The Mountain Palace...

...is no more.  If you've known us, you probably know we own a little house in Blue River, Colorado, which is about three miles south of Breckenridge.  We bought the house back in 2005, used it for a year, and then we rented it when we moved to Ohio.  It is a charming and quaint little place (both are words realtors can use to hide flaws, but they do accurately describe the property).  We had intended to move there someday.

Alas, I should say, "owned" a house in Blue River because on Thursday, we closed on the sale of the house.  Thus, after ten years, we are back to having only one mortgage.  This turn of events might shock some people, but fear not.  As I alluded to in previous emails, there are some big things going on in McGuirk-land (note the 's' on things).  This is the first of two big announcements.  I'll hold on the second announcement for another month or so (think of this email as the Star Wars Force Awakens teaser trailer).  More to follow.  Happy Saturday.

February Skiing

We spent another weekend up in Breckenridge.  We were tempted to stay home because the weather people have been predicting a huge storm to hit Colorado Springs over the weekend.  We took the chance they'd be wrong and headed up to the slopes.  This entire season, whenever we've gone skiing, Bode would go to ski school, and Ashley and I would ski together.  This weekend, Bode informed us he wanted to ski with us.  We were both excited and a less-than-enthused about this because while we couldn't wait to ski with Bode, we also knew skiing with Bode would mean a lot of time on the greens. But we figured the sooner we start skiing with him, the better he'll get.  And we both agreed sometime in the (near) future, Bode will be a better skier than us, and we will be the ones holding him back.

The weather was decent.  The temperature was right around 30, but it was overcast, with intermittent light-to-heavy snow.  We skied for the morning, and when we broke for lunch, we were ready to do a little lunch, shopping, and hot-tubbing.  We did stop for the obligatory photo on the top of the Quicksilver lift.

We also took a quick break to get some hot tea (for Ashley) and some free Hershey kisses (for Bode).  It was warm enough inside for me to snap some photos.

We woke up early this morning, and Ashley spent an hour on the slopes.  She said it was freezing but awesome (temperature was closer to 5 today).  We then loaded up the car and headed back.  Colorado Springs received 12+ inches of snow Saturday night, and it was still snowing slightly, so surprise, surprise, the meteorologists were correct.  Fortunately, we made it back without a hitch.  I spent an hour shoveling the driveway, and now my back is aching :-)  Bode's school has already cancelled classes for tomorrow.  Not sure if USAFA will shut down or not.  I'm hopeful it will so we can all have a fun snow day.  Pleasant week to all.

Legos

Bode is really into Legos.  He''s very good at following the directions and getting all the pieces in the right places.  At Christmas, he received a bunch of little figures, and he promptly put them all together.  Sometimes, he'll sit for hours working on a design.  We've been feeding this hobby by buying various sets.  He's very into the Lego Star Wars, so we recently purchased Jabba's Flying Sail Barge, which had 750+ pieces.  I think Ashley really liked Legos when she was young (and even now for that matter), so the two of them have some great Mommy-Son time.

Here's a cute movie of Mommy and Bode giving a tour of the completed design.

All is well in Colorado Springs.  In another week, we should be able to announce the first of two major happenings in the McGuirk world.  Tune in next week, same Blog-time, same Blog-channel (I wonder if today's generation gets that reference).  Pleasant week to all!

The Piano Man

Bode has been taking piano lessons for over two months.  We are amazed at the progress.  He's always shown an affinity for memorizing things.  He has flashcards with all the notes on the scale from bass clef up through the treble clef.  He can site-read all notes from low C (two lines below the bass clef) up through high-high C (two lines above the treble clef).  He's probably not at "Mozart proficiency" when it comes to site-reading, but the fact he knows all the notes and can identify them on the piano really impresses me.  He usually practices in the afternoons with Miss Jeanice, so it can sometimes be more than a week between times we hear him play.  We had lunch at the Waffle House today (it's become a tradition), and when we got home, Bode wanted to play for us.  I took the following two videos.  The first is Bode playing one of the Daily Dozen warm-up exercises.

Next are some of the songs he plays from his lesson book.  Yes, there are errors, but if you'd seen him when he first learned what middle C was and compared that with today, you'd be duly impressed :-)

Nothing too exciting going on here...well, that's not really true.  A lot going on, but we'll still wait a few weeks before we unveil the big news!  Happy Saturday to all.