Last week kind of got away from me. Basketball Tuesday and Thursday were good, though Tuesday was kind of slow due to an earlier-in-the-day blood donation (from which I won a pretty sweet gardening basket, hooray blood!). I ran in the full-court 'apres' game both nights and realized that part of my struggle has been getting separation and finding basketball-width passing lanes in a small-court game. Wednesday night's P&R meeting was my first at the table, even though my voting rights begin next month. There was more debate over the Farmington improvements...the Morning Call has it here. (If you follow the link read the comments.)

Now a weekend. We're going to hit the basement pretty hard - cleaning, organizing, and generally gearing up for preparing to start initiating the kick off of planning for that giant project. If weather cooperates there might be some tree removal and hole-digging in the back yard. And since the lines were 30 people deep when they opened last weekend, we're going to try to welcome Rita's back from hiatus.

This weekend has been a kind of hybrid spring cleaning/end-of-winter mini work bee at home. We packed up ski gear and cut back decorative grasses. We also slept in and kicked it with panini and a movie Saturday night. At the recommendation of several friends we checked out local tree-grower Foliage Farm and are now awaiting the arrival of a real tree to replace the really dead one in the backyard. Feels like spring!

The ski trip is the main reason why. This was the year that wives joined us (albeit late in the week) and things couldn't have gone better from my perspective. Days 1-3 on the hill with the guys were fast, furious, and knee-deep in snow and cold. Day 2 was at Grand Targhee with over a foot of fresh and more coming down in buckets. It was bitterly cold and stormy on any exposed part of the hill, but in the trees and ravines conditions were dynamite - Gram and I stepped through gates and skiied Das Boat; it was easily the toughest terrain I've ever done and also the best I've ever skiied. Thigh deep snow slowed down chutes and softened landings enough to bring us both up a level or two. Day 3 was Constable and I, in a throwback to 2003, riding JH trees and hiking for great fresh in The Crags, finding some magazinish floats off big rocks into soft pow.

On Wednesday and Thursday Bonnie and Jenelle arrived. The skies cleared, the temps warmed, and we had a weekend of skiing in softshells and fleece gloves coupled with lunches outside on the mountain and 'cougar practice' on the Adirondack chairs at the base. We had a great dinner at Nani and a great round with nachos at the Mangy Moose. It was monstrous fun.

Travel shenanigans on Sunday (ever been diverted to the Dakotas?) got us home at 2:58am. That, coupled with wild and woolly work weeks, has meant exhaustion. We celebrated with grilling on the deck and basketball, both of which seemed like spring.

Since last time: work aplenty, basketball - two nights because I'm a renegade like that, and trip packing. Saturday was pretty busy. I got a haircut and enjoyed the 70 degree sunshine while I packed and watched Michigan come from behind to wrap up the Big11Ten against Minnesota.