This youtube link will take you to a video of Dylan playing guitar.  I can't remember if I've mentioned it before, but a musician named Blake Noble came to Republic a couple of years ago and played at the brewery and he was spectacular.  We played some of his music at home and Dylan loved it.  He would sit and watch youtube videos of Blake playing for hours.  The brewery booked Blake to play again, and Emily knew that whenever you mentioned Blake's name, Dylan would say "Blake Noble?  I'm his biggest fan!".  So Emily asked Blake if he would consider hanging out with Dylan for a little while.  Blake agreed (we found out later he was a pre-school teacher and loves working with and spending time with kids), and spent about an hour and a half with Dylan, playing guitar, teaching him some things, and just talking.  It was pretty awesome, and Dylan's been practicing playing like Blake ever since.  The you tube link is the song Dylan wrote for Simon on his birthday.  On Valentines Day Blake invited us to a invitation only "secret session" show that he was playing at in Okanogan, about an hour and a half from Republic, so we went over to see him.  We showed him this video of Dylan and he was impressed, and said all sorts of nice things, that made Dylan grin from ear to ear when we told him.  You should really check out Blake's music, he's got a youtube page that has a bunch of excellent stuff on it.  A girl named Kate Lynn Logan was also playing at the show we went to.  I liked her quite a bit, but I'm not sure that Faith did.  I listened to some of her music online before we went to the show and I wasn't that impressed, but she was pretty good live.  Anyway, here's the link to Dylan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRsvYO-5Kv8&feature=youtu.be  

Well, maybe you'll need to copy and paste it, it doesn't seem to be coming up as a link. Not much else has been going on, I've been skiing a bit with some friends and by myself.  My friend Landon and I went skiing on Saturday, we were doing an out and back trip on an 11 mile loop trail, though I think we ended up skiing around 8 miles.  As we were heading up we found a big open patch that led down to the lower loop of the trail, and decided to ski down it on the way back.  The trail we were on had a lot of up and down, and some kind of tight corners you had to make while going downhill, and I was doing pretty good at negotiating all the turns.  So good that I thought skiing down that opening we found wouldn't be a problem at all.  I got back to it and as I was waiting for Landon (he was skiing some new Altai Hok skis and they go a little slower on the down hill sections than my waxless skis) it was looking a lot more narrow and steep than it had when we first saw it.  Landon caught up a minute later as I was shifting water bottles to the inside of my pack so I wouldn't lose them and muttering to myself about how I wished I had a case for my glasses so I wouldn't lose them when I fell.  Landon said I wouldn't fall, just make wide, slow turns.  He graciously allowed me to go first, and as I skiied over to where I wanted to drop into the opening, I fell down.  Not a very promising start I thought, but I got up, pointed my skills downhill and took off.  I then realized that the opening was in fact much, much more narrow than it had originally appeared, I was going much faster than I wanted to be, and the wall of trees was rapidly approaching.  I shifted my weight on the skis and started to turn.  There was no way I was going to turn in time at the rate I was currently going, so I dropped into the turn a little more, then my brain reminded my body that I have no idea how to correctly turn on skis while hurtling down a steep slope, my body reminded my brain that my glasses were in the pocket of my sweater and would likely fall out if I wrecked, so my brain and body decided the best course of action was to lean way back to protect my glasses.  Then physics got involved and brought the whole thing a sliding, tumbling, snowy stop.  Luckily I still had my glasses in my pocket so I sat up and watched Landon go zooming by making a nice turn, then he went to turn the other way and he fell down too.  We proceeded down the hill taking turns falling down and narrowly avoiding running into trees.  It was a whole lot of fun.  We're going to go ski the whole loop next weekend and will probably do the same thing again.

Simon played basketball this winter.  He had practice a couple of times a week, then scrimmages on Saturdays.  For their last game they played at half time of the varsity girls highschool game, in front of all the people that came to watch the highschool game.  He said he was pretty nervous, but did great when they started playing, he even managed to get the ball and shoot at the basket, but he missed.  He had lots of fun.  For those of you that don't know our AWD van broke down about 2 months ago.  I was able to get it running again, then it died about 100 yards from the house.  I could never get it to start again, so I had it towed to the shop.  After it came back from the shop, costing significantly less money than I thought it would, we decided to buy a new to us car.  We ended up getting a 2002 Subaru Forester.  The day we got it Simon was in school and didn't know that the van was even fixed yet.  I went to pick him up from school in the new forester.  I met him at the front desk and as we walked outside I said that I had walked down to meet him, but I really didn't feel like walking home.  "It's OK Dad", he said, "It won't take us too long."  As we walked across the parking lot we were nearing the new Forester that Simon didn't know we now owned.  "That's a nice car" I said.  Simon agreed.  "Come over here for a minute," I said walking over to the passenger side of the car.  I looked around furtively, and asked Simon if he had ever stolen a car.  His eyes got a little bigger and he stammered "N-nn-no?"  I reached over and opened the passenger door.  "It's unlocked!" I whispered, "Get in!"  Simon's eyes got even bigger and he slowly sat down on the seat with his legs still outside the car.  "Dad, is this our car?" he asked.  "Get your feet inside!  No it's not our car."  I shut the door and ran over to the drivers side and got in.  "I found the keys laying on the ground."  I said.  I started it up and reversed quickly out of the parking spot.  "Dad, is this our car!?" Simon asked again with a hint of panic in his voice.  I threw the car into drive and hit the gas.  "No, it's not.  Pick that purse up off the floor and see if there's any money in it."  Simon picked up the purse and half yelled, "Dad, tell me the truth!  Is.  This.  Our.  Car?"  "No," I replied, "Now what's in that purse?"  Simon looked at the purse, then looked at me, then peered into the top of the purse.  "Dad, this is Mom's purse."  "It is?"  "Yes, it is."  "Oh," I said, "I guess we're not stealing this car then."  Simon thought it was pretty funny, and so did I.  Faith thought I probably destroyed 10 years of trust building with Simon, but I think she's wrong.  That's about it, hope everyone is doing well.