So, we’ve been pretty busy lately. I took a week and a half off and built a pergola and some raised garden beds in our backyard. The picture on the right is of the pergola in mid-construction (that’s me teetering on the step-ladder).

We wanted something that wasn’t too heavy and wouldn’t overwhelm the house and I think we achieved that. The hardest part was attaching it to the house. We originally were going to make it free standing (the actual definition of the “pergola” from what I hear) but the posts near the house fell right in front of our window. The only solution was to attach it directly to the house…which was a little daunting because I’ve never worked on vinyl siding before! But I managed to remove and reinstall the siding without damage and I think it looks pretty professional.

I’ll try to get some pics of the finished product up soon. We’ve added shade cloth, lights and misters which all add up to a very comfortable outdoor living space.

In other news, we spent this past weekend camping and hiking at Borah Peak this past weekend with the crew in the picture to the left (starting from the left - Chris, Justin and Josh). We had a great time even though the weather was pretty sketchy most of the time.

We departed camp Saturday morning at about 6 a.m. on our bid for the summit. The sun wasn’t up yet but it was light enough that we didn’t really need the headlamps we took.

The trail is pretty much straight up. Whoever made it didn’t believe in switchbacks. Needless to say, we moved slowly but steadily for hours and hours and hours and…

Anyway, by about 9 a.m. we’d made it above timberline and were moving along a high ridge toward the infamous Chicken-out Ridge and Snow Bridge. Josh has a bum hip that was really bothering him and considering the serious climb ahead of us he made the difficult decision to turn around. Justin opted to guide him down and Chris and I continued on toward the summit.

After another 3 hours Chris and I finally made the summit in the middle of a snow storm with a

few other hardy souls. We spent a couple of minutes congratulating one another, signing the summit registry and taking pictures, then beat feet to get off the peak before it became any more treacherous. As it was, the descent was, as I like to call it, Epic!