Kim and I have officially finished our marriage prep classes as required by the Catholic Church. Fortunately, we were able to take all of the classes on our time using online forms and email. Most of the work was done with Catholic Marriage Prep Online over the past couple of months. Basically, we worked on our own to answer questions in various lesson web forms, and after submitting our answers we would get an answer key and response from our instructors. This process worked pretty well, especially since it would be nearly impossible for us to commit to a single day for a series of weeks as often required by the live classes. Though this particular program is only good for the Denver and Colorado Springs Archdioceses, there may be other similar programs throughout the country or possibly the world.

I received my economic stimulus check direct deposited into my bank account today. The glory of having a social security number ending in low numbered digits! Now, I need to decide what to do with it. Obviously these payments are meant for us to spend the money and hopefully get our economy going again. So in the spirit of things, I’ll try to get this money spent very soon. Any suggestions for an extra $600?

I’m sure we are all relieved to see the site is back up. My IP address changed once again and I really had a battle getting everything working again. I swear the new IP address was bad, as I wasn’t able to open any webpages. Finally, I was able to get yet another IP address and things appear to be normal again. Here’s to hoping that this IP stays around for awhile.

To make up for all the downtime, I’ve added some pictures to the site. The first batch come from a hike we had over the weekend with Kim’s parents. We headed up toward Boulder early on Saturday morning straight for the Flatirons. Though we weren’t going to actually climb up any of the Flatirons, we walked around them for a few miles and enjoyed all the nice scenery.

On our way back toward the car, we actually got snowed on! It’s crazy that the white stuff is still occasionally falling on us this far into spring. Speaking of spring, I snapped a few quick photos of our flowers in the backyard. Some of them are already fading while others are just starting to bloom. Our yard is also really starting to green up. I’ll probably have to get out the mower for the first time in the next day or so.

We headed for the driving range after work yesterday for the first time of the season. Kim has a golf outing with work at Torrey Pines next week and wanted to get in a little practice before then. Always up for more practice, I decided to go along. I have to say that golf could be the most frustrating thing in the world. My first couple shots were pretty bad, as expected, but eventually I hit a great ball. So what happens next? I shank the next one. And the one after that. You get the idea. I think one in four of my hits was good, while the others were terrible. If only I could come up with some sort of consistency, I would be much happier. Even if it meant I was consistently crappy, at least I know what to expect.

As you may already know, I love flying on Frontier Airlines. Kim loves it as well, and we both flew with them so much last year that we both are Ascent Level members. Well, nearly two weeks ago Frontier filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. At first this was a huge concern as a few airlines that also recently filed for Chapter 11 have completely shut down, including ATA, Aloha, and Skybus. And I am still very concerned, but it seems that things are still going as planned for Frontier. Though it appears that they have canceled at least one of the flights between Denver and Indianapolis, and prices seem to be incredibly steep.

Coincidently or not, Southwest just announced that they will now be operating a couple of daily nonstop flights between Denver and Indy. On top of that they’ve started introductory pricing for these flights at $140+ round trip. Given their wonderful rescheduling policies (no fees ever), we’ve already booked a couple of flights for this summer. I don’t think we are going to beat the prices we got, but if we do there is always the option to reschedule the flights for a later time. I haven’t flown with Southwest in a long time, so I’m actually curious to see how their newish boarding procedures are. So if any of you in the Cincinnati/Indianapolis area are planning a summer trip to visit us in lovely Denver, be sure to check out Southwest for your flights.

Though most of us probably still aren’t aware, today is Earth Day. While my daily adventures on the light rail were originally intended to save money, it’s nice to know that I’m contributing one less car on the roads each day. It may take me twice as long to get home, but I’m proud that I am starting to do my part in being more environmentally friendly. To make it even easier for me and others in the Denver area, Google now has RTD schedules built into their maps and transit applications. This should help make it even easier for us to use public transportation as much as we can.

Other things that Kim and I have been doing recently include setting the thermostat to 60 degrees while both of us are at work, using refillable water bottles instead of regularly buying disposable bottles (even though they may be causing cancer), replacing standard light bulbs with CFLs, among other recycling efforts. What other easy things should we be doing, or what have you been doing to help save our planet?

We spent a majority of our time this weekend in Breckenridge with Phil and Doni. We arrived early on Saturday morning and put in a solid day of snowboarding until it got a little too warm and the snow became very slushy. Phil and Doni both took ski lessons and from watching them early on they both picked it up pretty quickly. Though if you read Phil’s blog it appears that it may have only gone downhill from there.

This was the last weekend of the season at Breckenridge, while most other resorts ended last weekend. Arapahoe Basin still stays open well into June, and I’m sure we’ll head that way eventually, even though we haven’t been there yet this season. I wish I kept better stats on our season, but this is what I came up with a couple of weeks ago. This has been updated to include this past weekend.

• Breckenridge – 6 days
• Keystone – 4 days
• Beaver Creek – 3 days
• Vail – 3 days
• Steamboat – 2 days
• Winter Park – 1 day
• Total – 19 days

That’s not too shabby. Here’s to hoping we can put in a few more days before summer officially sets in. We’ve already renewed our passes for next season, and hopefully we can make it out even more next winter.

Snow in April? Earthquakes in the Midwest? What the heck is going on? Did any of you Cincinnatians feel the tremors from the quake this morning? I know Kim’s family did, they gave her a call early this morning to let us know. Poor Nicholas did not enjoy the “earthshake” as he called it. Fortunately the weather in Denver appears to have cleared up and we’re expecting highs in the 70s for the next few days. I’m ready to get out of here and enjoy it!

Just as I get all settled into spring time mode, it snows in Denver once again yesterday. I was hoping that it was all behind us now that we are in the middle of April, but I guess mother nature had other plans. So all of the flowers out back are looking a little droopy this morning, especially the daffodils, which were nearly in full bloom. The tulips just started blooming so I’m holding out hope for them. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the daffodils though, but I don’t think there is anything I could do or could have done.

This huge change in temperature must have played with my sinuses too. We were in the 80s just a few days ago, and then yesterday it was freezing out with snow falling. My nose just wasn’t sure what was going on. So I decided to hang out at home today and work remotely. That’s one benefit to my condition. And guess what, I’m feeling better already! And hopefully I can convince work to let me split my time between the office and home, working about half my time in each. We’ll see, that’s my most recent proposal to my boss as of today.

Our men’s hockey season ended in a not so exciting way. Well I guess it was exciting for the other team, but we lost our final game on Monday night by a score of 7-1. Though we had beaten the same team a week earlier, we stood no chance in this game after the first few minutes of play. We simply could not keep up with them as they peppered our goalie with a total of 32 shots. We were missing our leading scorer, but I thought we could at least put up a good fight. Maybe next time, if there is a next time. I don’t know if the Monkees will be playing in the summer and our manager/coach is retiring so we need another player to take over and get the team back together for the fall session. Hopefully someone will step up to the plate.