Easter in Collegedale

The weekend was very cold surpisingly. When we went through SonRise it was in the low 30s. I felt really bad for all the actors in the Pageant. All the soldiers were heading for Wright Hall here.

Can you guess who this is? She has been at SonRise for a few years in a row at least.

The new Kelly's Prayer Garden looks really nice. I guess I haven't been on the Promenade for a long time.

To stay warm the sheep were running around their pen. There was livestock all over. Eric had

to take a detour to get to Wal-Mart!!

Don't they look warm? This picture was taken just before Amy & Jeremy headed back to the church for round 2. Once through was enough for me with the cold temps. It was great to see Amy this weekend.

On Sabbath afternoon we went for a hike at Harrison Bay. Here is Jeremy and

his parents and his aunt and 2 cousins. It was nice and sunny even though slightly breezy Sabbath afternoon.

Mom and dad pose by the water that we can't wait to start riding on in 2 short months or less for anyone lucky enough to live in the south still! The water level was pretty low this weekend. I hear they are around 10 inches low on average rain fall in Collegedale to this point in the year.

I was back and even unpacked before it was dark tonight! Unbelievable. I left at 11 a.m. this morning and got back to Mt. Vernon around 7:20 p.m. It was sure cold and there is a little snow left on the ground in patches from the weekend I guess. I had to wear a lot of layers to stay warm unloading.

My face mask from Colorado during Ski Trip sure came in handy tonight unloading. Hopefully none of the neighbors were too worried at seeing a masked man walking through the neighborhood. The Spring Break went by really quick. Before I realize it, the school year will be gone too. Good times.

Great Weekend at Highland

This was taken outside the Gaylord Entertainment Center wherer we attempted to get tickets to see the Predators play the Wild in a hockey game in Nashville. Chadd, Nickie and Carrie are bundled up to stay warm in the cold, blowing wind.

Look at all the snow on the ground! I couldn't believe that even 7 hours south from Mt. Vernon it was still cold and snowy. It was pretty though.

Carrie outside her apartment. It was a fun weekend that went by way to short. We spent all of Sabbath with Chadd and Nickie. We had lunch there and then watched the March of the Penguins and then drove to Nashville and back and then watched the end of the hockey game and some other shows.

On Sunday I went to look at Ridgetop Adventist Elementary where they have an opening for a 3rd-5th grade homeroom teacher next school year.

This is the view from the front of the school. The classrooms are on the left side and out of the picture on the right is the gym.

This cardinal looks cold to me. Chadd and Nickie have tons of bird feeders in their backyard and there were lots of birds there, as you can see on Carrie's blog. I can't wait for Wednesday when I fly west to Colorado and boarding at Keystone and Copper. I've got to get ready for Sunday School all day today and supervision. Just a regular weekend this year, packed full.

Snowed In

We got over 1 foot of snow between late Monday night and Wednesday morning. It has made for pretty scenery, bad driving conditions, and great powder boarding!!

I liked this view that showed how big the pile of snow is infront of the gym. I have been knocking icicles off the gym roof today so none of the students get stabbed by one falling on them.

This is a view from the front of the gym facing down the road with Hiawatha Hall on the left. The roads on campus have been covered with snow for a lot of the last 3 1/2 weeks and have been fun driving on!

What could be more fun and active for P.E. class than sledding? The kids got cold in a hurry and then went back into the gym. And they are supposed to be from Ohio, the Great White North!

I thought the picnic tables looked cool covered with all the snow and ice.

My front porch is very covered with snow, the drifs to the left of my front door and shrub comes up to the windows and cover the shrub.

This is the view from facing toward my garage. I liked the snow drift in the picture and the snow on the shrubs. No baseball in this yard recently!! Maybe next year.

I went to Snow Trails 3 times this week already, and the powder was great on Wednesday with Ski Club. I went tonight with James whose dad is on Ski Patrol, so we got to go warm up inside and get some hot chocolate.

The sunset was pretty on Wednesday and it did certainly get a lot colder after it went down, with a low of 4 that evening. Tonight the low was about the same with snow flurries. Unless you live in upper New York or Colorado you really had to be here to imagine the conditions. It has been a blast.

Birthday Homeleave in Collegedale

Here we are on top of Sunset Rock. I can't believe that this was the first time Carrie had been there! It was a lot of fun being in Collegedale for the weekend along with Carrie and getting to see everyone on my Birthday.

This was taken as I was being nearly dragged off the top of the cliff. We have never stayed at the top for such a short time, not even 5 minutes. It was beautiful and clear and cold with the wind blowing. There was ice and snow throughout the hike up, but we all 3 made it: Carrie and my dad and I.

Here is the sunset from the Walnut Street Bridge. And if you look hard enough, you can see Carrie in the picture too!

I had to include Frosty Jr. and his 3 friends. They stood as the guards during the weekend, but they should have done a better job. I wonder how long they will last.

Here is the Bongo Board that we all had a blast riding over the weekend. Dr. Sloan was nice enough to give it to me to use with my Physical Education class, but we'll see if they have as much fun with it as we did this weekend! Carrie got really skilled at it and you can see Ryan in the background playing the guitar.

Here is my dad and Carrie walking ahead of me up the trail to Sunset Rock. We arrived there well before sunset and in time to see a beautiful view. The majority of the trail was covered in snow. Can you believe that Carrie was still wearing her crocs? Of course if you know Carrie well!!

Here is Eric talking to Carrie in Wal-Mart where he works in Ooltewah. The new place is really nice and close to home. Eric works as a bouncer/ greeter and has already aided in the arrest of one criminal!!

Here we are trying not to fall off the snow/ ice on the hike up to Sunset Rock! It was pretty slippery, but we still managed to make near record time.

When I got to back to Mt. Vernon, here is the view I saw from the side of my gym. To say the least, it has been fairly cold here recently. I purchased a thermometer and mounted it in the gym to see just how cold it is in there. We have been the only k-12 school in central and north-eastern Ohio in session the last 2 days because of the cold weather and wind.

Here is the view toward the Ad. Building from the parking lot in front of the gym. There has been snow covering the ground since Jan. 21 and we got a couple more inches today... the roads were pretty bad. I will be starting soccer and basketball next week in Sophomore and Freshman P.E. so hockey is wrapping up. But not in intramurals yet, as the last game of the Tournament will be on Tuesday, Feb. 26. We will then start basketball intramurals after March homeleave, aka Copper Getaway!! The weekend went by way to fast and back to the cold, harsh reality of Mt. Vernon... of for the 40s of Sunday!!

Southwestern Basketball Trip

The weather was beautiful for the long-awaited trip to Southwestern for the annual Basketball Classic. It was in the mid 60s and sunny on the day I took this picture in the front of campus. I took 10 Guys Varsity Basketball players along with the coach to Texas from Wednesday the 24th through Sunday the 28th of January. We finished 3-3 with 2 losses to Forest Lake Academy (one by 33-31) who went on to win the Tournament for the 2nd consecutive year in a row.

Here is a picture of the team before we played Shenandoah Valley Saturday night. The team didn't want to stay for the supper I signed up for and so they also skipped the picture. It was a good learning experience for them as they got a shot to their ego after going 8-0 in Ohio so far.


Here is the half-time S.W.A.T. Gymnastics show performed by the Southwestern Gymnastics led by Chad Hutchinson. He has done a good job there according to everyone I talked to at S.W.A.U. It was fun to see the wall-walkers too.


Here is a picture of the informal Slam-Dunk competition after the Championship Games ended. Even though the picture is dark, you can still see all the people gathered around, also in the bleachers. The F.L.A. guys won and the CAYA girls won. The week was very tiring as M.V.A. played 6 games at the Tournament, and including our games in Ohio on Monday and Tuesday, we played a total of 8 games of 6 days! Today was our first day without a game since last Sunday. Our next game will be @ home on Feb. 6 and we finish the season the following week with Senior Night on Thursday, Feb. 15. Then the next week the Guys team will start playing in the State Sectionals. I had fun on the trip but it is also a relief it is done and all went relatively smoothly with no major problems.

Winter Has Returned

I liked this picture I took of my Grand Prix on Thursday with the water tower behind. I was loading up to head to the prime destination in this area, Snow Trails.

The snow was a lot better last week, as I went boarding on Wednesday with MVA's Ski Club and then again on Thursday. It snowed nearly the entire time I was there on Thursday and they ended up getting 1 inch of natural snow along the 6 inches they made.


The side on the left side of the Silver Triple Chairlift was closed as you can see. I rode this lift for the majority of the 3 hours I boarded on Thursday. Carrie called me about 40 feet from the top of the lift once! I took one hard fall and probably slid about 60-70 feet down the slope after I caught an edge after jumping. I got snow up my coat even from all the powder that was there.

As you can see from this picture, Thursday was very crowded. There was an estimated 1,000 students that came on coach buses. There were at least 14 buses lined up in the parking lot. But Wednesday there was only 1 lift open and the line took around 7-10 minutes every time, so with 3 lifts open Thursday the wait time was nearly gone, maybe 30 seconds at the longest. This afternoon at 2 p.m. the SoBe Terrain Park opens. Hopefully it stays open for awhile.

Snowboarding is Finally Back!

You can see other boarders here. There were a lot more snowboarders than skiiers. I haven't noticed such a big difference in Colorado. The sky was pretty. It's too bad the slope wasn't facing the sun for sunset though, it would have kept it warmer for longer too.


I liked the way the shadows were falling in this picture. You can see a little bit of snow on the hillside in the distance, but they got almost 1 inch of natural snow as opposed to 10 inches of man-made snow. Either way, the conditions were pretty good with very little ice.


This is the view facing toward the Bunny Hill. I actually rode that once and took the lift, but it sure was short, so I decided to head back over to the Mt. Mansfield run.

Another chairlift headed down, although we were actually stopped in this picture. That made it easier to get the chairlift. This chairlift was a triple, which is their biggest. There are 6 chairlift's total and 13 trails. I had thought there were 18, but the trail map says 13.


You can see the sky starting to turn colors in this picture a little. I would have taken more sunset pictures, but the snow was blowing down on me at the top of the lift and I didn't want to get my camera covered! I did take a video while riding down the run once.

Snowboarding at Snow Trails!!!

Well, I certainly have an activity worth a blog post now! I hit the slopes for the first time this season today and the snow was actually in great shape. It was hardly icy at all and the high for the day was 23, so it was not slushy either. All the runs were not open yet, but they are shooting toward having the whole place open early next week, which would be great because I'll be back on Tuesday!


There was a pretty view from the top of this run. You can see the snow on the tree was from the snow makers as well. They were making lots of snow over the last week and they have a solid base now.
I went to see the Raptors play the Cavs. on Wednesday in Cleveland and narrowly missed their big snow storm, I heard today from some boarders from Cleveland area that they got somewhere between 5-10 inches on Thursday. The Raptors now have a new #15, Jorge Garbajosa, and they have a lot of European players now, they played a great, unselfish game. The Cavs. wore their orange '86-'87 throwback jerseys.

I like this picture because you can see the sun through the trees and the snow maker to the right. It was a pretty afternoon. I spent a lot of the time on the lift as opposed to riding, but compared with living in the Sunny South this is pretty amazing to have a Ski Resort a mere 30-35 min. drive away! With my Season Pass I am certainly planning on getting my money's worth. Well, it quit posting once again. You can't even begin to imagine the pretty sight of Snow Trails from these pictures, you actually need to come visit and go riding there yourself to see!!