A Year of Change

Our basketball game started out pretty well. Both teams were competitive. Four minutes into the game though, the tide turned as Jagger, while going for a rebound, was knocked to the ground and elbowed in the head. They stopped the game and the ATC (Certified Athletic Trainer) from Lori’s office pulled him out right away to check for a concussion. ATC’s from The Steadman Clinic all rotate through high school sports as part of their training. Anyhow she decided to keep Jag out for the entire first half to evaluate him. During this time, the other team scored 29 points! In the second half, after he was cleared to play, through various tests at half time, the other team only scored 9 points! Clearly Jag made a big difference but it was too late. He did play the entire second half and was the leading scorer on his team but our team needs to pass better and run our plays more consistently.

Our Varsity team came out to loud music and ran around the court, and the other team, in an intimidating fashion as you do when the game is on your court. We won that game 60 to 48 but it was tough with hard fouls and a dad from the visiting team was even thrown out of the gym by the refs. Before the game started, the whole gym stood for the playing of the Stars and Stripes, our National Anthem. It was like being in some Kevin Costner movie in the middle of small town America. The other team came from over 150 miles away but so did a large contingent of parents and fans to support them. It was quite the atmosphere.

One more thing, on one play Jag stole the ball, scooped it up from about 2 inches off the court and drove the length of the court for a breakaway basket. We thought he was going to try to dunk the ball, and it crossed his mind too, bet he’s never been able to do that yet. I thought with the adrenaline of the game he might just go for it. He was pushed from behind and the refs didn’t call it, so the ball rolled off the rim but his team mate who was trailing the play, put it in. Nevertheless, it was a great play and Lori and I were amazed at his ability to scoop up the ball and dribble down the court. He does have some skills!

We made it home by a little after 3:30 and it was time for him to get ready for Marcella’s surprise birthday party. Their new house, is pretty spectacular, more than you could ever imagine, as it’s one of the nicest and largest in Vail, which is saying something. Her dad is the rock star I mentioned a few weeks or a month ago. We picked Jag up about 11pm during a nice light snow fall like it was out of some movie scene. Even though their family (or dad) is World famous, you wouldn’t know it as they’re super nice and if you met them and didn’t know it, well, you wouldn’t know.

Today Lori is at the clinic for 4 hours unpacking boxes for the official start in the new digs tomorrow. The doctors are still arguing with each other over who gets which office and stuff like that. Ty has theater practice from 1 until 2:30 and I will be cleaning the house for the whole day. We’re supposed to get 2 more feet of snow by Tuesday and we already have a lot of snow! I think Ty wants to get on the mountain before theater practice.

That’s about it, time to run and get moving as it’s almost 8:30. Isn’t it nice that politics is basically over? It is time for Obama to just go away. He probably won’t though as he thinks he’s somehow above the rest of us and is the first President to now stay with his family, in Washington D.C. No President has done this as long as anyone can remember. Then you also have some dems that still won’t accept that Trump won and Hill lost. Again, you never saw this childish behavior from the other side when Obama won and trust me, we all were just as pissed off and disappointed. Grow up! I need to stop and change the channel as O is on tv spewing falsehoods to make himself and his legacy look good. You lost! Go away already, enough said.

It’s snowing and a bit foggy or cloudy outside. An Amber Alert just made all our phones ring as some kids must be missing again. It’s getting hard to go anywhere these days without being subjected to some potential crime or harm. Be prepared and alert where ever you are these days as there’s too many nut jobs out there. Don’t even get me started on the four black losers who kidnapped a disabled white kid and tortured him for days. It’s just sickening and I hope they rot in jail for their entire lives. Gotta love Chicago, O’s hometown, highest murder and crime rate in the Country once again in 2016, hmmm. Time to go as I’m drifting into politics and as I said before, we won!

God Bless

Today at 1 while most of you are getting ready for an NFL Playoff game, we’ll be at school getting ready for Jag’s first basketball game against Dubuque which is near Grand Junction. We only have 8 guys I think as some have ski races in Aspen. Our coach likes to press all the time too so we’ll see how it goes. Hope the boys are in shape!

I picked Ty up around 3 and we headed to the orthodontist. Ty is doing well and his teeth are getting straight! The dentist said how proud he is of Ty as his gums are in better shape and his teeth look good. Tomorrow he has theater practice as the big performance is a few months away.

Lori rode home with Sarah and arrived a little after 6. She’s sleeping now as she was awake at 1 am thinking about some work stuff. I’m headed to the gym and then Jag needs a headband before the game. Tonight he has a surprise birthday party for a girl in his class. I think the Mom hired sushi chefs from Nobu to come in and teach the kids how to make their own sushi! Wow, we wish we were going.

It’s somewhere below zero up here. It was 10 below when I took the boys to school yesterday. It really doesn’t bother us much and Mojo loves it. Guess I’ll run, lots to do. Here’s a couple pictures from yesterday. If you look close, the top photo is our herd of Bighorn Sheep that lives above the school and some snowy trees in Avon at the base of Beaver Creek.

Quick update, I just got back from the gym where it was 15 degrees below zero! It didn’t feel all that cold and I was in shorts but it was so cold, you couldn’t see your breath. Anyhow, it’s sunny and nice outside. Driving home you can see all the animal tracks on the side of the mountain breaking up the fresh snow from when they come out at night to feed and drink. Great place to live! Let’s you know you’re alive every single day! GB

That’s what the snow was yesterday, epic. Lot’s of powder and not very many people make for just about a perfect day. The only thing missing was the sun but both boys were layered up. Ty in particular had 3 pair of pants on! These included sweats, pj’s and basketball shorts under his snow pants. They both skied until about 1 in the afternoon and then Jag went to play basketball and Ty came home with me and took Mojo for a walk. Here’s a couple photos from yesterday. You can see the roads were pretty snowpacked heading to the hill. Meanwhile Lori, as usual, was at work, working hard. We were all home by about 6pm and then she and I proceeded to do some more work until bedtime. Today was supposed to be a ski day but since they were off yesterday, it’s cancelled and the boys have a normal school day. Ty has an ortho appointment at 4 and Jag will be a b ball practice until 6:30. That’s about it. have a good day and GB.

All of our phones began ringing at the same time at 5:27 this morning. It was the automated system from school calling to let us know, school is closed for the day. Now this isn’t your normal school closing as when they close schools up here, there’s a lot of snow! Outside right now Mojo just finished his breakfast and is already covered with the white stuff. It’s coming down hard and the wind is blowing the snow sideways. Both boys along with the rest of the kids from school, will be on the mountain today as this is the kind of day you live for if you’re a skier or snowboarder. The highway is closed too, from about Georgetown all the way to Vail which is also good news as this means all the people from Denver won’t be able to get up here to clog up the mountain. All in all, a perfect day.

Yesterday it snowed as well but nothing like it is now. They did cancel all after school activities like basketball as by 7 pm is was getting a bit rough on the roads. Jag’s basketball game today is obviously not happening either.

Lori wrapped up her interviews yesterday and has it narrowed down to two ladies. One is younger and works the front desk and the other is older but will want more money. It’s now up to the doctor but we think he’ll probably pick the less expensive girl, ha.

We have a huge weekend with basketball Saturday, theater practice Sunday and the entire clinic finalizing the move on Sunday. Throw in a birthday party for Jag’s friend Saturday night and more snow in the forecast and we’re busy.

Time to run so I can shovel outside, clean off the car and help Lori with some work. Have a good day and if you’re in Colorado, stay warm and stay home, ha ha. GB

Watching the news this morning, they’re sure freaking out in Denver. Up here, snow and cold aren’t much to get excited about unless we get a bunch as then we all want to hit the slopes. The kids are back in full swing at school and Lori spent most of the day holding interviews with potential replacements for the loser that walked out December 16th.

Tomorrow Jag has a basketball game in Walden! For those of you that don’t know, Walden is close to the family ranch and is about 130 miles away. You either have to go over Rabbit Ears Pass or Vail Pass depending on which way you go. The game is at 5:30 so the boys will need to leave around 2:30. If the snow comes like they say it will, I’d think they’ll cancel the game but you never know up here. If they do go, they’ll get home around 9pm so we’ll see.

So how are you doing this year? Are you treating it any different? Does it feel different or is it just another day. It’s up to you, you know. Only you can change how you feel and how you approach life. I would point out, all of us can do more than we think we can! Wasn’t it Einstein that said we use like 10%  of our brain or something. I think as we go through life, we’re conditioned to live in a certain way, thinking this is my life. It’s easy to come up with excuses for not doing things you always really wanted to do, like “I’m too old”, “I have to work”, “I can’t afford that” or just a general “I could never do that”. These are just all words. My Mom always said you can do whatever you want to do.  I just read about a 64 year old man that decided he wanted to go climbing in the Himalayas, so he did it. So, I know there’s something each of you always wanted to do. It might be traveling somewhere or learning a new skill or language, or even reading a particular book. Maybe it’s playing an instrument or writing a book! Whatever it is, just go for it! You can do it and you’ll be glad you did.

Enough said, time to get the boys moving, take care, have a great day and God Bless.

It’s Tuesday and seems just like another Tuesday, work, school, and running kids here and there. Jag had basketball until 7pm and Lori worked until about 4. She’s packing up her office and getting ready for the final move. Her doc is still on vacation and will be back next Tuesday. Snow and cold is on the way and should be here shortly. Guess I’ll run so we can get the kids moving, hope all is well and you all are enjoying 2017!

Up until yesterday afternoon, we thought the boys went back to school tomorrow. But no, we were wrong, as they start today at 8:15. It’s a fresh start for them too as the 2nd Semester begins today. I woke them both but they’re still in bed and Ty is fast asleep.

Lori will go into the office today and I’ll do some computer work and try to clean up Jag’s cave a bit today. The cold weather is also coming with temperatures well below zero. Not sure how much snow is coming with it but it’s going to be really cold for the entire week.

Jagger’s first basketball game is this Saturday. They travel as far as Grand Junction next week and I think some games are even farther. For those of you that don’t know, Grand Junction is 150 miles to the west! Now that’s what they call an “away game”. Ski Fridays also start this Friday which is where the whole school goes skiing at 11am for the rest of the day.

So lot’s going on. The gym up here is closed today which kind of pisses me off but we’ll just climb a mountain instead. Hope all’s well, have a great first week of 2017 and remember, you can make it what you want! It’s up to you to change things in your life you don’t like or do what you want to do, all you have to do is stand up and do it! Take care and God Bless.

2017, Wow, hard to believe that number. I mean just think back to your childhood or the year you were born and 2017 seems like something out of some futuristic movie or book. It is exciting as is every New Year, but for some reason, 2017 seems different. Not just for politics or other manmade past times but because the number itself just seems, I don’t know, better than any number in a long time. To be fair, 17 or 27 or their derivatives have always been my favorite numbers my whole life. Let’s hope it really is different and somehow we all rise above the petty, meaningless distractions that consume so much of our daily lives. Let’s live like we too have evolved and are above the trivial things in life. There has to be a higher purpose, right?

Today is Post 2,182. That’s a big number as well. I’m going to figure out how to print all the posts out and bind them into books so whoever would like one needs to put in their order asap. When we started this, it was to track how we as a family would grow or change over a year. Soon after we started though, we knew we were sucked in for the long haul. We did and do this, mainly for the boys. We have censored it a bit but overall, it’s a brief factual accounting of our lives. Lori and I hope that someday when the boys are older, they can go back and read this and remember the good and challenging times we had. We have no plan on stopping, so on we go.

Yesterday, December 31st, I dropped Lori at the office and then was off to Costco. We have a Costco Cash Card worth $700 from my buddy at the Chevrolet Dealer from when we traded in Lori’s old car a few months ago. It’s about the best place to buy milk and Lori loves the Healthy Choice Fudgesicles so we’re there pretty often. While wandering the aisles, I did notice fresh King Crab from Alaska as it’s shell fish season. I scarfed up two packs and 4 or 5 other items and headed home. The only bad thing about crab is cracking it to get to the meat. I do however, have some medical scissors that are pretty stout that have proven to be the secret to cleaning crab.

Jag and Ty were hanging out with Ty playing with his friends on his computer and Jag talking on the phone. Jag decided to go to his buddy Ethan’s house with Zach and Matt for the night. I call them the 4 Horseman as they’re pretty much together all the time. First up though I needed to pick Lori up at work around 3:30 and then we drove over to Frisco to meet up with Greg and Kristin from Florida. Greg works for me and they come up here every year to visit their close friends Jeff and Lisa who have a house in Breckenridge. Jeff couldn’t believe how much Jagger had grown. Greg and Kristin were amazed as well as it’s been since last February since they last saw him. Jeff owns a Company that is the leader in manufacturing drones. He travels the World on behalf of our govt and probably others, and was just in Australia, Turkey, Indonesia and someplace else. He and I really get along and I’ve known him for a little over a year. They live outside of Austin most of the time. One of the places he makes drones is right outside Sacramento so when I told him we’d be there in February for Winter Break (to visit Grandma Dixie) he said he’d fly out and take us on a tour but we had to agree to let him take us to dinner! Now this is a place no one can get into. You have to have some government clearance or be somehow connected to see what’s going on inside as their only customer is the government. As I said, Jeff and I are a lot alike, think the same way, have the same values and just get along. So he marked the date down in his calendar and I’m sure will fly up to Sac to see us when we’re there.

We all had some mexican food and left about 5:30 to head back to Vail. Ty stayed home but Jag went with us as we picked up Zach on the way home and dropped both boys at Ethan’s for the night, after stopping at City Market to let them stock up on chips and soda and fireworks for the New Years celebration. We also picked up a bag of chips and a soda for Ty to celebrate with as well. Lori’s arm was sore and hurting as she had PT at 11am. She fell asleep around 9pm and I was up until a bit after 11 before I started to doze off. Ty came in at 3 minutes to midnight to wake us and countdown the seconds until midnight. So, we were all up to ring in 2017. At the strike of 12, fireworks from Vail were heard booming outside over the mountain. Once up, Lori and I both couldn’t go back to sleep until about 1:30. Both her and Ty are still sleeping now.

Dixie did go to Debbie’s and we received a text of a picture and she looked great hanging out with Debbie’s 84 year old father in-law! Lori called her about 10pm California time and Dixie answered but had been sleeping. Lori just worries about her and is hell bent on getting her health and medication figured out. Hope she had a fun time.

So, have any of you made any resolutions for the New Year? I’m off anything white. This means white sugar, white flour and anything with those ingredients in it. As I’ve said before, sugar is a drug and is not good for any of us at all. It causes inflammation which is the root of most all disease. We as a family have a hard time avoiding it as it’s in just about everything, plus it tastes so good. I’m committed to giving it up, we’ll see how well I do or long I last, ha. One last thing, and this is pretty stupid. I was coming out of the bathroom last night and turned right into the door jam with my face and smacked it so hard I cut my lip. So it’s a little swollen now but thankfully didn’t bleed too much. Pretty stupid huh.

Today I think Lori and I are going for a hike. She is headed back into the office as the move is in full swing and she’s still trying to get caught up on scheduling surgeries. Jag and his buddies will probably sleep until noon and I have a ton of clothes to somehow fit into our already full closet and dresser drawers. Thankfully we’re off tomorrow but we’ll both do a little work. Hope you all had a great evening and today is the day to make a fresh start and embrace the New Year, Cheers to 2017! God Bless.

Well not sure myself how I did it, but I managed to fix all the problems yesterday and get in another $225,000 worth of orders on the last day of the year. Not going to go into details but this was a really big deal for the Company. I still can’t believe I got it all done.

Now Lori, well that’s another issue. She has so much work to do that hers is not as easy of a fix. Her work is just a whole lot of work that’ll take days to get done. When I took her to work and physical therapy, I did go up to the 4th Floor where the whole clinic is moving the offices between now and next week as the 3 year construction project is finally finished. It’s pretty nice up there and Lori even finally has her own office! She worked until dinner time and then I picked her up and she worked some more at home.

The rest of the night was spent worrying about her Mom. Today a friend of Lori’s from school days is going over and she has people lined up all the way through Tuesday. She has a pretty good handle on what needs to get done but all doctors are closed until Tuesday. Lori is having Dixie’s medical  records sent here so she can have a top cardiologist we know look at them. Luckily she has connections through the clinic. Dixie did call us at 5:20 this morning as she had been up for a few hours as she couldn’t sleep. Then a few minutes later, Mojo got sick in our bedroom, ugh.

Both boys are sleeping and I did get a lot of laundry done yesterday between work. Not sure if they’re going to the mountain today or not. They might go play basketball this afternoon.

Today we’ll both do some more work. No way we’ll make it to midnight. We’re excited about 2017 as it has to be a better year than 2016. Hard to believe it’s actually New Years. Hope you all have a great night and good year. God Bless and cheers to 2017!!!!!

Well the year isn’t wrapping up quite as we had planned. I have all kinds of issues at work and have about 10 hours to fix them, Lori is having problems getting her wacko ex-employee’s old emails to find out what she did and didn’t do, (she didn’t do much!) her arm is killing her so bad she thinks she might have torn it again, I’ve had a headache since yesterday morning related to my neck from sleeping funny or working out and we both need to figure out how to maybe go out of town at the same time next week. Lori also needs to finish over 20 surgery set ups and interview a bunch of people next week to fill the position she’s been handling. She has to get this done before her Doc comes back a week from Monday. Not sure how she’ll get all that done, especially if she’s gone.

I was supposed to go out of town next week and if I don’t get the orders I need to today, could fly out as early as Monday. Lori is trying to figure out how to go see Dixie to find someone to come in and help her out but we don’t know how that’ll happen if I’m gone, and there’s a big snowstorm coming in next week. Throw in Mojo running down the stairs this morning and having his legs slide out from under him and then letting out a big yelp (hope he didn’t tear anything) and we’re having a great two days. We both want to crawl back in bed and just stay there for a week as we really didn’t have much of a break over break. Wish we could just get a break!

Yesterday Lori, Jag and I did make it to Denver where my Mom surprised me with a great birthday present and before that we managed to get Jag some new shoes and clothes and Lori a much needed pair of shoes. Dixie also sent me a card with a present, thank you. I returned some jeans I had shipped to me a few months ago but never took back. I also bought myself a short sleeve golf shirt at Nordstroms as the one I was wearing had a button break earlier in the day. Lori told me to just throw away my old shirt as it was a white shirt that wasn’t white anymore. To be fair, I did have it for 20 years. I didn’t know that was a long time to have a shirt, ha. We also went to a record shop called Wax Trax that’s been around since I was a kid. We bought some old Elvis records for a friend of Jag’s who has a birthday coming up in a week and she loves Elvis. It was really fun to be in an actual record store again, especially this one as I used to hang out there 40 or 45 years ago. There’s a big resurgence in actual vinyl records again which is pretty cool.

We made it home by about 6pm and thankfully had a pork roast in the crock pot. We forgot to put it in the fridge last night though so it sat out all night, ugh. Not sure if it’s any good anymore. We were just too tired and forgot.

Guess I’d better run, Ty has a dentist appointment at 9 and Lori I think needs to work today and over the weekend and I have a bunch of things that fell apart yesterday afternoon that I have to try to figure out how to put back together again. Not sure I can do it but I need to keep trying. Lori is still not driving so I need to drive her to work. She thinks she can drive with one arm and one in a sling but shouldn’t. Oh well, it is what it is, right? God Bless.