A Year of Change

Leaving at 5:45 this morning to get Lori’s car serviced. Should be back by 1 or 2. Lori will be driving my truck to work. Jag and Ava are headed back to Boulder today. He took one of my fly rods and we’ll meet up tomorrow to get him the rest of the gear he needs to slay some trout.

Yesterday was a nice day. We were busy working, but all went well. Ty works today. He was playing golf in Denver yesterday. Hard to keep track of him on his days off.

Weather is getting nice. We were in shorts all day. That’s about it, have a great day and God Bless.

Back to work. It was a busy 9 days with Lori’s birthday, the Kentucky Derby Party, the trip to Sacramento and Dixie’s celebration of life. Lots accomplished but now it’s time to get moving forward.

Yesterday was a great day for Mom’s Day. Jag and Ava made it up around 3 or so, and Ty was home from work a bit before 6. The Nuggets game started right on time, and it was a great game as we won. Hopefully we’ve cracked the code on these guys. Now tonight, the Av’s need to win.

I have a conference call at 9 and then will be working around the house. Lori, I think, works from home today as Dr. B is taking the day off as he was supposed to have jury duty but got out of it. Tomorrow I’m taking Lori’s car to Denver for service and Wednesday mine goes in.

Nice weather headed our way. Looks like it’ll be in the 70’s all week with isolated showers. I think we’re finally done with snow, knock on wood.

Almost 7 right now. Jag and Ava are of course, still sleeping. I think they’re headed back to Boulder today. Soon it’ll be June, time flies.

Have a great day, enjoy, be well and God Bless.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. Here at the ranch, a special one to my sweet wife and amazing mom to our two boys. What a journey it’s been raising them for the past 22 years. Don’t forget Harley, she’s been raising her for six years!

Today Jag and Ava are coming up from Boulder and Ty will be here after work around 6pm. Yesterday we ran a bunch of errands and then ran into Molly and Dr. Braxton at Costco. He bought a new smoker and wanted to give us his Big Green Egg. We ended up driving to their place and helping him carry the smoker upstairs (elevator out) and then carry the Green Egg down the stairs. As we were carrying the egg down the stairs, it fell out of the stand, hit the ground and broke! Lori and I were fine with it though as it really wasn’t “as new” as he said it was, ha. After that, home we went. Earlier after the gym, we went to pick up our crazy dog. She’s just nuts these days.

We were headed to Denver for Shultz’s party but just were too tired. We almost felt drugged from traveling. I slept until 7:30 this morning trying to catch up. Looks like 18 inches of snow in Leadville! Nothing here with some clouds mixed in with blue sky. Rainy in Denver.

It was a great time in Sac, even though a quick trip. Lori has been getting lots of texts from people that showed up. It was a fitting tribute to a great lady.

Happy Mother’s Day to Annette! Also to all those mom’s that are no longer with us. I’m sure their having a great celebration up in the sky. HMD to Robi too, hope the Stones were fun last night in Vegas.

I’m cooking some beef ribs today plus Jag and Ava are stopping at Whole Foods to get some chicken and stuff for some recipe Lori sent them.

Almost mid-May, wow. Have a great day and take a moment to remember a special moment with your mom! Be well, stay safe and God Bless.

Here are a couple pics of Lori. One of us last year in Arizona and one of my favs from Halloween.

Well. we’re home. It was a quick trip but turned out really great. We were up early yesterday and getting ready for the party. Lori and Kristin took off around 8:30 in the morning and then the boys and I and Dan headed out at 10. The place looked great, and people started showing up right on time at 11.

Lots of cousins and family and friends from all over. We had about 60 people in total. After 30 minutes of mingling, Lori and Kristin stood up and started the video. It was a great 5-minute tribute to Dix who was one of a kind. Lori held it together really well and after the video, a few people came up and told a few stories. The most moving though was Annette, who came up and said how thankful she was for Dixie and how they had become such great friends. Not easy (great job Annette!) but it was really touching and heartfelt.

The party then went on for another hour with everyone visiting and of course, having cake! The boys then left around 1 in an Uber to catch a 3:41 flight home. We moved them up so Jag could make some graduation parties. Lori and I and Dan (who was riding with us) went back to the hotel to change and grab our bags. We then went downstairs where Kristin and Dan had a martini. We hung out for around 30 minutes before heading to the airport. The drive was quick, and we walked right on the bus after dropping our rental car. When we walked through security, I said, “look, the boys flight leaves in 12 minutes! Want to see if we can get on?” Lori looked at me and we ran down the concourse. Dan, who was on our 6:20 flight, was still going through security. We ran to the gate, and I yelled to the attendant, “is this the Denver flight?”. She said yes and to hurry. She called down, saying 2 more people and we ran down the ramp, but the door was already closed. Super bummed as we were so close, I said, “oh crap, our kids are on that plane” the super nice gate attendant then said, hang on and knocked on the window to the pilot and they opened the door for us and let us on! Not sure if you know, but this never happens! Normally they have to call operations and jump through all kinds of hoops to open a door once closed. So, we ran on and Jag looked up from his First-Class seat in shock saying, what are you doing here? Ty was a few rows back and saw us too. All was great as we even had the exit row.

This meant we were arriving at 6:45 instead of 9:30! On the flight a guy walked past us going to the restroom or something and Lori said, “that’s Jeff from Tesla”. Tesla is a super popular band from Sacramento that’s been around for 40 years or more. Lori was a waitress at a club called the Oasis when she was 18 and all the big bands played there. She wasn’t sure but he was a few rows behind us, so I said, let’s wait until he gets off and say something. When he walked off the plane I said “Jeff” and he looked up and said yea, which is when Lori said, I’m Lori from the Oasis! He said, I thought I recognized you! We talked for a few minutes with them catching up. They were on the way to a show in South Dakota. Looks like we’re going to their show in Denver June 11th. What a small World for Lori to reconnect 40 years later.

We grabbed our car, said bye to the boys and headed up the hill. I listened to the Nuggets game the whole way and we arrived home about 9:45. Great game!

That’s it, Lori and Kristin did a great job. The boys did too. Everyone wanted their picture taken with us or one of us. Now I knew Dixie liked me, but at least a half dozen people came up to me and told me how much she adored me. Good to hear. The video is priceless, (Robi, we’re sending you the link). We did one for Mom when she passed too.

Everyone had a great time, and it really was a celebration of life. Dixie would have been proud and enjoyed it. She was a good ol girl and we miss her every day.

Tonight, we’re supposed to go to Denver for Shultz’s 60 birthday party. We said we’d make it, but we’ll see how tired we are. The boys and Ava will both be here tomorrow for Mother’s Day. It’s been a busy couple of weeks but all good.

That’s it, time to get moving and go to the gym and go get our crazy dog. May God Bless you all!

Today in about 4 1/2 hours, we have Dixie’s celebration of life. We all finally arrived yesterday with Jagger’s plane landing about 90 minutes late. Kristin, who arrived about 90 minutes before him, went to get her rental car and then hung out until he landed. That saved us a drive!

After a 4:30am wake up call, Ty, Lori and I made our 8am flight and landed around 9:15. We made our way to our car and then began to run all our errands. I shipped wine to the hotel, so we picked that up and then headed out to Whole Foods, Walgreens, Office Depot and a few other places, to pick up all the stuff for the party. Then we dropped it all at the Dante Club where the party is today.

Lori and Kristin will head out around 8:30 to go prepare and the boys and I will leave around 10:15. They’re going to get more flowers for some high-top tables.

Last night we all had a good dinner downstairs. Hard to find good restaurant food these days. Kristin, of course was with us, and also Dan, who is Dixie’s brother’s son, son, or great nephew, also joined us. We all had a good time and were done by 7:30.

Jag was flying back with us but is now flying back on the 3:41 flight so he can make it to a graduation party. Ava will pick him up. Ty, Lori and will I fly back on the 6:20 flight.

Should be a good time today. Lori and Kristin did a lot of work, mostly Lori. That’s it, time to get moving, have a great day and enjoy. Until tomorrow, GB

We made it to our hotel last night around 7ish. Ty showed up an hour later. At 8 this morning we’re wheels up to Sac and should be on the ground a little after 9am. We have a ton of errands to run picking stuff up for the party. I shipped in some wine to save us $400 bucks or so. They’re still charging is a $10 corkage fee per bottle but every little bit helps.

Jag wrapped up his fourth year yesterday. He lands around 1:15 and Kristin lands at 1, so they’ll ride together to the hotel.

We’re having dinner at the hotel at 6. We’re staying at The Citizen Hotel, which is a nice place, so says Lori. I guess all the visiting NBA teams stay there when in town. Lori had her stitches taken out of her ear on the way down yesterday. I stopped at the hospital, and she ran in for a couple minutes to get them out.

Harley was not a happy camper when I dropped her at the vet. I had to push her into the kennel as she was fighting as hard as she could not to go. She’s always fine 15 minutes after we leave but has a bad case of separation anxiety. She’ll be fine.

That’s it, more tomorrow, have a great day, God Bless.

Off to Denver today for our early morning flight tomorrow. Woke up a little bit late after staying up late due to overtime in the hockey game. Go Av’s! I have a call at 9:30 and then Ty and I will take Harley to doggie daycare. She’s not going to like that!

Yesterday I was pretty much home most of the day. Jag has his last final today and then is done. Technically he can graduate but is headed back for one more year, to, as they say in sports, pad his stats. That’s means more degrees.

Did you see the Boy Scouts changed their name to Scouts America? Nothing surprises me anymore. About time to go off the grid people, good God. The Rolling Stones are playing in Phoenix tonight. Robi and Robert are going to Vegas this weekend to see them.

Let’s see, what else. Tik Tok is suing the U.S. as we’re going to ban them since they’re owned by China and destroying America and are clearly a threat to our security, ha. We have a homeless camp here in Denver that the police are clearing out today but the homeless are submitting a list of 13 demands, double ha. What the fuck people? Throw the Chinese out of court, or better yet, the Country, and do the same with the homeless, if they’re found to be here illegally. If you don’t think things will get worse, you’re mistaken. We need to stop this crap now, but sadly our current gov. won’t. Don’t wait until this shit is on your doorstep, as then it’ll be too late. Hell, it’s already too late. It’s so disgusting what the Dems have done in such a short period of time.

I have to go. I get sidetracked writing when the news is on as it spurs commentary on the events of the day. I’ll try to get back to more positive family things tomorrow, triple ha!

God Bless peeps, talk to you manana! (Time to learn Spanish)

Well, looks like the Nuggets will soon be out of it. Minnesota looks like the better team this year. Oh well, we have the Av’s!

Today Lori works in Edwards. I’ll head out to the gym and Jag is one step closer to being done for the year. Ty is off as we were originally leaving tomorrow meaning we’d be driving down to the airport today. After arranging things, we decided we could fly out Thursday am, so well drive down to Denver tomorrow.

No snow up here but it is a little cool. Super windy yesterday. Guess it’s the same story today. Trees blew over, signs blew down and even airplanes flipped as winds were over 60 miles an hour in Denver.

Here’s one for you, half the people in a recent survey believe there will be a civil war here in America by 2029. Some even think it’ll happen before that. Most predict no matter who wins in November, there will be some kind of violence. If the guy who can actually walk and complete a sentence wins, they say it’s a given that the left will go off. Not surprising as look at what they’re doing now, protesting Israel going after terrorists in a war over 6000 miles away. Hmm, get ready. What a World these days.

In 48 hours, we’ll be getting ready to board the plane. We’ll be on the ground in California for 32 hours which is long enough. Should be a great party. Lori has done a lot of work to make it special.

6:08 am now, guess I’ll get moving. Hope everyone is well. Enjoy the day, stay safe and God Bless.

Lots going on this week. No rest until Saturday unless we go back to Denver for my buddy Shultz’s 60th birthday party. We should go, but we’re going to be really tired, and Mother’s Day is the next day.

Jag had another final last night at 7:30 in Discreet Math, whatever that is. Only three more days for him.

Lori is in Vail today, Edwards tomorrow and Vail again on Thursday. That’s about it, time to get moving. God Bless.

Yesterday around 1, we all headed out for the party in Carbondale. Traffic was fine and we arrived with no issues. Everyone was decked out looking good. Lori looked particularly great and the people that run the party said they’d like to put her up for the best dressed lady at the event! Then they came up to James, and the girl said, “what’s your name”? We all though, uh oh, here comes a fan. But we were wrong. This girl had no idea who he was and wanted to put James up for the most dapper guy. That was funny. When he has to give his name in situations like this, or have Fed Ex send a package or something, he just uses his first and middle name. Of course, a half hour later, a lady did come up asking for a picture saying she was a huge fan and in a band. He gave his usual response which is no pictures but did reach out his hand to shake her hand and talked to her for a while. Other than that, I knew a few people knew who he was, but left him and us alone. Us guys had a couple cigars outside by a fire pit and it was a nice day and nice place. They were very thankful as we bought a table for $1000. It’s a great cause and a good fundraiser.

Big news is our cigar group and wives had a pool on the race, and I won! After the race, we took off before the costume contest, although I’m 100% sure Lori would have won, probably James too. Probably a dozen people came up to Lori saying who great or beautiful she looked and some even asked to take her picture. The staff photographer took our picture too, but I don’t think she recognized James either which is nice for him. At one point, Lori went up the bar to get a sparkling water and some guy came up to here and said, “where’s your hubby”, to which she quickly replied, “oh, he’s over there, do you need him”? The guy then quickly walked away. I told Lori, “See, I can’t take you anywhere”, ha.

When we made it home, we hung out for an hour and had cake and Lori opened some more presents. Ty bought mom some nice stuff including an orchid and some things for her bathroom, very thoughtful of him. Jag called after his finals and is back at it today. So, it was a great birthday and Lori had a great time. Now on to today, Cinco de Mayo, here we go. Pics below, God Bless.