my annual guinness

Today really creeped up on me - I've been so wrapped up in work and other things that need to be posted about, that what would've been my dad's 64th birthday is suddenly here. I'm giving this year's gift to the Hill Country Aeromodelers, which is a conspicuous way of saying Big Kids Group. These guys operate out of south Austin and meet every few weeks to fly their homemade radio controlled planes, which is so my dad.

I loved this club because it reminded me of my dad when we lived in our house in Austin (until I was 7). We had a second story to the house that was just one unairconditioned, light-filled, treehouse of a room that he used exclusively to build model things....planes, trains, cars, whatever. He painted them too, so the room always smelled of a really intense lacquer. I loved it. When I was older, he took me several times to the Fry's parking lot (you heard me) because they held weekly remote-control car races. And he always loved all things aviation, from his real plane to flying kites in Zilker Park. Actually I just found this email he sent a few years ago:

I'm scanning in family pics and found this one of your great granddaddy
(and your grandaddy) and his airplane from 1967 probably taken by me.
Thanks to the registration number visible and Google - I just got off the
phone with the 73 year old man in Peoria Illinois who now owns it and he is
very interested in getting scans of the pics I have of it and your great
granddaddy's pilot's license, etc.  He is going to send me current pictures
of it.  He's very active in aviation and edits the newsletter for his local
airplane club.  I'll show you the other pics when you are here.
-Genealogy Pops

P.S. That means I now live near this plane, which basically makes me want to buy it.

Then my dad and the guy who owns the plane had a super nerd-out exchange that ended up in the local aviation newsletter - what what!

Pretty cute, right? So anyway, it's safe to say he would dig this club.

Sip a Guinness today for Ed!

the joy of skiing 2

Snowstar
Last month while Brian was working, I went to Kim's hometown in Western Illinois with some of our friends to visit the local ski hill. And let's be clear that when I say hill, I actually mean hill. It was great for me though because every time I ski with Brian...God bless him but he pushes me pretty hard...so this time I could ski on my own terms! Since there was really anything to "push" toward (the steepest run was like 200 feet of what would equate to a Colorado blue), I spent a lot of time just working on my skillz. That's right. The kind with a Z.

Kim, Mark, Jackson, Abbey, Jay & me

matching $3 walmart hats - there was no saying no

Kim's family farm (rather, corn field)...so pretty

She and Mark get married here in September!

check out that gnarly run in the background

this was Jay's first time snowboarding but he'd already bought a matching jacket & pants, boots, and a snowboard. good thing he liked it.

Notably, we also went tubing, which was my first time! Tubing is I guess like sledding, but since I haven't really done that either, I can't be sure. They had a huge hill with four lanes, and you could innertube down by yourself or tie your tube together with a few others. Holy crap. This was reminiscent of my ridiculous happiness on the slip 'n slide, just with more screams and a side of tears (from laughing so hard). Actually I caused some 8-year-old to ask one of my friends "What's wrong with that girl?" to which they naturally answered "Oh, she's from Texas." Cool.

the joy of skiing 1

After going through a skiing dry spell, we got to do a ton of it this year, and I loved it! Back in the fall we planned a trip to Tahoe for March, and after that, two other impromptu opportunities presented themselves...when it rains it pours (when it snows it storms?)! I've split them into 3 posts because they each obviously deserve their own.

Breckenridge
I found out in early December that I'd have some downtime work and also that I'd lose my vacation days at the end of the month. While talking to Amy about my new conundrum (all this time, what to do?!), she said we should jump in on her and Matt's trip to Breckenridge! Since we already had bought tickets to go to Texas on Southwest, it was super easy and cheap to change our return flight to go through Colorado. Bada bing, bada boom!

Brian and I flew out the day after Christmas and stayed two nights in a mountain lodge just outside of town. (Sidenote: The lodge was paid for by a "ham check" that our company gives every employee at Christmas, which is to be used to do something nice for/with your family. Pretty awesome, right?). When Amy arrived a few days later, we moved our stuff to Matt's family's ski-in / ski-out condo, where we had a full house of FUN: us, Amy & Matt, another great couple, and Matt's sister.

The snow situation was just short of awful, BUT the general awesomeness of being in the mountains and having our group gel together so well made up for it. We skiied for three days, played games, showed the hot tub who was boss, went out at night, and most notably took over a karaoke bar (with Matt's mom in tow). Such a great trip, and totally unplanned!!!

cute lodge lobby

we all got reindeer names too, obvi

I think I've given Brian is my love for karaoke

the whole group!

The trip also led to a few conversations about what it'd be like if we lived in Colorado. I think Denver would be pretty sweet - still urban, but close enough to ski frequently. Brian is a major proponent of the mountain towns though, because he knows the reality of living 1.5 hours from the slopes (in Denver) is juuuuust far enough to make it a chore to go skiing often. So if the ultimate purpose is to have our kids growing up in the outdoors and enjoying what the mountains really have to offer, maybe the best way to do that is probably by living at the foot of an actual slope. We will continue to disagree on this.