When you're only 11 weeks old, there are a lot of firsts to tick off.

First holiday and aeroplane ride, followed by second to sixth aeroplane rides. First night sleeping on an airport floor, first toe in the ocean, first firm grasp on a toy. He's off to a good start.

 

Bye bye winter

Altitude specific seasons.

Baby pictures (click for full documentary evidence):

Ok, now that's out of the way I'm going to write about the weather. Hooray!

What we've got ourselves is...

This sort of thing in the valley (that's Ricardo's vanity bike-shot, but he's allowed as he owns a bike shop).

And this sort of thing up at Sovereign Lakes. Here, Tav is adopting his customary sleeping approach to skiing.

But that was all last weekend. This weekend we spent most of the time at the "winter" elevation. Saturday was the first annual "Frosty Fox" fatbike festival at Silver Star, and I took on the great responsibility of representing Sun Country Cycle.

Lina and Tav enjoying the luxuries afforded by bike shop representatives.

And then there was a race. The Silver Star folks had built a downhill track to start off the show, followed by a couple of loops on the singletrack trails. The downhill was pretty hilarious as trying to carry enough speed in to the jumps meant making a lot of progress sideways around all the corners. There were berms, but the soft conditions made it tough to use them. There was a lot of pedaling, some good skidding opportunities and all the general crashing and silliness that goes along with fat biking. It was also ENDURO format with staggered starts, so very on-trend.

If you squint really hard, you can see Andrew riding a bike.

I was greeted on the finish line by the whole family. One family member was asleep. No prizes for guessing.

And then there were results. After the timing was all enduroed out, they put me in second place. The nice thing about enduro... oops - ENDURO, is that you've no idea whether you got your result due to bicycling performance or a timing error. I like that. In this case I came out with "fastest loser" i.e. second place. I got a medal and everything.

Tav's first podium - yes, he was asleep.

To round off the day there was the "donut derby". A team relay event that involved inhaling a donut and sprinting around a track on a bike. I think you can imagine how that went...

Winter Mountain Biking

The weather is poised to get all wet on us later this week... but for now it's still like this:

At this point on my ride, I would have high-fived myself - if only it were possible.

After the past few months of weird and skiddy fun, I am ready to declare the fat bike the greatest invention since oven-ready yam fries. I know you think I'm exaggerating, but you're just going to have to trust me on this one.

Family (Man) Day

Tomorrow is Family Day in British Columbia. Hooray! The significance of Family Day is, you've guessed it, cheap passes for skiing. You didn't guess that? Well, you will know next time.

So... today four family members loaded up in Big Stupid and took the smallest family member for a ski at Sovereign Lakes... and we didn't even buy him a ski pass at all.

Call the cops - only one of these people has paid.

Then, like all smug British Columbians, we went to the beach after skiing. There was only a bit of snow on the beach, which counts as tropical in my book (it's an odd book).

A family, enjoying the tropical idyll of Kal Lake

Now, I know the demand is out there, so here are more pictures of the small person. Hint - click the baby for more.

Apparently...

...there's a family resemblance. I can't see it myself.

Dissimilar legumes

Cultural assimilation

So that up there is where we live. Not actually on that bench, but you know... down the path from there. The past week has been top-notch for large-tire-bicycle action and I've been able to get out for more guilt free skidding and corner cutting, and quite a lot of crashing. On last night's ride we came upon the tracks of something pretty big, and pretty agile given how it had been nonchalantly walking along precipitous ledges on the cliff below the viewpoint, and last week I interrupted a very big bird eating a deer. These things remind us that it's a wild place out there.

A couple of months ago we embraced our new wild place surroundings by buying a large and aggressive vehicle with which to crush the unspoiled wilderness. Just kidding. However, we did buy "Big Stupid", the Blue Elephant's successor, to do all the things the Elephant was so good at but with three of us and on the much nastier roads we have around these parts. Our criteria were to find a big 4x4 truck which fits lots of people and gear and uses as little fuel as possible, and which we could afford. That left one option, and there was a nice used one in town, so that was pleasingly simple.

As the licence plate suggests, the radio can receive both kinds of music - Country, and Western

"Big Stupid" - rampant upon the driveway.

Then just for balance, here's Tav's new winter-crushing vehicle. We're hoping the next few winters will hold some fun family adventures with this contraption.

The Tavmobile, rampant upon the back yard.

And finally... I did some garage upgrades to accommodate our expanding family - of watercraft. We bought a canoe. I feel so Canadian. We're hoping that this contraption will be the key to fun family adventures in the summer. Oh... and how does it get up there you're wondering? Well, all I can say is that involves pulling a few strings.

And finally finally - child development news. This week's triumph has been Tav's first bottle feeding. I went into this with high hopes given that Tav will suck on just about anything with great enthusiasm (his thumb, his whole hand, my finger... and on one occasion, my chin). Luckily my hunch was right and Tav remains a hungerous beast whatever vessel the milk comes from.

Tav - visualizing sucking on things.