A Year of Change

We made it out the door by 7am and were in Denver at the airport by 9:30. 3 hours later we were in Las Vegas. After a short cab ride in a smokey Prius we were at the MGM. We walked into the hotel and proceeded to a special check in desk as we were directed in an email from the General Manager who emailed me the day before. As soon as I said my name a lady came out of the back saying she was waiting for us. She introduced herself as Robin, Head of VIP Services. They said they were not to ask me for a credit card when I tried to give them my American Express. I insisted on them taking it for incidentals.

Then this lady escorted us up to the top floor to our room. Our room, or suite is huge with a seating area with a large couch and a bathroom that’s as big as our bedroom back home. She said it was one of their Spa Suites which explained the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. After settling in, Lori and I went downstairs to the Spa where we had hydra facials and manicures. Now Lori has had this before but it was a first for me, but I must say, it was rather enjoyable.

Then it was back to our suite for a couple hours of relaxing before dinner. Around 6pm we headed downstairs to meet up with Brian, who we just hired, and his wife Shelly. They live in Phoenix and landed a few hours after we did. Biran is the fella we hired away from the top Italian importer in the Country to help us get to the next level. We jumped in a cab and headed down the strip to the Cosmopolitan which we can see from our suite. On the third floor was a number of restaurants including the top restaurant in Vegas, and a great account of ours, Scarpetta. We soon were introduced to Allan who I’ve been working with by phone for 6 months but never met in person. He and his wife and a number of other people were waiting to meet me and we spent a few minutes getting to know all the people who work here in Las Vegas selling our wine. Then Allan, his wife Ali, Brian, Shelly, Lori and I, were escorted to our table. A young lady said to follow her and that we were going to the Chefs Table through the kitchen. As the doors swung open to the kitchen, she began loudly shouting “Chef’s table” which was echoed by numerous chef’s and workers also shouting “Chef’s table”, as we walked right through the kitchen. We then reach a glass door to a small room with a table for six off the kitchen. The wall to the kitchen was glass so we could see all that was going on.The other wall was also glass and overlooked the Bellagio and Caesar’s Palace. All the lights were on and the fountains going at the Bellagio. In a larger room next to ours, was a group who were the new owners of the San Francisco 49’rs. The GM and other head of the restaurant took care of us personally the whole evening. They are both joining us tonight at the concert. The food by the way, was amazing. I don’t know how to describe how good it was. My favorite was the creamy polenta and the duck and the octopus. About 3 hours later we were done and thanked our host Allan (who picked up the entire tab) and headed back to our hotel. Allan and I have a lot of similar interests and really hit it off. Brian, who knew Allan from when he was at our competitor, said he thought we had to have known each other previously. Apparently if you need anything, and I mean anything, all you need to do is ask Allan and somehow in a few hours, you’ll have it. Anyhow they were very nice and treated Lori and I like VIP guests, and I’m sure we’ll continue to do lots of business together as we have been doing since we first decided to work with each other in May. Oh, there’s a special event here next May that I can’t mention until Monday as it hasn’t been announced yet, but you all reading this should really come! More on that next week.

Today we have our two big events, the concert and a tasting before. Before that I’ll have a couple of meeting. So, lots of fun, click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The fountains are from our private dining room, pretty fun!  God Bless.

Tuesday night my little sister went to the Bocelli show in Phoenix. See below! Lori and I will land in Las Vegas around noon today. We then have a dinner tonight and then a pre show event tomorrow with a bunch of high rollers, then the concert and then we host a meet and greet after the show. It’s 5 am now and we need to leave by 7 as the boys have their first Ski Friday. This is where the whole school goes skiing from about 10:30 until 3pm. What a life. Time to run as lots to do. We have a nurse from Lori’s office staying with Mojo so he’ll be fine. We’re back Sunday but will post from Vegas. Have a great day and God Bless.

Click on the picture below to enlarge it!

Last night was the boys last basketball game and our Bocelli concert in Phoenix. Robi went to the show and then backstage for a quick meet and greet and texted she had a good time. Today we have lots to do as we leave tomorrow for Vegas. No time to talk as it’s like 7am now. God Bless

I woke to no internet or phones, super. I’ve been on with Comcast for 30 minutes and now have it fixed but am running 30 minutes late. Today I have a bunch of phone reviews and then a tasting from 1 to 4pm in town. Tomorrow more phone calls and then off to Las Vegas.

Lori arrived home around 7pm last night as clinic ran late. I managed to get me new drivers license yesterday so I’m officially a Minturn resident. Christmas will be here before you know it and we are still stuck in October. Anyhow time to run, hope all’s well, GB

Hard to believe it’s December 1st. Before you know it, it’ll be Springtime in the Rockies. Last night Lori was talking about getting old which no matter what you do, we all are. The older I get, the more inspired I am to do things as when you’re on the backside of life, you want to do as much as you can. Now I still feel in my mind like I’m 28 or so but you can tell that your body shows little tweaks here and there from age. Not much you can do about it except continue to stay active. Use it or lose it.

I made it to Denver to pick up Lori’s car and get Jag a new laptop as his crashed. Today Lori has clinic and the boys school, and for me, lots and lots of stuff to do. Guess I’ll run as it’s already 6:47 and we both need to leave in about an hour. So, take care, be safe and God Bless.

Here’s a comment from Aunt Robi, first one in months, whoo hoo!

I told my brother yesterday before the game that the Broncos would win and although it looked like we wouldn’t, more than once, in the end, we pulled through and beat the hated Patriots who were undefeated! Whoo hoo! Now we just need to hope they lose one more and we win out and then we’ll have the playoffs go through Denver. Everyone says take it one week at a time but after that victory, it’s hard not to look ahead.

The roads are messed up and believe it or not, I’m headed back to Denver again this morning to turn in Lori’s rental car. Hopefully after going to the airport this weekend, I’ll get to stop driving to Denver every day!

Earlier in the day I took the boys skiing while Lori worked on the house. It was our first day on the slopes and was a good day. Jag went back to skiing from snowboarding this year and did well. Ty meanwhile looks like a snowboarder and is doing really well!

The boys are back in school for the next three weeks and then have break. Every Friday they are off at noon to go skiing, what a life. Lori will probably have a few NFL players in the clinic today as lots were hurt this weekend. She gets lots of famous people but we can’t name names due to the privacy act. Time to run as it snowed up here again last night and was snowing in Denver so I’d better get everyone up and get ready to make the drive, one more time, God Bless.

Yesterday was a big day but today will be even bigger! I really don’t know where I get the energy. So after cleaning around the house in the morning, we took our skis, boots and poles and snowboard over to our locker in Vail so we’re all set for skiing. Then we went to Cinebistro which is the best movie theater you’ve ever been to. They not only have a full bar and restaurant, but you can eat in the theater while watching your movie. On top of that, the chairs are like leather lazy boy recliners with enough legroom to not even come close to the seat in front of you. They have 9 of these theaters around the Country and they sure are nice. I think each they hold about 60 or 70 seats maximum in each individual theater. We went to see Spectre, the new James Bond movie. After that we came home and had a snowball fight in the snow before heading back to town for dinner at Sweet Basil, one of the top restaurants in Vail. I needed to go connect with the wine buyer so it was a business meal.

This morning the boys and I will head to the slopes and then later in the day I’m off to Denver again for the football game this evening. There’s some new snow up here but nothing bad.

I spoke with James yesterday who has most of the stuff out of the garage with only a few little things to get today. My neighbor Dick called to say my garage door was open and I was thinking “oh no, my garage is open” and then it hit me, wait a minute, it’s not my garage anymore! Regardless he went up to shut it for me. It’ll take a while before we no longer think of it as “our house”.

We have a big week as tomorrow I need to go back to Denver to return the rental car and pick up Lori’s from being fixed. Then Tuesday I’m in Aspen for a tasting, Wednesday in Vail for the same and then Friday we’re off to Vegas. Throw in a bunch of paperwork for work (forecasting for 2016) and I’m slammed. Hopefully a week from today I’ll finally have a chance to breathe.

Guess I’ll run as it’s 5:30 and my coffee is done. It’s almost December and soon it’ll be January, another year gone, enjoy each and every day people, we’re not getting any younger, any of us! God Bless.

The house, mostly thanks to Lori, is starting to come together. We all lifted, moved, threw out and in general, cleaned, but it was Lori that decided what went where. Throw in a fantastic meal she cooked while organizing and that was our day. I managed to get the truck washed and most of the stuff cleaned out of it and put away.

Today we’re turning over a new leaf here, especially me. No more getting upset over the little things and a lot more playtime and fun. We’ve all been working way too hard the past 6 months with all the changes in our lives so from this point on, we’re going to be a family that has a lot more fun. Of course we still need to get our work done, at school and our jobs, but we also need to relax and go with the flow and just do whatever suits us for a while. It should be fun. I think today we’re going to play in the snow (it’s snowing now), try to go cut our Christmas tree and maybe get in some skiing. If we don’t get to do all three, we’ll do what we can. Here’s a couple photos of our dinner and a few our our mess, clothes on the couch and a packed garage. We still have work to do but we’ll get through it. It feels like a Sunday or even a Monday, not a Saturday so we have a little extra time. Guess that’s it, time to run, hope you all are well, take care and God Bless.

I guess they call today Black Friday as years ago the slaves were sold on this day for half price. My Mom shared this with us yesterday, who knew? Anyhow no shopping spree for us. Today we’ll be cleaning and having our own Thanksgiving. We have a 13 pound turkey, mashed potato’s and homemade gravy, with Aunt Myrna’s recipe, (Lori has a video) and all the other things that go with the big meal. She also woke up early to make some new kind of appetizers she thinks the boys will like. Throw in a big salad, which is always her favorite, and we should be able to eat off this for a few days. My wife is pretty darn amazing to do all she does. The boys and I sure are lucky guys, plus she’s cute too!

Yesterday we dropped the boys at Grandma’s when we made it to Denver and headed over to get the last few things out of the house and garage. I called the young couple who bought the house and they showed up with a trailer and three little kids and began unloading things into their new house. Today James will pick up any remaining things from the garage as we filled our truck with as much as we could. The truck is still loaded as we need to clean out things we already have in the house before we can bring anything else in. After that we stopped by Tom and Ali’s for a quick meal before heading up the hill as it was snowing hard. We also needed to run as Mojo was in his house in the garage waiting for us. Jagger said a nice prayer before our meal wishing everyone good health and a long life. It was snowing hard but by the time we made it to Idaho Springs, which is about 20 minutes of out Denver, the snow stopped and the roads were dry. It started snowing again on Vail Pass but that was it.

Today seems like a Saturday but we’re glad it’s Friday as we sure need the extra day around here. It was good to see my Mom as always and I’m sorry for her that her beloved Green Bay Packers lost last night but the tribute to Brett Farve at halftime was nice. I have to get back to Denver, one more time (uggh) to pick up Lori’s car which is ready. I need to look at my calendar and should run down and back this morning to exchange the rental car but will probably wait until Monday. I’m in Aspen Tuesday and have a big event next Wednesday here in Vail and then on Friday Lori and I go to Las Vegas until Sunday with Andrea Bocelli for a big event. Then I should be done traveling until January.

That’s it, time to run, hope all is well as always. Grandma Dix is still living the high life in L.A. and went to Thanksgiving at some swanky house with Auntie Kristin. I should have sent Lori out there to join them! But of course she didn’t want to leave us boys alone as she’s all about our family. God Bless.

Today is a day to give thanks for all we have. Yesterday the boys told me that at the first Thanksgiving they didn’t have turkey at all, but mostly fish. Boy they sure are smart. And if you think I’m joking, I’d bet no one reading this could do their math!

Yesterday we closed on our house so it’s officially sold, yea! Now we still have some work to do as far as cleaning but it’s not too bad. I have the house cleaned out and had the cleaners there yesterday so all that’s left is the garage. We’ll tackle that this morning. Apparently it’s pretty icy on the roads so not sure how long it’ll take us to get down. We’re going to try to leave around 8 am and hope to get through everything that’s left before dinner around 2.

Lori has been working so hard these days. It’s been a week or so of memorial service around here as it’s already been a year since her dad passed away. We have lots of fun pictures of Bob that she found and she has this one on her phone that’s pretty special. She misses him lots which I understand as I still think about my dad too. That’s part of what Thanksgiving is, being thankful for our family and friends and the memories of the joyful times we had in our lives. So we wish all of you a Happy, joyful Thanksgiving.

By the way, Ms. Dixie is living it up in Los Angeles with Auntie Kristin. Lori talked with them last night. Did I mention yesterday that Kristin’s dog Gracie got into a little tussle with Jon Lovitz’s dog at the beauty salon? That’s LA for ya!

God Bless.