The carpet guys showed up on Tuesday, so we finally got some carpet to cover the concrete. It was almost worth suffering through having no real furniture and walking on dusty concrete, since it made having carpet seem so luxurious.

Friday I went into the urgent care center, as my elbow injury from the previous weekend started to really hurt, and turn red. It appears I may have chipped my elbow. They put me in a splint, and gave me a 5 day dose of antibiotics. I'm now measuring my life in 6 hour increments, each time I have to take another pill. The swelling is down, the pain is gone, so I think I'll be able to keep the arm.

Kristen took off on Friday to the mountains in order to do her 5k snowshoeing trek with some girlfriends. Even though the snow is melting fast, there was still plenty to snowshoe on. Frisco was nearly empty, the skiers appear to be calling it a year.


The rest of our furniture showed up on Saturday. It makes our living room seem even smaller, since it's fairly sizable stuff. The couch weighs just under 500 pounds. I'm not sure how we're going to get it out of the condo when we move.


It looks like the weather will continue to warm up next week. We have a few corporate bosses showing up on Thursday for what promises to be an exciting day or two.

A long week of snowboarding and general merriment is over. And what a week it was.

Monday and Tuesday saw nearly a foot of snow fall on the mountain. The crowds were non-existant early in the week, so we got a lot of first tracks on our favorite runs.


On Tuesday Mike, Tracy and I hiked to Vasquez Cirque. It's the most advanced terrain at Winter Park, and it takes about a mile and a half hike at 12,000+ feet to get there.


The clouds cleared right before our descent. There were only a few tracks down the face of the cirque, so we got to enjoy some ski-movie quality moments on the way down. I can honestly say it was one of the highlights of my snowboarding career.


On Wednesday we decided to head to Steamboat, since we had a few passes to burn up there. They'd had some interesting weather the day before, so everything was coated in a strange layer of snow. Being on an unfamiliar mountain was an interesting change of pace, and I only really got lost in the forest once. We clocked in almost 45 miles worth of snowboarding and lift riding there, which ended up being the record for the trip. We descended over 30,000 feet, according to Mike's GPS unit.

Wednesday night saw three more people show up to the condo. The legs were feeling pretty burnt, so we decided to take a short day the next day. After about a half day of snowboarding, we hit the bar. This resulted in most of us dancing our way out of the resort at the end of the day.


We had another short day of snowboarding on Friday. Kristen showed up that afternoon. I was glad to see her.


Saturday we gave up snowboarding for snowshoeing. Kristen has a 5k snowshoeing walk/race next weekend, so we did about a 3 mile hike. The snow was really melting quickly, we probably didn't really need the snowshoes.


We went wine-tasting in the afternoon in the towns of Fraser and Winter Park. We did pass the "Worst Western Hotel", which seemed picture worthy.


We awoke on Sunday to 4 inches of snow. Kristen and I were eager to get home, so we got the condo cleaned up quickly, and headed back. The drive was really nasty, and I managed so slip on the ice on the way out, and really busted my elbow open pretty well. I'm hoping I'll get a cool scar out of the deal.

We arrived home to two needy cats. It appears that one of them had some excitement while we were gone, by finally taking the bait on the exploding outhouse.


The new carpet should show up on Tuesday, and the furniture on Saturday. Hopefully by this time next week we'll have a more normal living area.

The carpet isn't working out as planned. After setting up an appointment on Thursday to have it installed, we moved all the furniture into the spare bedroom. The carpet place called on Wednesday to let us know they actually didn't have the carpet, and would have to reschedule.

This was unfortunate, as I was taking off on Friday for Winter Park for a week of snowboarding. We quickly moved a bit of furniture back into the house so Kristen could have a place to sit while I was out of town. Hopefully her stay in the "Concrete Cave" is pleasant.


I made it up to the condo on Friday, riding with Nate and Mary and Karissa. We had a pretty full house on Friday, with 11 people sleeping in a place that only sleeps 6.


Saturday was a full day of boarding, with then entire group sticking together pretty well. Usually we fragment up into smaller groups according to ability, but this time everyone seemed to be pretty compatible.


Afterwards, after a few beers and some time in the hot tub, we crashed early. Sunday was more of the same, with a couple fewer people. By Sunday night we were down to 4 people. Things should remain a little more laid back until Wednesday or so when the next wave of people show up.


It'll be nice not to be at work.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Katie and Jordan showed up late Friday for a weekend in the Boulder area. Jordan brought "Guitar Hero" with him, so he and I formed a temporary band named the "Shrieking Weasels" for the night. At some point he wandered into the next room, and came back in wearing a very impressive wig. Luckily I had a Bolder Boulder wig handy, so our transformation into the Weasels was complete.



Saturday we ran into Denver to taste some of their caterer's food for the wedding. It was all very tasty, and we managed to get through the process in under an hour. Kristen and Katie hit the President's day sales at the mall, giving the Shrieking Weasels time to have one more gig.

Later in the day we headed up to Central City, and proceeded to lose money at blackjack and the slots. Kristen did the best, coming out about even. The rest of us did not fair as well.

Sunday involved mostly recovering from the previous night. Kristen and I managed to do some more work on the floor in the condo, filling up another dumpster with carpet. We managed to clog up the Dyson's filter in the process, which paused our progress for the day.

Housework continues, and doesn't show any signs of letting up. The first half of the week involved painting the ceiling in the kitchen, finishing touching up the previously painted areas, sanding & re-staining the master window sill, and doing a lot of caulking.

On Tuesday the first piece of furniture showed up. The rest should show up in a month or so, if all goes as planned. We're excited for the rest to eventually get here.


The carpet may show up as early next week. One thing I need to do before it get's installed is to fix a soft spot in the floor in the main hallway. Since we've moved in one particular spot would sag and creak whenever you stepped on it.

I tore up the carpet in the hallway, exposing a concrete looking surface, with some serious cracks around the squishy area.


I pulled up the 1.5" thick chunks of concrete, and chipped a bit more away to give me a nice square hole. I drilled an exploratory hole in the soft portion of the plywood, hoping that there was a joist nearby. There wasn't one even close, which was surprising, since the seam of the plywood sheet was right there.


Since I couldn't add any additional support easily, I decided to screw & glue another piece of plywood over the soft area. That seemed to really stiffen things up.


Sunday involved using 50+ pounds of concrete to fill in the remaining hole. I've never worked with concrete before, I hope I did everything right...



The upcoming week should see us sneaking massive amounts of worn out carpet into the dumpster, probably under the cloak of night. Kristen has her ninja outfit ready.

We did manage to see Eagle Vs Shark, New Zealand's answer to Napolean Dynamite. If you enjoyed Napolean (and I'm talking to you, Jason & Becky), then it's worth checking out.

This is the 100th post for the blog. Woo hoo!

This weekend was a flurry of activity. Kristen had a study group on Saturday morning, I met up with Nate to putter around in the garage. He and I managed to put together a platform that I hope will be used to haul stuff into the treehouse. I'm hoping to build a boom arm with a pulley or two on it, allowing me to pull up groceries, material, a stove, a dog, etc. I managed to use up most of the spare lumber and paint I had in the garage.

We've rigged up the exploding outhouse that Kristen's father gave us for Christmas. We keep hoping we'll hear it go off in the middle of the night, but so far we haven't had any luck.

Sunday involved painting the master bedroom, in preparation for the carpet that should show up in three weeks or so. Although we need to touch up a few areas, hopefully the majority of the painting is behind us.

Zack was interested in what we were doing, but successfully stayed out of harms way.


Meanwhile, Ada sunned herself near her favorite window.