tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

Our renovation is complete! Of course, we still need to unpack everything we shoved into spare rooms around the house to get out of the way. It all went really smoothly with just a few minor hiccups. There is one small issue that needs to be addressed – a cabinet came loose from the wall when the granite was set, but they should be able to fix that pretty easily. The guys who did the work were absolutely wonderful and went above and beyond what they needed to do. We used Carpet One, if anyone is interested. The salesment wasn’t the most proactive at keeping in touch, but all in all the job is done and looks great so we are thrilled.

I still can’t believe this is the same house. It is so much nicer being home now! I actually want to do dishes in my new, huge sink!

The only thing left is picking out a backsplash and having that installed. Hopefully we can get that done next week.

More of the floor:

Ahhhhh. I love it.

Earlier this morning there was:

Then there was:

And a closeup of our buffet contrasting nicely with the bamboo:

They won’t be finished until tomorrow, and the granite should be going in tomorrow as well.

See, they do like each other. Big spoon and Little spoon. Err, Bigger spoon actually:

Uh oh, someone doesn’t like me interrupting her love nest:

Illy is tired:

But not too tired to change positions:

With her pretty pink bandana that Aaron hates:

Misty avoids this love fest:

It’s here!

And so pretty:

Our anniversary trip has been absolutely fantastic, and we are sad to be leaving tomorrow.

My altitude sickness abated shortly after arriving at Big Sky on Sunday. We checked into our room, got settled, and then headed out to dinner at Chet’s, where we had a great meal at the bar. The next morning we noticed a hole in our shower ceiling, so we moved to the room next door (148 for our future reference).  As a bonus, our new room has a bigger tv and a nicer bed, so it worked out well.  As we were moving into the new room, my friend Courtney, who works here and is the reason we came in the first place, was walking down the hall and ran into us. Perfect timing! She was on her way to work so we made plans to meet up later in the week.

We ate breakfast and then hit the slopes. It was about 20 degrees, but didn’t feel too cold. It snowed a little bit off and on throughout the day. We went out for a few hours and had a blast.

It is so nice to be on real mountains and be surrounded by such incredible views.

We started getting a little tired, so we went in and grabbed some lunch, and then hit the hot tub. A successful first day!

Tuesday was our two year anniversary. We celebrated by staying out all day. It was still snowing, and a little colder (10 degrees) so we were pretty much boarding in the middle of a cloud.

It was awesome. Aaron had a blast jumping every hill he could find. We traveled all over the mountain – conditions were great. I got some video of Aaron hitting some wall rides, which are so much fun, even though he did scrape his board up a bit on some rocks or trees or something. We completely exhausted ourselves -by the time we rolled in after our last run, I could barely stand up. I was freezing, so we made another trip to the hot tub to warm up and restore our muscles. The hot tub is awesome because it’s indoor/outdoor. When we got too hot inside, we headed outside, where it was basically a heated pool. It was really cool to be in the warm water, getting snowed on.

We headed out to dinner at the Timbers in Moonlight Basin for dinner – we went there last year too.

It did not disappoint. Aaron had a cheese slate followed by a humongous elk chop. I had a salad and a small rack of lamb. We completely stuffed ourselves – and Aaron even enjoyed the wine! (Steele Cellars Pinot Noir, for my future reference). We even had the same waitress as last year.

Wednesday morning was even colder – 6 degrees. And still snowing! It was dumping all day and the snow was incredible. Just so light and fluffy – great powder.

We went all over but ended up spending a lot of time on one of the less visited greens, where we worked on our switch. I finally got to a point where I felt really comfortable riding switch at speed, and with smooth transitions. I was really stoked about that.

By the time Thursday rolled around the clouds had lifted and the sky was blue! We were exhausted, but we still managed to get a few solid hours in.

Here is the bowl which we hit last year – that was where the powder was waist high. This year it was more moguls than powder.

This is our view from the lift – those little ants are skiiers.

Moguls end up being more tiring than enjoyable, so instead of hitting the bowl we went to the other side, where there was awesome powder. It really didn’t seem like a black diamond, since it was such great riding.

We went back over to the Andesite side of the mountain after hitting some groomers on the main mountain. Nobody was over on Andesite, and it was serene.

We did some more switch, and then hit up the powder in the trees which completely wore us out.

And who says romance is dead? Here is my wonderful husband carrying my board since he knew I was exhausted.

We met up with Courtney, my friend from high school, Thursday night for a lavish evening of dinner and drinks.

Aaron had ‘the best steak of his life’ – a buffalo rib eye. It was also the most expensive steak of his life! We were treated to some live music by Saul Kaye – although he wouldn’t play ‘Golddigger’ for us. I ‘won’ a cd of his by ‘knowing’ what album the Bob Dylan song he played was on – thanks, Blackberry! I really enjoyed his show, and it was great catching up with Courtney.

We were bummed to discover that the new Zip Line won’t open until Saturday, which means we have to come back next year and try it! Apparently you board over to the zip line, hand over your board (or skis), hit the three zip lines down to the bottom, and they bring you your gear. Sounds awesome.

We didn’t board today, since we are sore and tired, and I had to get some work done. We had a nice relaxing day and hopefully we will be seeing Courtney again tonight at the Blue Grass concert at Whiskey Jack’s (which Aaron calls WildFire for some reason…)

We have a long day of travelling tomorrow. It will be good to be home but we will miss the mountains.

I haven’t blogged about our trip to Big Sky yet because the wireless connection in the room won’t let me upload any pictures, and I really want to intersperse pictures with my post. But for now I will sum up our experience so far: epic.

We have been having a blast. It snowed practically non-stop for three days, so we had some really great powder. Then today the clouds rolled away and the sun came out, and we had gorgeous blue skies. Aaron has been jumping everything in sight, I have been getting really comfortable going switch, and we’ve been riding to exhaustion every day. I know it’s time to quit for the day when I can barely stand up anymore.

There is such amazing peace and tranquility here. There is practically no one else here, so we have done entire runs without seeing anyone else. Today we stopped halfway down one of our favorite greens, where we had been riding switch, and just sat admiring the view, the quiet, and the fresh air. It was amazing and refreshing.

Tonight we are meeting up with my high school friend who works here, Courtney,  for some drinks. One more day of boarding tomorrow, if our legs are up for it, and then home on Saturday.

It will be good to get back, since we are missing Illy and we’ll be getting our floors and counter installed shortly after we are home so there is lots to do to prep for that…but we are having such a great time here. It will be hard to leave these mountains.

Our shuttle driver told us that most people who live here hunt deer and elk and eat that all year round, so it really doesn’t cost that much to live here. Or at least, to eat here.

I’d be lying if I said we weren’t considering it.

We are in Denver waiting for our connection to Bozeman. As soon as they opened the doors of the plane, I started feeling queasy. The nausea has subsided, and now I have  headache and my face is tingling. Ah, altitude sickness, I know you well. We are not friends, you and I. Aren’t you supposed to wait until I’m at least a few thousand feet higher before striking me down? This does not bode well for our planned migration here, my friends. Not at all.

In other news, Amelia looked up our flight crew, since her husband, Joe, is a Sky West pilot and is on call this weekend – if our pilot gets sick, Joe might have to take over! But I haven’t seen him roaming the gate area so I think it’s not to be. However, our First Officer was partners with Joe back in the day. If I get a chance I’m going to say Hi from Joe. The word is that he’s a good pilot – always encouraging!

We’re heading out shortly. Oh, to be back in pressurized air.

Today we put down a deposit on our new floors and counters. I think we picked out a backsplash as well (marble bricks) but we are waiting to see how the sample looks against the granite when it is installed, to make sure that’s what we want. Hopefully we will have everything installed by the end of the month. We’ve already started moving all our junk upstairs to prep for the install. I can’t wait until it’s all done. There will be many pictures, fear not!

Tomorrow we are flying out to Big Sky Resort in Montana for our anniversary trip. Two years, woo hoo! We went to Big Sky last year, as well. I can’t wait to get out there. Unfortunately I do have to do a little work while I’m out there, but hey – gotta pay for those floors somehow, right? Maybe I can get most of it done on the plane.

I also encourage you all to check out Amelia Kay Photography. Aaron’s sister, Amelia, has started her own photography business! And I must say, I am in love with her photos. She edits them in such a unique way. She graciously sent me several of my favorites, and they will be going on the wall as soon as the dust is cleared out from the renovations. I will need to play around with how to group them and what rooms to put them in, but I know they will look amazing. So I encourage you to check her out! I can probably wheedle a little discount if you are interested in making any purchases, too We’re really proud of her – she’s even having a gallery showing in Denver in April! We’re going to take a trip out to see it if all goes according to plan.

So, that’s how our February is shaping up.

It has become painfully obvious that we will not be moving from this house for a good long while. This is disappointing, but what can you do? We might as well make it as enjoyable as possible to be here as we can.

To that end, we are renovating the first floor. We are going to rip up the carpet in the living room and the linoleum in the kitchen and replace them with hardwood. Yes, real hardwood. We contemplated putting in laminate ourselves, but eventually decided to have hardwoods professionally installed. We’re going to replace the carpet on the stairs with a nicer berber, and eventually re-carpet the whole house, closer to when we sell. We’re also going to put granite counters in the kitchen, and either put the same granite up for the backsplash, or do a tumbled stone backsplash. We may also ‘recraft’ the cabinets – change out the doors and put real wood up instead of the laminate on the sides, so they’ll look completely different but we won’t have to go through tearing them out and completely replacing them, since they’re still in good shape.

Here’s the granite and bamboo we are doing:

We were deciding between the bamboo and this oak:

But I think we’re going with the bamboo.

Oh, I cannot wait!