends, they have been wonderful, I'll miss them.

I know this post is a bit rambly for me, but it has been preoccupying my mind. As far as what I've been doing as of late; a couple of backpacking trips for work, a bachelorette weekend, and some pro-mini golf. Here's the proof:

Dan and two of the kids at work

Dan and Dust hard at work with me

I love Mount Rose Wilderness

Bachellorette floaty

Bachelorette Groove Thang

I love Mount Rose Wilderness

Backpack trip for work, Thomas Creek to Brockway

Gray Lake and Rose Knob Peak at Sundown

2010 4th Annual Pabst Reno-Tahoe Mini Golf Open:
The Most Awesome Team!

Birthday Bodie!!!!! One Year Old!!!!

A day at Lake Tahoe

One year ago today Bodie, the cutest baby goat in the world, wandered into our lives. She was such a tiny little goat, who was rejected by her mother. Her mother had triplets and only enough milk to feed two babies, so our Bodie was pushed off to the side and ignored. Ignored, that is, until she was brought to us by Dan's mother. She asked us to watch over her, but we ended up falling in love with her. For several months we bottle fed her and loved her and she slept in a big cardboard box in our bathroom. As she grew stronger, she started joining us on our outdoor adventures. She loves going for hikes and climbing mountains. Playing on the rocks is one of her favorite activities. She eventually got big enough and strong enough that she had to move outside. She is such a sweet, funny little girl, who never fails to make us smile. She has brought so much joy into our lives, we are soooooo lucky to have her as a member of our family. Happy Birthday Bodie, we love you!!!

~Renee, Dan, Dusty and Coco

Here are some of my favorite photos from Bodie's first year:

Baby Bodie on a walk with papa

Taking a nap on her favorite chair

Learning to drive

First big hike, turd peak

On her princess chair

Being goofy

Hanging out with her big bro

One of her many cozy spots

Snuggling with papa

We want to go too!

Everyone loves going for a ride in the car

Playing peek-a-boo

I could have posted a hundred more photos there are sooooooo many cute ones of our baby goat and these don't even include pictures that Dan has taken, he has a ton too. But, these are some of my favorites.