Happy 38th Birthday, Mom!
It feels really strange not being there to
help celebrate, but now that we have such an amazing family that can help me
out with things like this when Mom and I can’t be together; I don’t have to
worry about being away from her anymore. That is going to happen more often as I get
older and can’t be home – like while I’m at college starting in about two and a
half years; so here’s yet another wonderful advantage that’s come along with
moving to Witch Falls! Michael, Tim,
Rowen, and I did have a phone chat with Mom, Dad, and the twins this morning
before we hit the slopes and while they were between Tai Chi and breakfast; but
then I had to leave it up to my family to make Mom’s special day a great one –
which they did and are still doing.
Having four kids in their hotel room
tonight isn’t very exciting for Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne; but I’m sure that
Mom and Dad are enjoying the kid-free time – even though I still do not want to
take this report or even my thoughts in that direction!
I’m going to leave most of the birthday
news reporting to the Magi that were there; so you’ll need to read those
journals to get those reports and perspectives.
In addition to having Uncle Adam, Aunt Leanne, and the kids in the city;
Violet and Dillon came for part of the day too; and joined in for the birthday
dinner, movie adventure, and some of the pre-bedtime kid control once Mom and
Dad were sent off on their own. There
was also daytime shopping and a couple of hours of playtime at SportsFusion in
the afternoon that was more for the kids than Mom; but I’m sure that she had
fun with that too.
All of that sounded great, but I’ll have to
vote for our day here on the slopes for winning the non-contest for most
exciting and fun day. Before I go there,
though; let’s take a moment and discuss snow.
First, I have decided that I could seriously
get used to visiting winter; but wouldn’t want to live in like this for six or
eight months a year. I probably wouldn’t
be able to convince everyone to pick up our town and the entire Ridge River
area and move it farther south so we can miss winters completely, but then our
winter this year has been so mild; I’ve got nothing to complain about! What I really wanted to mention for my snow
report is that the amount of snow that falls around here piles up deceptively
fast. The people here are used to that,
I’m sure; but the numbers are really remarkable. For example, the snow base at the resort has
gone up by about twenty inches after dropping late last week and through the
weekend – so that’s twenty inches in basically three days. For those of you reading this in my future
that haven’t seen this kind of snow; imagine solid packed snow on the ground
that is seven or eight feet deep all around your house; then imagine having to
clear twenty inches of snow off of the roads and sidewalks over just three days
– basically the amount of snow we got during the worst storm at home in the
years that I’ve lived there so far – and about double what we’ve had all winter
this year.
Amazing to us – another average week around
here! ;^)
Okay, let’s get to the rest of my report.
Today has been our last day of
snowboarding. We’ll be heading for
Denver tomorrow; have some sightseeing and shopping planned; and then we’ll
spend the night at a hotel near the airport so that we don’t have the drive on
Saturday morning ahead of our flight home.
We went to McDonald’s for breakfast; I’ve already mentioned the call
with Mom; and then we hit the slopes for the day. With another day where we had a lot of fresh
powder; the fun was just as extreme, and now that we could really get around on
the lifts and runs; we did our very best to make sure that we’d gone on every
run we were allowed to snowboard by the end of the day. Doing that meant skipping repeat runs for
some of our favorites; but even the less-extreme runs were still fun and the
scenery here is always wonderful.
After playing at full-speed all day, we
didn’t have any plans for tonight – other than dinner at another of the local
restaurants that was pretty good; and a quiet evening at the hotel that
included packing up so we’ll be ready to hit the road in the morning. We won’t have to rush that, which is another
reason we want to be in Denver for the night on Friday; but Rowen and I have
just finished all of our packing except for what we need in the morning. She’s getting ready for what will likely be
our last roommate swap of this trip; and I’ve been doing my bedtime computing
and a bit of family business work while she’s been doing that. It’s still fairly early, so Michael and I
will have time to watch a movie – or not – before we get to the cuddling and
sleeping part of our night; but I’ll also mention that I’m tired-enough that I
might just end up falling asleep sooner instead of later.
This extreme fun kind of tired feels a lot
better than the kind of exhaustion I’ve been fighting at home for the past
month or two, but I have still managed to get more rest this week than normal;
so I hope it will help at least for a while once we’re back home and I need to
keep up with my too-busy schedule. I’ll
keep you posted on that, but since I don’t really have anything to add to this
report; I’m going to wrap it up and get ready for that sleepover with Michael.
My next update will be live from a Denver
airport-area hotel; so this is the last one from Winter Park. It’s been a blast here, but I miss my family
and friends back home a lot; so I’m ready to move on now. Ditto that for writing this; so, until next
time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
