The Garden Update

I have successfully completed the raised beds for the new garden.  I am in the process of conditioning the soil--I bought some bags of soil from Lowe's, but I'm also working old grass-clippings into the soil as well.  It's a bit sandy at the moment, but I hope to plant some things either tomorrow or next weekend.

We spent part of the weekend installing some sod.  Our front-yard now looks pretty sweet.

 

 

The other big news is that Barkley had a birthday yesterday--the bitch is two.  Happy birthday, girl.

Bode and Joey spent the good part of the afternoon on the sofa :-)

Happy weekend to everyone.

Park City Day 5

We had our final day in park city yesterday.  We didn't ski--conditions weren't that great, as we got a little bit of that big storm that hit the midwest.  We actually slept in and took our time packing up.  We went down to Salt Lake City and went to the aquarium.  It was nice--nothing epic, but certainly worth it (and it sure beat being at work).  Here's Bode in front of a macaw.

Next, we saw some big fish from South America.

Bode was a bit disappointed that there wasn't an actual megalodon; he had to settle for a model of one's jaws (still quite impressive if you ask me).

Finally, they had this shark tank, which you could walk through.  No great whites, but still pretty neat.

We made it back to Florida today.  Temperatures were in the 70's and humid, so much so that we had to turn on the AC.  I recall back in Colorado that I would try to not turn the AC on until 1 July; how times have changed.  All is all, a great trip.  Here's a family photo from atop the mountain.  Note Ashley HATES this picture because the way her layers were on her and how she's standing makes it look like she has quite the belly :-)

Pleasant weekend to all!

Park City Day 4

We had another banner day at Park City on Day 4 of our little spring break vacation.  The weather was perfect--beautiful sun, warm, and not too crowded.  The only thing missing was some new powder, but conditions were wonderful as they were.  We got to the lifts when they opened and took the time to take this first picture.

We weren't planning on skiing too much today, but we ended up doing over 13,000 vertical feet.  We headed over to the Canyons part of the mountain.  There are some incredible homes there--we looked them up after we skied and saw one in particular will rent for $10,000 per night.  Yikes.  There weren't too many people, and the views were spectacular.

We skied a few runs over in the Canyons.  There is a whole part of the mountain we didn't even get to--maybe next year!  We did take a photo before we headed back to the Park City side.

We finished up with a couple black diamond runs.  Bode and I did "the Glory Hole," which is just an awful name :-)  We then headed over to Erika's Gold and finished up.  I like the picture below because it looks like Bode is going off a cliff :-)

All told, we skied over 34,000 vertical feet in three days--we know this isn't record territory for the ski-freaks, but we are thrilled with how much we were able to ski.  Afterwards, we fine-dined at Subway, and then we sat in the hot-tub.

I was a little disappointed in Ashley.  A couple days ago, there was this 20-something girl that was in the hot-tub...she was in a thong, which just didn't seem like a good choice.  Still, if thongs were acceptable, I told Ashley she should put hers on.  I guess she simply forgot to pack it :-)  Bode and I were brave enough to swim in the pool.

We did get some professional photos taken atop the mountain--I'll try to publish when they are posted.  We'll probably get to sleep early tonight, as all of our legs feel like jelly :-)

Park City Day 3

Our third day in Park City was amazing.  It was a Monday, so a lot of the weekend crowd was gone (d*mn tourists).  We arrived shortly before 0900, and the difference was immediately noticeable.  On Saturday, people were queuing up for the lifts by 0830.  At 0855, there were no lines and not many people.  We geared up and headed up the slopes.  It was a beautiful morning, and some people were nice enough to take our picture.

I tried to take some action photos.  The two blips in this picture are Bode and Ashley.

I also tried to take a movie--one of these day, I'll hire a crew and really plan out the sequence of shots.  Until then, you are stuck with my poor hand-held filmography.

There was hardly any wait at any of the lifts.  Therefore, we really skied a lot.  We decided to finish close to noon.   Bode wanted to finish on the same black diamond we finished with on Saturday--Erika's Gold.  I was surprised because he fell pretty hard on Saturday--lost a ski, had to hike back up to get it--just not a fun end of the day.  I guess Bode wanted to "get back up on that horse."

We had a great second day--we skied over 13,000 vertical feet in a little under three hours, which was just awesome!

Park City Day 2

On our second day in Utah, it snowed.  It was dreary and overcast.  Couple this with the facts that it was a weekend and we were a little sore from our first day skiing made it an easy decision to skip the mountain and tour the Olympic Center.  I will have to come back and add all the pictures because I forgot my camera.  Thus, all pictures are on Ashley's phone, and I won't have easy access to those until we get home.

After the Olympic Center, we headed over to watch Captain Marvel, which was very good.  We then headed back to the room and took our daily hot-tub.  There's also a little game room, which has Ping-Pong and fooseball.  It makes for some good family fun :-)

Park City Day 1

We have been in Park City, Utah, for the past few days.  Since we now live in Florida, we needed a ski-fix for the year.  We'd never been skiing in Utah, and our passes were good for Park City.  Plus, Ashley found an awesome rate at the Doubletree hotel.  The only issue was Bode's spring break and my spring break did not align.  Bode was gracious enough to volunteer to skip a week of school--he's so magnanimous.  We flew out early Friday morning.

We arrived safely, but sadly, our skis did not make the trip from Atlanta.  We were worried we'd be without skis on Saturday, but fortunately, our ski bags were located and they were delivered to the hotel at 0109 in the AM on Saturday morning.  Thus, we were ready to ski.  We hit the slopes first thing on Saturday morning.  We probably got there too early--lifts in Breckenridge opened at 0830; here, not til 0900.  Thus, we had time for some pictures at the base.

The weather wasn't perfect on Day 1, but we were able to get out ski legs back.  Here's Ashley and Bode before our first big run on the day.

Here's one from a little later in the morning--Bode was psyched that we were going to try this particular black diamond.

We only skied for a couple hours on the first day--we didn't want to overdo things.  Plus, it was a Saturday, and it was starting to get packed.  So we called it a day and headed over to Main St for some lunch.  We were able to watch Auburn beat Tennessee in its final regular season game.  Afterwards, Bode found a friend.

Day 1 was a great success.  Total vertical feet:  8,700.

The Garden Project

As you may recall, when we lived in Colorado, I built a nice little garden in the backyard.  Actually, I did this twice in Colorado--when we first lived there from 2000 - 2006 and then from 2012 - 2018.  I really enjoyed it, and the only reason we didn't do a garden in Ohio was our time was focused on the little dude (good times).  Now, every time I throw out old fruit, I feel like I'm simply throwing away good fertilizer.  Thus, I've decided to start growing some crops.

However, I can't plant quite yet.  We don't have a lot of sun in our backyard--all these d*mn trees :-)  We did have some trees taken out in the front yard before Christmas, and Ashley and I realized we could put some planter boxes.  This will be a bit of a process--need to move some dirt around, and then probably reroute the sprinkler system.  But I'm hoping in a couple months, Bode and I will be planting some seeds. 

Here are some "before" pictures...although it's not quite "before" since I have moved some of the dirt around.

The mounds of dirt are the future locations of the boxes.  We hope to put some sod down on the "paths" and then maybe a rock path down the left side that leads to the side of the house.  Hopefully a year from now we'll be harvesting the winter crop and readying for the summer :-) 

All is well here.  We played some tennis yesterday and Bode had orchestra.  We received the "enrollment in middle school" packet this week from Bode's school.  It is hard to believe in less than three months, Bode will be ready for junior high.  The dogs were elated.

Pleasant week to all.