A Year of Change

I headed out yesterday to get Lori from the airport. On the way I stopped at Target for a few things and then was at DIA by about 11. After a stop at Five Guys for some lunch, we headed home. A few hours later we all headed out to find the perfect Christmas tree. As soon as we walked out the door, it started to lightly snow. After trudging through the snow up the side of a hill on the way to Leadville, we found what we think is the best tree we’ve had in years, or possibly the best ever!  By the way, the picture doesn’t do it justice, ha! We arrived home, trimmed up the trunk and put it in the stand and then began to string the lights. Of course we didn’t have enough so Jag and I were soon on the way to Walmart. I didn’t know this but they’re open 24 hours, wow, glad I don’t work there. Lori still has some work to do as lots of our ornaments are packed in storage but we did put on a few from Mom’s house. I think Lori is also going to put some ribbon on or something.

Luckily we got our tree yesterday as it was snowing and blowing all night long. It looks like Denver has more snow than we do here but the wind was blowing up here all night long. Lori and I were both really tired yesterday. She was up at 4 and I was up at 5 which means we were up at the same time with the time difference. This week is a little easier for me but I am in Denver tomorrow and Friday and Lori is back at work at the hospital.

I need to be at VMS at 8 to fill out some form for the school to turn in to CHASSA to try to straighten this whole mess out. I’m still pissed that the other coach made this such a big deal. Ty’s season is over and he needs to turn in his uniform today. I’m sure they’ll have a banquet coming up.

The house looks pretty good but the garage is full! I’d better get moving as we need to leave in less than an hour. We (Tom) probably needs to turn the heat way up at Mom’s house as it’s supposed to get colder this afternoon and evening. There’s one broken window upstairs that’s probably dropping the temperature inside the house. I hope the pipes don’t freeze.

That’s it! December 4th, enjoy each and every day as it’ll come and go fast. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, let the spirit within you come out! God Bless.

As you know, yesterday was full of basketball. It was a long day but the big highlight, or low light, was that we found out at noon, that the head coach of Battle Mountain, the 4A school we were playing in the championship, initiated a formal protest against Jagger playing under the grounds that he illegally transferred from Battle Mountain to VMS. Of course this was a shock to our school, team, coach and most of all, Jagger. Our AD (athletic director) months ago, after we transferred back, had cleared everything with CHASSA (the Colorado High School Sports Association) which is like the NCAA of high school sports. But in today’s political correctness, Jag had to sit out the game until there’s a formal ruling on Monday. What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Our AD, once she found out about this, did get a hold of the League President in the valley who said, along with other people including Battle Mountains own AD, that Jag should be fine as he never set foot on Battle Mountains basketball court or played a sport while there for a short 3 weeks. In any case, their coach who is apparently bitter Jag left his program, turned in the protest preventing Jag from playing. The worst thing about it is that these games don’t even count towards either teams league record. All games are “out of conference” games until the first of January. Everyone was stunned and bummed for Jagger. To top it off, our coach, who is still a teacher at Battle Mountain and used to be the Assistant Coach there, says it’s clear the coach was trying to get back at him and used a 15 year old kid, (Jag), who just wants to play basketball, to get him. The whole team went to dinner after the game, (which we lost by about 15 points) and there was a note on the windshield of our coaches car when they came out, that said “traitor”. Wow! So hopefully CHASSA will rule in Jag’s favor on Monday but if they’re anything like the NCAA, you never know, stay tuned.

Meanwhile across the valley, Ty’s team won their first game but then lost to Leadville who was the number one seed, in the next round. I picked him up at 3:30 and we went back to watch Jag’s game as the coach still wanted Jag to suit up, warm up and sit on the bench, to be part of the team. All in all, I drove up and down the valley six times yesterday before finishing up and getting home around 6:30. Coach Chris (Jag’s coach) drove Jag home after the team dinner in town.

It’s 5:52 and I talked to Lori 20 minutes ago to make sure she was up. I’ll leave about 8 but still have a few things to pick up around here. Believe it or not, I somehow managed to get things pretty well de-cluttered around here. I basically just boxed up anything I don’t think we’ll use in the next 6 months, upstairs and down. It feels good as it’s much less crowded in here. After I pick up Lori, we’ll drive up the hill, get the boys, who will probably still be sleeping (ha), and go get our tree. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow so it’s good timing. We have to get a tall thin tree to fit in our small space.

That’s it for the today, hope everyone is well, have a great December 3rd and Happy Holidays, Take care and God Bless.

Yesterday I somehow managed to get Jag’s room clean, take him to lunch and then get to his basketball game. Jag had some good playing time and we won and are now in the championship game at 3:30 today. Meanwhile Ty is working hard at school and raised a couple grades and had practice as he’s in a tournament today at noon. So, Ty needs to be dropped off at 11, and Jag has a shoot around practice at noon, Ty’s games starts at noon, and if they win, plays another one at 2:30. If they win that one, they play another at 4:30. This means we could have 4 games today with 3 of them overlapping. I’ll drop Ty at 11,  then I’ll drop Jag at practice early (like 11:30), run back to watch Ty, then run back to get Jag and take him to his game, then run back for Ty’s second game, watch the first half of that, then run back to Jag’s, watch that and then run back to watch the end of Ty’s championship game. Luckily the two gyms are only about 10 miles apart. I think I have that right.

Of course, somehow in between all of this I need to clean the house. It’s 6:48 now (I sort of slept in) so when I’m done writing, I’ll get on Ty’s room. He came in like 1 am and crawled in my bed so at least he’s not in his room.

Lori comes home tomorrow, yea! I think she’s going to some lunch today with Dixie. Looks like Dixie is coming out December 21st until December 28th. Glad she’s able to spend the holiday with us as it’ll be nice to have her here.

I’m skipping my Dallas trip on Monday. Lorenzo arrives Tuesday and I’ll be in Denver at least twice next week. Time to get cleaning I guess. I think I’ll take the boys to breakfast somewhere. I did workout yesterday for about 35 minutes and am pretty sore today.

Wish both boys luck today. Ty’s team is like the number 2 seed and could win the whole thing as they’re pretty darn good, while Jag’s team is probably playing Battle Mountain which is a 5A school. His school is 2A so they’ll have quite a challenge ahead of them, but you never know.

Have a great day and we hope to be sending Tasha and family’s presents out next week. Tasha, if you’re reading, you’ll need to text me your address. Go Falcons (Ty’s team) and Go Rangers (Jag’s team), God Bless.

After dropping the kids at school, we headed down to drop Lori for her flight to California. We made it to DIA at 9:45 and she was at her gate 3 minutes before boarding, perfect timing!

I then hit a few stores to pick up supplies to overhaul the house. I made it home with some groceries and about 20 storage boxes which I’ll be filling up over the next 48 hours. The problem is that before I can start to clean, I have to clean! It’s such a mess that I can’t even start without first doing a high level cleaning that includes things like laundry, dishes, junk on the kids floors, under the beds, purging old clothes and more. I manged to get a little of that done last night but will hit the ground running around 9 am this morning.

It’s December 1st! December is a great month, not only for Christmas and a few of our family birthdays, but for that inner feeling most people get that they don’t seem to have the rest of the year. Hopefully everyone is a little kinder, a little more forgiving of others and a little more generous. I was in a bad mood yesterday afternoon when I arrived home due to the mess, and the stress of work and the holidays, and caught myself taking it out on the boys. Once I stepped out of myself and looked at how I was acting, I stopped and took a deep breath and apologized to them and we started over. Even us adults that are supposed to be older and wiser can go off sometimes, ugh.

Oh well, today is another day. Jag has a game tonight at 4:30, Ty has practice from 3:50 until 6 and well, you know what I’m doing. The Birds of Prey downhill (ski race) with athletes from 24 countries is here this weekend but I don’t think we’ll see any of it. Tomorrow Ty has a tournament and so does Jag. Hopefully their games will be at different times so I can drive back and forth between the two schools to watch them both.

We’re still waiting on some presents to arrive in the mail so we can wrap them up and ship them back out. Lori of course is with her Mom for the next two days. While I could use the help, it’s easier for me to just purge on my own. Looks like Dixie is coming out for Christmas. Not sure when she’ll arrive but Lori will figure that out in the next day or two.

It’s 6:15 now so I need to get the boys moving. Hope everyone is well. Enjoy the holidays and if you’re not feeling the “spirit”, get it together now!

God Bless you all.

I picked Jag up at 11:30 last night and it’s now 5:30. I think that’s 6 hours but of course we didn’t get home until about 12:02 and then I couldn’t get to sleep until at least 12:30. That’s 5 hours! Before that I was at Ty’s game until 8:30 and before that I was at the wine tasting until 3:30. I left about 11 am so I was busy all day long.

We need to leave in exactly 1 hour and 15 minutes. Lori is waking Ty now but I think I’ll let Jag sleep until at least 6:30 as he too has to be tired.

After dropping Lori at the airport I hope to be back up by 1:30 or 2. You can barely walk in the house with the mess but I plan on purging and cleaning for the next 3 days in between basketball practice and two tournaments.

That time again, time to go. Hope all’s well, Lori should land in Sacramento around 12:30. She’s tired too as she had no sleep the night before. Until tomorrow, God Bless!

Yesterday I made it to Aspen and back, Jag was at basketball ball practice until 9, Lori and I had a dinner after work with our Chilean wine ambassador Horacio, and Ty had practice until 6. Today is more of the same with Jag leaving school at 2 for a game in Denver and arriving home about midnight. Then of course tomorrow we all need to get out the door early so I can take Lori to the airport to go to California. I have a wine event here from 1 until about 3 in Vail.

I think I’m going to skip my Dallas trip on Monday as I have an opportunity for a hard to get meeting in Aspen. Plus I think it’s going to finally snow.

Looks like Matt Lauer is the latest casualty of the sexual harassment wave sweeping the World. He was fired overnight for some bad behavior, hmmm. Guess it doesn’t matter who you are unless you’re a democratic senator (see Al Franken and John Conyers). Funny how those two creeps can actually stand up and face the camera and say I need to stay in power to continue my work to help people, including women. What an embarrassment. Wonder when this will end, lots of people probably out there freaking out wondering when news about them is going to come out. It’s funny as society has over the years gradually strayed away from morality. Wonder what’s next.

Time to get the boys moving, have a great day, God Bless.

Ok, it’s only Tuesday and we’re wiped out! Lori is dragging and decided to skip the clinic town meeting this morning and I feel like I have some stomach bug and am supposed to be in Aspen today. Jag was up late after getting home from basketball around 8:30 and Ty has some make up work to get done as I just woke him up and he was sleeping with his face on his computer.

Last night Jag played in both the junior varsity and varsity scrimmages. He played really well and it was against a 4A school meaning they had a lot more talent and the kids were big. We’re a 2A school and I think it’s all rated on the number of students in the school. The more students, the larger the pool of kids which in theory means they should be better. In any case, our team held its own and played really well. The governing body for high school sports doesn’t allow you to keep score in scrimmages, but it was a close game.

I sort of have the chills so I might have to skip Aspen. I have the same event tomorrow here in Vail. Then Thursday I’m skipping Crested Butte as I need to take Lori to the airport.

Looks like next year Ty will probably go back to VMS to join Jagger. He’s having a good year but we all think he’ll do better back there instead of the big public high school. On top of it all, I don’t think I could drive to both ends of the valley every morning and night. It would mean over an hour commute each morning and night. Of course this means we have to pay twice as much but you do what you have to do.

I hear Lori trying to get Jagger moving but she isn’t having much luck so I’d better run and help her out. It’s 6:20 and we need to leave in about an hour. Time sure goes fast in the morning. Tasha called yesterday and said her furniture arrived which is good news. She was happy to get some things I found that she hadn’t seen before. I guess Shelly had been looking for some of the stuff for a long time. Glad I found it and could send it along. I knew it’d mean a lot to her and think it’s important to share or spread around the historical things from our family. We’ll talk sometime down the road and try to decipher who some of the people are in the old photos.

Time to go, have a good day, GB

Man are we tired. To make matters worse, this week we have the week from hell. All four of us are super busy from now until who knows when. We don’t have a weekend coming up as both boys are in separate basketball tournaments on Saturday and then on Sunday, I need to drive down to Denver to pick up Lori. Her doc is back from Hawaii today and she needs to let them know she’ll be gone Thursday and Friday, which probably won’t be well received.

Yesterday we headed over to Silverthorne before getting home around 3:15 to watch our beloved Broncos lose again. Not sure if we’ll win another game, ha. Both boys wanted to get up early but of course, even though we woke them, they’re still not moving. Getting teenage boys up in the morning is no easy task.

Time to run so I can try to get them moving. We’re running out of time to get things packed and shipped. For those of you out of town, we hope to ship your packages next week. We tried to get a tree yesterday but ran out of time and had to go to Summit County as we didn’t get an Eagle County permit on Friday. I think we’re going to try for next Sunday after Lori gets home.

That’s it, I need to help Jag find his basketball jersey so have a great day. It’s Cyber Monday meaning lots of deals on line. Talk to you all tomorrow, God Bless.

Lori and I picked Jag up from practice around 11:20 and headed straight down the hill. We arrived at Park Meadows Mall at exactly 1 in the afternoon. Pretty good time if you know the drive. First stop was Nordstrom’s where the misses tried on and bought some snow boots for work this winter. Next up was Hoops, Jag’s favorite store with all the latest basketball shoes and gear. We bought him some Nike SF Air Force 1’s in black to replace his old worn out ones. Although he knows he’s getting this, it’s still a good present for him. I did get him a Nike coat he wanted that he doesn’t know about. He then picked out a few things for Ty which was a big help.

Next up was a 15 minute drive to Cherry Creek Mall. Here we again hit Nordstrom’s before working our way down the mall. Soon we ended up at Neiman Marcus where the day before I had ordered a dress for Lori that was 60% off! I had her try on one similar just for size and then after a few changes, she found one she liked. Of course then she needed a pair of shoes to go with it for the Company holiday party coming up December 9th. She and I sort of shop this way so we get what we need and want. By now it was 5 pm and Ty was still playing at Ben’s. We were starving so we headed to our favorite restaurant in the mall, the Chop House. After a quick meal, we headed out to pick up Ty and head up the hill. About 8:15, after a stop at Chick Filet for Ty, we made it home.

Today we’re hoping the Forest Service is open so we can get a permit to cut our tree. Lori is gone next weekend to her Mom’s so we need to try and get it now. We have a busy week with both boys in basketball and then I’m in Vail and Aspen Tuesday and Wednesday for holiday tastings at work. On Thursday I’ll drive Lori to the airport to go to Sacramento. Sunday she comes home and Monday I go to Dallas for lunch meeting.

We talked with Grandma Dixie who is now sort of thinking of moving to Oklahoma. I told her make sure it’s what she wants to do but I do agree with her wanting to get the hell out of California. It’s just not a good place to live anymore as it’s changed so much in the past 30 plus years. There’s way too much crime and taxes, along with too many people and grid lock traffic everywhere. These are just a few of the reasons to get out of Dodge. We’ll see though as she has lots of family and friends in California.

Lori just came down so time to get ready for a hike up the mountain or a trip to the gym. Have a great day and get ready for the last week of November. God Bless and stay safe.

Yesterday I kept saying it felt like Saturday so naturally today it feels like Sunday. After practice, Ty and I picked up Jag and headed straight down to the city. On the way our brakes felt funny coming down the hill so I called the Chevy dealer who said to come right over. We showed up and they had a 2017 Tahoe for us as a loaner and kept our car to check it out. More on this later but the 2017 sure was nice.

We then headed to Ben’s to drop Ty and headed down to get Jag a haircut. Jeannie was there when we arrived and fixed him up pronto. Then we decided to head to the mall to look for some presents for some people. First up was Nordstrom’s to return some boots Lori bought a few days ago. While there, Jag and I found a bunch of stuff for ourselves! Now this wasn’t really the plan but I needed some new shirts and he found a great sweater/hoodie combo that he really wanted. After that we did manage to buy a few things for Lori and Ty. While there, the car dealer called and said they couldn’t find anything wrong with our brakes, hmm. They did change the oil and rotate the tires and washed it up though. So we headed back west to pick up our car. We decided to stop into Colorado Mills that just reopened after a bad hail storm about 6 months ago. I found a new pair of workout shoes for the gym and then we headed up the hill. Lori stayed home to clean and rest but this morning she’ll go with us at 11 to head back down to Denver to pick up Ty and do some more shopping.

It’s 7 now and Jag is up eating a good breakfast as he ran out of energy yesterday at practice from lack of nutrition. I’m sure Ty and Ben partyed all night long. After we drop Jag, Lori and I will head to the gym. Hope all’s well and that you’re all enjoying the break. Take care and have a great day, GB.