lazy Saturdays....

We're finally able to have a lazy Saturday at campchaos. Even the pups knew and let us sleep in before we all had quality couch time. We did muster up some motivation and channeled our inner Fred as we make donuts that reminded us of dunkin donut munchkins... you can see that post here.

Saturday Night Live - Debbie Downer- Dress Rehearsal - Video - NBC.com

Saturday Night Live - Debbie Downer- Dress Rehearsal - Video - NBC.com




Turns out I've got something in common with Debbie Downer... thankfully I have a better attitude about my gluten intolerance!

camp chaos hits the road

Last weekend we loaded up the 4Runner and headed northeast to catch up with all the folks in Summit County. We even squeezed in a few extra visits along the way. Dave's finished for the season as there isn't much demand for groomers after the mountain closes and I took an extended weekend so we didn't have to rush the trip.

Chaos in blue and Mayhem in green cuddle in the sunshine

We left Thursday morning and stopped in Vail to see our friend Sandy who currently lives in Alaska and was in Vail for a conference. We walked the dogs along the busy ski town paths and grabbed dinner at a local pub. Big Dave also made the trip out of Telluride as he had to drop a friend off for knee surgery and met up with us at Sam & Meghan's house. They rent a farmhouse in Silverthorne and it has a big area for all the dogs to run and play in. They had borrowed a Wii for the weekend and it kept the boys up late each night for some rounds of bowling and golf.
Friday we started our day with a breakfast at Kula's in Dillon. It's a small cafe and run by the nicest people... they also happen to specialize in gluten-free goodies. It's not often I get to enjoy gluten-free french toast and I made sure to document the occasion for my GF blog. Sam had the day off and the three boys and I headed over to Copper for the day. Meghan was able to meet up and ride with us for a bit as did Jon in the afternoon. We also spent some time watching Alex and a crew of CVA kids compete in SBX. Alex had stayed with us last December when the World Cup hit Telluride and it was great to be able to watch him race and take 5th.
Saturday found us with a repeat at Kula's before Team Dave and I hit slopes at A-Basin. It was a cloudy day near Loveland Pass and colder then expected. We had taken Chaos, Mayhem as well as Kaya and Echo on a big walk that morning so we didn't feel too bad about ditching them. Saturday night was Courtney's birthday and we hit their house for Chinese food and birthday cake. Chaos and Mayhem had a great time playing with their cousins and the girls even took Mayhem and Chaos for a walk with me. Both dogs were on their best behavior as the girls held the leashes. These days Chaos only pulls when he sees another dog and Mayhem had on his gentle leader harness which reigns him in nicely.
Jon and Courtney had Sunday off so we hit Copper for a ski day with the crew after our 3rd Kula's breakfast of the trip and another big dog walk. Kula's also had great pocket snacks for me. They made this incredible GF carmel bar with a rich chocolate topping that was great fuel for both A-Basin and Copper. I can't ski without loading my pockets now as I never know where I can find "safe" food. It's imperative that I don't have gluten while traveling since it would kill the trip with a migraine and other issues that I'll spare you the details on. This last weekend I was a huge fan of Kula's treats and fruit snacks.

The kids have progressed a lot since the last time we were able to ski with them, and Courtney and Jon aren't half bad either...

Team Drabik ripped it up and we ended a big ski day with free music at the base of the mountain in the sunshine. It was a very full weekend and we're both looking forward to a quiet time at home with the monsters this weekend to recover from the Summit County crew and the trip out of Telluride.


Spring Travels

powder days in telluride

We awoke on Saturday to 13 fresh inches and the sky was still dumping. Chaos managed to score a short walk before Dave and I headed out for a day on the hill.

After taking some runs together, we found our friends waiting at the gate to Prospect Bowl... the rope dropped and it was a ski/board cross race to the lift. 95% of the crowd hit Gold Hill and Jess and I met up at Prospect Express. We had first tracks down Stella and captured the image in the low light..

We found some good stashes and hung out in prospect for a while...

Eventually we found Jared and Dave again and stopped for a snack at High Camp.

Seriously... this sounds narly but was actually really good and marked gluten free... a gourmet chocolate bar laced with bacon. While there was more snow this morning I ended up working all day and not making time for a ski break.... perhaps tomorrow if all goes well!

The bacon chocolate only made us realize how starving we all were and we descended on Big Dave's house at Melrose Place for some food and tubby time. We made Brinner (breakfast for dinner) and all the non-glutards piled it high on a bulky roll.  We made gluten free pancakes, hash browns, eggs, bacon and sausage and a few folks managed to get all these layered up into a sandwich.

winter woks and more

If you happen to read Think Outside the Breadbox you may already know that one of my favorite glutarded meals is Street Noodles. We made a huge batch the other night and thankfully I was greatly assisted by our favorite Chef Tomas.

Chef Tomas is a legend here in Telluride and when Justin found him at the Free Box one fine winter day in 2007 he was a bit down on his luck. He came to live with us and spends his time between Camp Chaos, Sno Dundah and Melrose Place. He's currently staying at Melrose since Big Dave had a heated pool and a hot tub which helps take the chill off a cold winter's day.

Tomas and I made street noodles for a crowd of seven starving skiers on Saturday. We had friends and friends of friends in town and had a good evening and meal at Melrose Place. Tomas was pretty proud of his wok skills...

I went for a full moon hike with some friends last month and got one whole photo as we departed thanks to dave... I hate taking off my gloves in cold weather. Here's me and our friend Jim as we ready to depart on the hour-long hike up.

Dave had to skip the hike as he went off for some night shift grooming... midnight to 9:30am, five nights a week... kinda takes the fun out of a Saturday night. He was to get some shots like this...

an early morning overlooking the Telluride Airport.

a long december....

I have to say that I'm ready for 2009 to be over. It's been a busy year and I'm hoping to slow down a bit more in 2010.... but with an October event and the craziness of Telluride I think a slow 2010 is just a dream.

I've been trying to spend more time cooking and baking. I've been playing with a few gluten free flour blends and perfecting my street noodles. In case you didn't know I also am a gluten free blogger.... but have fallen even further behind there!

Dave's been busy snowmaking and starts grooming next week when the roll up the snowmaking hose for the season. He'll be working nights all winter so Chaos will have a buddy to nap with during the day.

Telluride hosted the 2009 Snowboardcross World Cup event and we cheered on two Sugarloafer. Seth Wescott won the gold in the 2006 Olympics and we've cheered him on in a few events. This year Alex Tuttle joined in on the fun... he even stayed here at campchaos and managed to make it through Dave's entire collection of the Simpson's.  Alex is 19 and graduated from CVA last year and this was his first world cup race. There are 60+ racers that come to town for this and they only have 32 spots for race day so they do a qualifier the day prior. SBX is a lot of fun to watch as it's 4 races flying down the course at one time and egging each other on. The qualifiers are a grueling process where each races gets two solo runs down the course and the top 32 times advance to the next day's races.  Alex had a great showing and hit 43rd (did I mention this is his first World Cup event.... and not his last!) and Seth hit 2nd and went on to the next day. The bonus for us was getting to watch the finals with Alex and knowing that when he said Seth was solid that things were ok and when he got nervous there was a good reason!  This is a race that is helping to secure spots at the 2010 olympics. It was on NBC last week and that was Dave and I rocking the Go Wescott Banner.... you could safely call us his biggest Telluride fans.

Work has been insane and I'm on day 11 straight.... 'nuff said. Plus my crackberry is on the fritz... it thinks I want to take photos instead of making calls or sending emails. At one point it wouldn't even let me pick up phone calls. I ordered a new phone and as soon as I did the old crackberry started working again.... arugh. I also changed my mind and am going to move away from the crackberry and find a new model..... I've been asking around and everyone seems to love the droid.... thank goodness for a 30 day return policy. This is the hard part about working too much and not having a good cell phone store around us.

off season?

Most ski towns have an off season where things and life slows down. Technically we are in off season but I'm still spending a lot of time and energy working. Dave worked Saturday and started snowmaking tonight. We managed to take a bit of a break this weekend and hit a pumpkin carving party at Jim's house. He made his signaure chili and even made two pots and made one with Gluten Free Beer! I'm very lucky that our friends have been great about helping me eat gluten free... guess it just goes to show you how grumpy I used to be when eating gluten.... or that we have good friends. Either way we had friends ensure that there were chili, crackers, dips and cupcakes that were glutarded for me.

Here's a little photo montage from the event. At the end there is also a Munee and Chaos segment...



And a shot of Team Dave on their first night of snowmaking... we made a really good slow cooker meal tonight to send them off into the night shift and 18 degree weather warm and happy.