Masaru's bday gift from the Crane's

 The Cranes always do an amazing job with gifts to our kids. Here's Masaru's 16th birthday gift they gave him. IT'S IN CONCRETE. hahahahahaha

I took a video from the start. But I figured I'd get the ball rolling once he was halfway through........

Super thoughtful gift and he loves it and I'm sure will use it his whole life. Love the Cranes and how they care for the kids. 

Yurt weekend with the mtb crew

 So the Thompsons got themselves a yurt in Stanley for the weekend. 

They invited Dru and I and so we asked Natalie to watch Takeshi and Cesha if she could watch the girls and they could for a couple of days while we went. Big thanks to them. Masaru went with his buddy Kyler for the weekend.

We carpooled with the Thompsons and were the last ones to the yurt. The Zipps got there first and we met Dmo and Will at the trail into the yurt and got started.

Here we are about to get started on the hike into the yurt. Most ski in and will take the sled with them and take turns pulling it in. I brought my snowshoes, but it turned out it was packed enough for me and Will to simply walk in. It was really nice. 

Here's Dru, Jo and Will walking in. Cool right?

Here's what the yurt looked like.

This was inside where Dru and I, the Zipps and Jo slept. It was beautiful.

Here's a birds eye view of the yurt. See it has the kitchen area as well as the sleeping area and then the other building is where the wood is for the stove. Then you have the toilets. Those are the little trails. It was beautiful.

Little closer view of the yurt.

Some of the mountains the boys skied around the yurt. 

It was just beautiful and I'm glad I was able to witness it with my eyes. Sometimes I wish I had a camera on my eyes so I could take a picture of what I see. I'm not a good enough photographer to be able to do it. To take a decent picture is a true gift.

There was hot tubbing to be had.

There was games to be played.

There was food to be eaten.

Naps to take.

Fantastic food to cook.

Snuggles to be given.

Plenty of talking to take place.

Did I mention the beauty?

We had some great talks and some wonderful times together. It's a good crew and I'm grateful they invited Dru and I and grateful my kids were looked after.

Takeshi had fun doing the ropes course with his mates. The girls had fun buying things at the mall with Cesha and hanging out. Masaru had some good hang out time with his buddy Kyler as well. Which is good cause it was basically the last time he hung out with him. So I'm glad he had that weekend.

Wonderful weekend together and the first time in a yurt. I'm a fan and think it'd be fun to do again with the kids and mates. I hear they're hard to book though, so I'm happy we had this experience thanks to the Thompsons.

Random quick post

 

I've been volunteering at a safe house for trafficked girls. It's called the 'House of Shalom' and I go there once a week for a couple of hours and hang out with whatever girls happen to be there that week. It's been really good, really eye opening, really rewarding, really educational, really sad, really shocking, really enlightening and really tough. I'm glad I can be there with them and give them some of my time and learn from them. There's a lot of bad in the world, and there's a lot of good as well. I hope we're trying to be the good in the world and not the bad. There's so much good to be done. I hope to continue to help where I can.

I read a book called 'Lift' by Melinda Gates. It was really good. I'm not sure I like her. She felt a little judgmental to me. But her message comes from a good place and I learned a lot. I'm not sure what  name she's going to go by now as she just divorced Bill Gates. So we'll see. Anyway, here's a couple of great quotes from her book.

Love them both.

Takeshi and I got out there and did some mtbing. Now it's summer and I'm playing catch up on this blog, I'm sure Takeshi and I will be doing some more mtbing together. He's excited to have a season with the Timberline team. I hope he has fun.

Emiko decided to make a safe space for all of her toys so they could gather and have a party. I think it was a good time ;)

My podcast is going well. I've produced 14 episodes. 7 are me and 7 are guests. I'm enjoying it and am happy I'm doing it. It's a lot of work but it's worth it and I'm excited to keep moving forward with it.