Grenade Games 9

Went to my first Grenade Games. Oh my.

It's taken a couple weeks to recover, but I'm ready to post about the experience now.

I've always wanted to go to Grenade Games, and this was the year to do it. I was able to get a couple names on the VIP Pass list a couple weeks before the games so I called up my girl friends to get a crew to mob down, party, and ride with. A couple things fell through for two of the girls, so it ended up just being Summer that could come with me. She's my best friend so just going down with her actually sounded awesome anyways. We always have fun together, and we make pretty good party companions (even though it usually turns into chaos like our SF Dew Tour adventure). Neither of us knew what to expect, but we did know that we could make 4 days of riding, and 3 nights of partying one of those big memorable life experiences we'd reminisce about 60 years from now.

Colin. Chad. Danny. Fuze. Strange boys.

Way too early on Thursday morning we mobbed down to Mammoth in Summer's Subaru. We rode. It was fun. My knee started hurting so I settled down on the deck pretty early and hung out with the Strange Brew boys. After riding we met up with Binky to go over to the condo we were staying at for the weekend. No one was there yet, but over the course of the night the 7 other inhabitants of the condo rolled in. We all went out to Roberto's for dinner, and then made it out to the Underground Lounge.

Tweak Bird.

Volcom threw a party and Tweak Bird played. They were pretty awesome. It was a fun night seeing old friends and meeting new ones. At one point while standing at the bar, I made some comment like "If you want it, you should've put a ring on it." At that point Dylan Alito turns around and does the Beyonce dance from the Single Ladies video. Well we became friends. Guys, if you can dance like Beyonce, we're gonna be friends. No question.

Derek, me, Summer, Frank.

After Underground we went to Lakanuki where it's always a fun time. Danced like crazy. Got my ghetto fab booty shake on. Sometime around 3am, Dylan and I walked back/ hitch hiked to Binky's place where a pretty mellow party was happening. Hung out. Gave Dylan cornrows. Passed out. Woke up a couple hours later.

It was a hot one.

Friday Morning. 9am. Time to go ride. Summer and I went up to the mountain and blah blah blah all that. I did 5s off a jump for the first time this season (better later than never right?) We planned to film but it didn't happen. "Tomorrow." we both said. After riding we went to the skatepark for some BBQ thing that going on. We didn't stay long enough to get food. Vons to buy bread and hummus. As we chowed down inside the store an employee told Summer she was going to get fat, and then an old man walked by and called us stoners. Back to the condo. Nap time. We ate dinner, picked up our passes for the weekend (I called a couple girl friends, including my old Windell's cabin mate, Janie, to come grab the extra passes we had under our names), and then went back to the condo to pregame.


At some point Summer's friend Kyle came with a van of Grenade kids to transport us over to Z Ranch for the first party of the night. Things blurred, we eventually made it to the Underground. Met this rad kid from Germany, Chris, and got into a real deep conversation about life. I lost Summer. Didn't make it out of the village that night.

Kodak moment with Chris.

Saturday Morning. 10am. Time to ride. First official day of Grenade Games. The park was closed off to people who had passes for the morning so that was pretty cool. So nice to ride a park without having to dodge people. The slopestyle contest went on, didn't notice it happening. Then the handplant contest went on and that was pretty fun. There was this bowl built with a ton of features in it. So many kids everywhere riding. It was cool.

Whole group ready for the race. I'm in the pink bikini under The Game's armpit

Then it was time for the Chinese-Eyed Downhill. Everyone made their way up to the top of Chair 23 when we were given the "15 minutes till drop" notice. An hour and a half later the event finally started. Summer and I had agreed to do the race in our bikinis so that happened. My focus was on not falling, instead of trying to go fast. No one wants snow burn on their boobs. The park chair stayed open until 6pm that day so after the race we started riding again.

Kevin and I trying to get the all important instagram shot.

I did a couple laps with a drunken Kevin Backstrom, and then started doing shots. (Summer and I never filmed, so again we said "Tomorrow.") John Travolta performed. Well, fake John Travolta. Then Dingo gave out some awards. Didn't pay attention really.








At the end of the day NOFX played a show. It was crazy. I had never moshed on snow before, but that happened too. NOFX is a really fun band to watch. Tons of people stage diving and crowd surfing. An out of control snowball fight between the crowd and the stage went down. We eventually got back to the condo, and then got ready for dinner.

@ the Underground. Didn't think about taking
a picture of Lil Jon. Dropped the ball.

Summer and I met up with Chris, Mason Aguirre, and his gf Olivia for dinner at Sushi Rei. It was a pretty mellow dinner. Mason was a really nice guy, and Olivia was super rad to chat with. The five of us headed down the street to the Underground for the Lil Jon show after eating. There was a huge crowd. Some fiasco with stolen wristbands went down, but it worked out and we got in. Drink Drank Drunk at the Underground. Missed Lil Jon because he DJed like three songs and then was done all while I was doing more shots with Kevin. Oops. I think we went to Lakanuki after. And then Mason's place. And then idk. I don't think I actually slept that night.

Wasn't too rough to do more shots though.

Sunday. Was. Rough. It had been a long weekend. Summer and I still had the determination to get to the mountain at 10am. We lapped the half pipe for the pipe contest. It got slushy and slow real quick but it was still fun. I attempted my first McTwists since my injury and it was ok. So pumped. Then it was the freestyle mogul contest. Crazy stuff went down. Like backflip gaping over three moguls (Dylan is kind of insane.) The only cool thing I did was miller flip over one of the moguls. The rest of the time I threw snowballs with the Dingo/Danny/Muddy/Monstergirls/Photog Mob at the kids trying to go through the course. Uhm more drinking then dual slalom. I raced my long lost friend Shane Heckman, and lost. So I went back to drinking. I rode the chair with Lil Jon. I really wanted to tell him he was doing great on Celebrity Apprentice and I respected his business skills. But I got shy so all I said was "Hey. How's it going?"

We try to be really cool.
Check my Toaster Strudel Steeze.

Sometime in the afternoon, Summer and I went back to the condo, packed up, and then dipped to Tahoe. On the drive back we realized "Oops, we never actually filmed. Next season?" Back in Kings Beach we intended to go to karaoke but crashed real early in the night.











We totaled maybe 10 hours of sleep and 22 hours of snowboarding over those four days. It was exhausting, incredibly fun, and I got really sick. Price you pay I guess. It was definitely a trip for the books, and another one of those ones where I can't really share the actual details of what happened on this blog. I'm glad the trip happened. Can't wait for GG10.

Back home/ Down Town Throw Down SF

When I left San Francisco last year it was so I could be in the snow and be surrounded by the snowboard community. This past weekend however, I traveled back home to go to the first ever San Francisco stop of Down Town Throw Down. Here's the recap:


On Thursday I finished school at 5:15 and started my journey down to the city. I was supposed to play in a soccer game in Incline at 8, but Lucas had called me earlier in the day to see if I was going to be at the Absinthe premier. I had planned on only going to the after party but I wanted to see the movie and see Lucas again so I bailed on the game and went straight to SF. (Sorry Team)

The Victoria Theater

I made it to San Francisco a little after 9pm and found a parking spot around the corner of the Victoria Theater. There was a "no parking from 6am-8am" sign posted so I made the mental note to get up and move my car in the morning. I already knew that there would be no way I would be able to drive my car that night. I walked to the Victoria and there was a pretty big line outside to get tickets. While I was in line, Lucas walked by and told me I was on the guest list. Stoked. Finally made it to the ticket window, got my free ticket and went inside.

Inside Lucas showed me where everyone was sitting and introduced me to David, JP, and Romain. We hung out and drank beer until the Absinthe movie started. Of course we yelled ridiculously loud for Lucas, and every other person who was there. At some point Romain, who was sitting behind me, pulled my hair back and put a beer in my mouth. He didn't stop when it started overflowing so naturally when he let go of me I turned around and spit all the beer back at him. That was probably the highlight of my night. Then came the product toss. One of the guys chucked a dvd at me. It hurt a little but hey, I got a movie. Then the YES movie played. Again, more screaming obscenities, drinking, and other activities went down. Both movies were super awesome. I'm not normally into the big mountain stuff, but the shots in these movies were legit and made me want to ride so badly. After YES there was a push up contest to win a board. I was the only girl in it. I made it to 50 push ups before my arms stopped working. Some guy made it to 69, pretty much cheating the whole time so I still consider myself the winner. Everyone left the theater except us and I picked up a box of stuff they never tossed. I only wanted a couple of the items but I figured I could give out all the rest on this website in another giveaway.

Lucas and I, classy as always

I went back to my car with Lucas and considered driving it to the after party at Delirium. We ended up just sitting in my car talking for a while before deciding to walk over to the party. I think by the time we got to Delirium I was fairly drunk. I don't remember too much besides a lot of sitting around and talking to people. At one point David and I went down the street and got some pizza. I'm not exactly sure when we left Delirium and went back to the hotel that the guys were staying at.

David, me, and Romain. Three drunk fucks in an elevator.

I think we stayed up at the hotel partying for a little bit longer. Don't know too much about that though. I do know I slept on the floor between JP and a wall. Living life in luxury. My alarm woke me up at 7am and I was like "shit! Taxi to the car time!" I convinced Romain, who was still drunk and 80% asleep to come with me. I was so worried about my car the entire time. When I set my alarm clock for 7 the night before I figured they wouldn't go around towing or giving tickets for the first hour. I was wrong. We got to the car and it had a $55 ticket in the window. Damn. Drove back to the hotel, paid to put my car in a garage and then went back to sleep. By the time we left the hotel and I picked my car up for the second time I had a $14 garage fee. The city is so fucking expensive.

Climbing stuff and causing trouble. Pretty Average.

I got out of the city and went to Mercy High School in Burlingame. By this point I had absolutely no voice, but I spent two hours or so visiting teachers and friends. The first thing almost every teacher (and some students) commented on was that my face looked normal again. The last time I had visited the school I had raccoon eyes from hell. Also, I apparently didn't have a voice last time I visited either so now everyone thinks I just loose my voice all the time. Which is so not true. After Mercy I went to San Carlos to Action so I could send my shop time. I always have to spend time in Action when I'm home. For one, I love Alex, my friend who works there, and I only see him when I go to Action. Secondly, the let me climb on things and wreck havoc throughout the shop. I like places that embrace my inner tsunami so Action is a good place for me. The next couple of hours were full of me skating around the shop, climbing stuff, rearranging merchandise, and pretending I worked there when customers were around. I left Action around dinner time and went home- 20 hours in the bay and I finally got to my house. That night I went to Mercy-Notre Dame- Serra's production of To Kill a Mockingbird.  And then it was bed time.

The champion of the day, Dylan Juggalito

The next morning I drove back to San Francisco for the Down Town Throw Down. I parked in front of a meter but all the change I had on me only got me an hour of parking. I ended up moving my car to a random little alley and gave the homeless sitting next to my car some food. DTTD was pretty cool. I ended up taking over 300 pictures of the action (which were a total bitch to go through). Dylan Alito shocked everyone with his juggalo costume, and wielded a battle axe the entire contest, earning him the nick-name Juggalito. Eventually he incorporated the axe into his tricks, like passing it from hand to hand around his body as he frontboarded the kink of the DFD box. My favorite trick I saw all day though was Ryan Paul's Frontboard to back rodeo off the pole jam. What?? That kid is nuts. Anyways, Dylan Alito won and the crowd dispersed. I spent the next couple hours wandering around the city with some Tahoe friends.

Rooftop of the Haight Party

Night rolled around and it was time for the after partying. I was at the party at the Jim Collins (or something) Club with everyone for a little while. I ended up in the green room and found some face paint. Sometime later Del the Funky Homosapian came in and I offered to paint his face. He wouldn't let me and I got bummed so I went back into the club. I ran into Sean a bit later and he swooped me off to a house party in lower Haight. The party was super weird. People had to buy tickets on livenation to get in, and there was a huge line outside the house that went down the block. There was security at the door that carded everyone too. Inside was probably at least 400 hipster kids. It was really weird. I wandered around for a while telling people how much I hated everyone there and then finally collected a couple bucks, a Swedish guy, and took a cab back to the DTTD party. I found my Tahoe friends, we ditched the Swed and did some more city wandering. A couple fights with strangers broke out to keep things interesting. I finally called it at some point and went back to my car to sleep.

The rest of the weekend is boring. I drove back home in the morning, went to Redwood City Ice Rink to watch my mom's production team in a competition, went back home, watched a TLC series about Gypsy weddings, and then went to dinner at the Cheese Cake Factory with my parents. Then I headed up to Truckee for some more partying. I left Truckee at 11:30, tried to drive to Incline but was way too tired. I slept in my car in the CBC parking lot until 1am, and finished the journey. Annnd that's pretty much it. Good full weekend. I love going back to the city, but I've gotten my fill for a while. It's snow season and I'm perfectly happy in my Incline abode for now.


Hope everyone else had a fun weekend. :]