The NEW Flying Tomato!

One of the last lifts of the day.

Beautiful sunset on Mt. Hood.

Derek learning the ropes at his lessons.

JD and Derek before the fun. (look how tall Derek is getting!)

Derek, AKA, The Flying Tomato!

Yesterday Derek cashed in his birthday gift from me and his dad of a snowboarding trip. Since JD is off on Fridays, we decided to let Derek take a day off from school and JD would take him for the entire day. Derek is still competitively freestyle wrestling through next month, so every Saturday was going to be full for him. He checked with all his teachers, took two tests early and turned in homework due that day on Thursday. His trip included two, two hour lessons and all the equipment rentals as well as unlimited lifts throughout the day. He was excited, to say the least. They left about 6:00 a.m. and arrived home at 11:30 p.m. ALL DAY at Mt. Hood (about 2 1/2 hours from us in Oregon). They both had a great time and Derek is convinced he could be really good at this if we'd just pony up the funds for a professional trainer, a $1,000 snowboard and move the entire family to a mountain with snow nine months out of the year. It goes without mentioning that we are seriously considering it. Have a look at a few pictures of the boy in the snow. Derek clearly took right to it and rarely, if ever, fell. He says that Shaun White (a famous redheaded Olympic snowboarder nicknamed the Flying Tomato, for you old people) is ready for a successor and feels he can attempt the McTwist (a flippy, twisty trick on a snowboard, geezers) on his next snowboarding trip.

JD, on the other hand, had some, err, difficulties. He hobbled in the house last night and announced that he was "broke." Not without money, but literally brokEN. This cannot be good and I inquired further as to what, specifically, might be broken. He, with his brightly sunburned nose, muttered something and wandered to the shower--ever so carefully. Last night was HORRIFIC for us both as he constantly moaned and groaned in pain. After getting out of the shower this morning, he asked whether he might be bruised. Holy moley! You wouldn't BELIEVE how BIG this bruise was on his backside! It's at least a ten inch circle and black and blue already. Poor guy. I feel terrible for him as he is obviously really hurting. I hope it's just a bruise and will heal quickly. (For those of you who see us often, you know that I broke my tailbone last summer at Wild Waves on the slides trying to keep up with Evan and his dumb 12 year old friends. Ouch! It REALLY hurts and it took over 10 months to finally stop hurting constantly). I hope it wasn't his tailbone. How cute was he to take a teenager to the mountain all day?

All and all, they had a great day and good male-bonding time. All hail to the new Flying Tomato and his gimpy sidekick, Dad!

This is Derek swooshing around an unsuspecting fellow skier.

This is Derek coming down the mountain. I thought he might hit the pole for a second there! Just getting a little jump in.