Rationing topics

Yea, there's not much going on, so I have to ration out my topics. I'm sure you don't want to hear about my time (or lack thereof) on the trainer anymore than I do. If you think golf is boring to watch, try watching a guy on a trainer. I'm not sure what that makes me, since I'd watch either over Nascar.

Anyway, I promised a rehash of our PC trip, and here is the (not-so) abbreviated version. I waited too long, and have forgotten half of what occurred. All I know is that the snow sucked. Absolutely blew. It was icy and slushy and rainy the entire time we were there. Well, at least until the day we left then there was 6" of fresh snow. I really wanted to stay another day, but it would have been big bucks since our condo rental rate tripled since Sundance was starting. I heard some people rent out their house for Sundance, and make enough money to pay for the mortgage for an entire year. That's a pretty sweet setup, but I'd bet they had been there for a long time and had bought the house when it was a more reasonable RE environment.

Every house we looked at (and the one we stayed at) was about 1.2M to 1.5M, and for about 2400 sq ft. Of course, we were in nearly a perfect location, but still, that's around $700-$800/sq ft. Tony and I had a conversation about this, and both agreed something has got to give. I also noticed that for "just" another million, you could have a hella bad-ass house, something that was actually worth 2.5M. Like 6500 sq ft, impeccably finished, and some land.

It won't be but a couple of more years and the real estate in some of the mountain towns (Park City, Jackson, Breck, etc) is going to have to correct. I think price corrections haven't happened as much in these areas because a lot of people have these as 2nd houses, and would rather sit and wait it out, than take a beating by selling now. So maybe they'll offer it for sale, but it'll be on the market for months.

Someday we'll get one, but I think that someday is a long ways off, plus I think I'd rather build something up. So few people have our tastes! Maybe I just need to save for a few years then go buy 10 acres in the foothills outside of Denver. We can sit on the land until we're ready to build. Or sell for a profit in case things don't go as planned. That's a whole 'nother discussion for a different day.

Wow, that was a long way around talking about the PC trip. I guess I'll recap AB's trip, since it was his first trip to the mountains. AB got pretty bored on the two flights to PC. I'm glad they were short flights, because he was going bonkers. Thankfully he crashed on the shuttle to our condo, because he was a worn-out little dude. I will mention that he was disappointed it wasn't a SPACE shuttle. Funny guy.

Well, we all fought sleep waiting for the Marek's to arrive from Orlando. They had a non-stop, but it was still a LONG flight. Yuck. It definitely is advantageous living in KC for the reason everywhere isn't too far away. Once their space shuttle pulled up, it was great seeing them again, and AB and Max quickly got wound up again (as much as they could). We tried putting them to bed, but as we were all retiring a few minutes later, Julie peeked in on Max only to see him uncomfortably scrunched to one side of the bed and AB was snuggled up to him fast asleep. This setup was in spite of the the fact they had each had a whole bunk bed to themselves. Max wasn't sure of AB, and that was way to close for comfort. HA! Max went back to his parent's room at that point, and then AB came and got me out of my comfy bed and I had to go sleep in the bunk bed with him. I was tired enough it didn't really matter at that point.

The next day started out with all of us waking up relatively early (on CST and EST in MST). We herded everyone the 1/2 mile walk to PC Mountain Resort, and got the boys in ski school, picked up my great Burton Custom snowboard rental, and we all hit the slopes. We had an awesome time, despite the crap snow. No one wiped out too hard, although Penny did wipe out a bit more than she usually does. I did also notice that riding was a bit easier without 35 pounds of body fat, and I didn't feel quite as tired at the end of the day. I did have a few good wipeouts myself, but there were nothing more than just a couple of flips from getting lazy and letting the nose of my board drop into the snow, which then acted like a giant leaf spring and flung me in the air. I bet you can guess what Penny's favorite part of the trip was...

AB did a great job in ski school, and by the third day, he was "shredding" the mountain. The first run he did with Penny ended with her in a full tuck trying to catch him as he was hauling arse down the mountain. The boy has no fear. Good! We negotiated having him follow Penny with me behind AB in case he fell. That worked out great, and everyone went fast enough to have fun. It really makes me proud seeing him ski so well so quickly. I was impressed.

AB was also feeling quite competitive this trip, as he kept calling out Mr. Tony on various challenges. The first was eating as many pancakes as fast as possible, then it was shredding down the mountain, and then it was Uno. Kieran is going to have a wild childhood trying to keep up with Aiden, that's for sure.

By the end of the trip, we were all ready to call it good, even though the new snow was so tempting. We had great flights back only to drive in the snow "storm" in KC, and it took almost 3 1/2 hours to get back to Kieran in Lee's Summit. That made for a long day, but it was good to be back in our beds. The end. ;-)