Mom and Dad's trip

We mentioned that Mom and Dad went to Oregon a couple weekends ago. We thought they just went to go shopping, but then we found these pictures on the camera.

Does that look like a skijoring race to you? It sure does to me!

If you look closely at this picture, you'll see sleds and dogs in harnesses, but you won't see Steve or me anywhere! That is an outrage!

Then we saw this and realized that Mom and Dad were also out snowshoeing with other dogs. It doesn't get any worse than that!

After I saw this, I had to sit Mom down and interrogate her. I found out that she and Dad went to watch the start of a skijor race and then they went snowshoeing with one of her friends and his dogs, Crockett and Tubbs. I was very upset, but then Mom promised that she just wanted to check out the skijoring to see it in person so we can do it sometime AND that she wants to take us to the place where they snowshoed and that someday we can hang out with Crockett and Tubbs because their dad invited us all to come visit.

So I decided that I'll let her off the hook just this once. After all, we did have run at the ranch.
Kat

Hiking in the snow

On Saturday, we packed up the 4Runner and went to the mountains to go snowshoeing. When we got there, the trail was packed down so Mom and Dad didn't wear their snowshoes and we just hiked.

Here's a view of the trail.

We stopped for lunch and Kat and I camped out on a snow mound. Mom decided it was a good time to take a quick picture over her shoulder.

The ground and trees were covered with ice crystals. I tried to take a picture for you.

We decided to take Mom and Dad down to the ice caves. Here we are leading the way.

We got to the bridge we needed to cross to get to the caves and look what we discovered!

The bridge had washed out! I tried to look for where it went, but I didn't see it.

Mom made us pose for a picture.

Finally when we were almost back to the car, Mom made us pose again. (We're so cute, she just can't help it.)

We like it better when Dad is holding cookies.

I complain a lot when I have to put my backpack on, but really, I love it!!
Steve

Snowshoeing

Today we went snowshoeing with Mom and Dad.  Being huskies, we didn't need any stinkin' snowshoes, but Mom and Dad sure did.

We drove up to the Mt. Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest to snowshoe.  There is a road there that makes a loop, but the highway department doesn't plow part of the road in the winter and it makes  good snowshoe or cross-country ski trail.  On our way, Dad stopped at the ranger station just to make sure there wasn't avalanche danger where we were going and we got the A-OK!  Here's a picture of us with Mom before we got started.

We were pretty excited to be out in all that snow.  Here's a video of us messing around while waiting for Dad to get all the stuff out of the car.

Then we started down the trail.  We wanted to pull, pull, PULL, but Mom and Dad's snowshoes really dug into the snow and we couldn't pull them down the trail.  Bummer.

The snow is really deep over the uncleared road.  Here we are with Dad in front of a sign and you can see only the top of the sign!

We hiked for two miles, then Mom and Dad stopped for lunch.  We stopped at a picnic area, but all the picnic stuff was covered in snow, so Mom and Dad just sat on the ground.  Steve and I put on our 60-foot leashes so we could really roam around.  However, we are so used to sticking with Mom and Dad, it wasn't until Mom started throwing snowballs that we realized we could actually venture out.

Since we stopped at the picnic area, there weren't a lot of trees close by, but I did manage to get my leash wrapped around a tree and Dad had to come rescue me.  Mom didn't get the daring rescue on video though.  You can see in this video that I was very grateful to Dad for being my hero!

Mom and Dad had fun snowshoeing and they said we can go again soon.  Right now we don't have a lot of places to go because of the avalanche danger, but as soon as that goes away, we might try some different trails.

Kat