January 2023

We started out our new year with a fun day trip to Grand Targhee.  We had beautiful weather and enjoyed riding their new chairlift that holds 6 people.  It has opened up a bunch of new terrain that used to be only open to people doing snowcat skiing.  

We also spent a Saturday morning at the climbing gym.  The boys had gotten coupons to come back after their day there in December and they were excited to show me all the stuff they could do.  Afterwards we went out for pizza.

Also in January the kids had 2 days off of school for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and a teacher in-service, so we took at trip down to Utah to ski 2 days at Snowbasin and 1 day at Snowbird.  Snowbasin felt really crowded.  It is a sister resort to Sun Valley in Idaho.  We were able to ski the run that was used in the 2002 Olympics for the Men's Downhill race.  The snow was pretty good, but there were too many people.  Our day at Snowbird we had what was supposed to be a 90 minute drive.  It was very snowy and we left nice and early to hopefully get a parking spot.  We had a snowy drive through the canyon and then slush and rain in the valley.  We made good time and our early start gave us a spot in line while we waited for the road to open after the avalanche mitigation work was done.  We spent a good 45 minutes stopped in line and then crawled up the road and got a parking spot.  We had about 18 inches of powder and had so much fun skiing there.  We did one "tram lap" to the top and didn't do that again because it was windy and white-out conditions up there which was kind of miserable.  There were lots of people there, but it seems like people spread out more and it didn't feel nearly as crowded as Snowbasin had.  It was a fun weekend relaxing in the condo between 3 days in a row of skiing.

Ezra and Elliott on a tree branch outside our condo patio

Emmett relaxing in the condo

Ezra and Elliott had a lot of fun playing in the snow 

Jim and Emmett took the tram to the top to ski the start of the Men's Downhill run

We also took our first trip to the Idaho Potato Museum.  It's almost embarrassing how long we have lived here without going (although I have talked to tons of people who live here and have never been).  It is a fun little museum in an old train station and was very informative about the history of potatoes and how they were introduced and improved in Idaho.

Quite a collection of Mr. Potato Heads

World's Largest Potato Chip

The last Saturday in January we attempted to go to Jackson Hole.  It was really snowy the whole way and when we got cell service on the west side of the Tetons I found that Teton Pass was closed for an avalanche.  Sometimes they clean those up quick and sometimes not, so we opted to just go to Grand Targhee instead of waiting.  The snow at Targhee was great and Emmett ran into a friend from his soccer team and another friend and got to ski with them.  The only pictures we have from that trip are of bumper stickers from the car next to us.  On the snowy days we don't get our phones out much for pictures.

Broseph Smith

Church of Powder Day Saints

The last 2 days of January our schools were closed for COLD weather.  Our schools do this when the temperature is -20 F or below.