We’ll be spending the holiday weekend in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the twin cities, two cities that I’ve never been to. Luckily Kim has been there multiple times on business and actually is there right now meeting with agents. I guess I’ll have to rely on her to decide what to do. I tried to research locations for where The Mighty Ducks was filmed but didn’t get very far. The only thing I’ve found is Mickey’s Diner, which was used in all of the Mighty Duck movies.

I was a huge fan of the movies, especially the original, when they first came out. I thought it would be neat to see some of the sights that appear in the movie, like Hans’ pro shop, the lake that Gordon takes the limo on, the home rink for the Hawks, etc. The only other thing I’m sure we can find is the Mall Of America, which appears in multiple Mighty Duck films along with some other movies. Perhaps I’ll run into Charlie Conway and he can show me the way…

I’m back from a nice extended weekend in Greensboro for Kim’s cousin Jessica’s wedding. We took the first flight out of MCI at 5:45am Friday morning and after a delayed stop in Atlanta we were arrived in Greensboro. Immediately Kim was busy with a bridal luncheon and then the rehearsal. I spent most of that time lounging around the hotel pool and later met up with her at the rehearsal dinner. After eating a great meal and hearing a few toasts everyone went back to the hotel for a little after party.

Kim disappeared early on Saturday morning to get her hair done and then for pictures. I spent the afternoon at the pool once again. This time Kim’s brothers all joined in on the fun. Later we raced some go-carts and then rushed off to the wedding. I took some pictures from the front row of the church that I’ll have to sort through this week. It was a nice wedding and everyone looked great! The reception was later in the evening and was a lot of fun. Kim’s brother Jason had so much fun that he broke his foot while dancing all night long. Congratulations once again to Jessica and Ryan!

Big news for Pig-Fest, as I finally lined up a musical act for this year. Joining us for the first time will be MER! Caution: merplay.com does not like Firefox. The designer of the site is a friend of mine, so I’ll have to let him know. He may even show up to Pig-Fest this time around. Anyway, I first met MER more than three years ago and have only had the opportunity to see them a few times since, but I have never been disappointed. I think they will fit in perfectly at Pig-Fest, treating us to a mix of original songs and crowd favorite cover songs.

Head over to MER’s page on myspace.com to check out a few tunes.

Last night we booked our flights for the Pig-Fest weekend, so I know that I’ll be there, will you? We also booked flights to Seattle for the previously mentioned weekend at The Gorge featuring DMB and O.A.R. My dream has come true and I will finally see some shows at this magnificent venue!

Sorry for the delay, but a busy weekend has fed right into a busy work week…

We flew into Cincinnati and arrived about dinner time on Friday night. My dad and Tim picked us up and we drove downtown to our hotel for the night. My mom is/was on a cruise with her sisters, but she kindly reserved a couple rooms for us. The first stop with Ed Sr. and Tim was for some food at RockBottom Brewery. It seems like I always end up here for dinner when downtown, but who can go wrong with good beer and good food!

We then made the nearly two mile walk over to the Beer Sellar. Originally we were going to take a cab over but since we ended up walking there we arrived at the bar a little later than we wanted to. Weeks earlier we had sent out an evite to friends and family to join us at the bar to celebrate my dad’s 50th birthday. We kept it a secret from him, and when we walked into the bar about 50 people we had invited stood up and shouted, “Surprise!” In the end I was glad that we were late, the surprise was great.

We spent the rest of the night at the Beer Sellar and it was a great time. Our friends in the band Greenstreet were there to provide some great music and of course the 60 beers on tap did not disappoint. Be sure to head there throughout the summer when Greenstreet is playing again. I know I will if I’m in town.

Saturday was spent out at my parents’ house relaxing and recovering from the night before. Later in the day I took a couple of rides in my dad’s new Mazda 3. I even rode on the highway in the car! Remember that my last car was an almost identical Mazda 3 and that I no longer have the car because it was totaled on the highway just outside of St. Louis. Anyway, my dad and I hung out at the Hais’ house for a few hours after dinner and from there I headed to bed knowing that Sunday would be an early morning.

I awoke to the sounds of banging pots and pans on Sunday. I guess that Kim had convinced some of her family that this was the best way to wake me up. I then began searching their house for my Easter basket and found it a half hour or so later. The Easter Bunny gave me all sorts of weapons (aka tools) that airport security would have loved. Everyone then got ready and before too long many of Kim’s aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. started showing up for their annual Easter party. The good thing about west side Cincinnati Easter parties is that you can still play cornhole! The party was a great time and it was good to see all of Kim’s family again. Just as things were wrapping up, we got a ride down to the airport and flew back to KC. I’m still a little exhausted from the weekend’s events, but I have my first full week of work in while to rest up.

Yesterday’s high temperature in Kansas City was 92 degrees, a record high for the area. Today’s predicted high is right around there as well, 89 in Lee’s Summit this afternoon. Somehow we skipped spring and went straight into summer. It’s unfortunate that we have to leave this weather today and travel to Cincinnati just in time for the severe storms that ripped through Iowa yesterday. I could be playing golf all weekend, trying out some new clubs from Kim’s manager, Steve, or just lounge around in the sun. Luckily, there are lots of things going on in Cincy over the weekend that should make the trip well worth it.

The pictures from our weekend in Utah are up! I sorted through the 100+ pictures and selected the best 48 to share with everyone. I hope you enjoy them. Utah is really a sight to see with your own eyes, it is very beautiful. In addition, I think that Utah has the best skiing/snowboarding mountains in the country. I think I can safely say that now after spending time in Colorado and on the east coast in Vermont. I hope to return sometime during the peak time of the season, to experience Utah at its best.

After getting the pictures online last night, we spent some time catching up on some TV shows. We watched an old episode of The Amazing Race in addition to the American Idol contestants butchering some Queen songs. If you are into the show, then check out DialIdol.com. I don’t use their application for voting, since I’ve never voted, but I find their predictions to be fairly accurate and interesting to read.

My face still hurts! “Well it’s killing me,” my dad would likely say.

The top layer of my sunburnt face has mostly peeled away. However, the next layer of skin below that is still bright red. Hopefully this goofy new look fades away soon. I could take my boss’ advice and get some of that fake tanning cream, but I think I’ll just wait it out. There have been multiple picture requests, so here ya go…

This was taken on the second day of boarding during a break at the Summit House, which is nearly 10,000 feet above sea level! You can easily see the “tan” lines on my face, and I think they are even more noticeable now.

I was hoping to get all of my pictures from the trip online last night, but I spent my free time working from home to update a client’s software. Hopefully I’ll have some time tonight to finish going through the pictures and then get them online. There should be some really good ones.

The pain I’m experiencing today is a little different than I was expecting. In the past, I would come home from a snowboard trip with bumps and bruises all over. After this trip, however, my sunburnt face is what’s hurting the most. All it took was one day on the slopes, and the lower portion of my face and nose got fried to a crisp! The second day I wore sunscreen, although it didn’t matter much at that point.

The flight to Utah was the first time I’ve been on Frontier airlines in awhile, and I must say that I am very impressed with their new planes. Each seat has an individual television screen with 24 channels of DirecTV service. Of course this doesn’t come free, the fee is $5 per flight leg. Yesterday on the return flight, I bit the bullet and paid for just over an hour of TV. The time on the plane literally flew by! Hopefully more airlines begin to offer this service (and hopefully for free).

Back to the weekend trip. Thursday night in Salt Lake City was relaxing. We didn’t want to be up too late, since we would be getting up early to go out to Park City the next day. We decided to walk around downtown for a bit and then wandered into Squatter’s Brewery for a couple drinks along with dinner. I would highly recommend both their food and their beer!

Early Friday morning we made the drive to Park City and immediately hit the slopes at The Canyons. The ski shop that I rented my snowboard and boots from recommended this resort, so we decided to do one day here and one day at Park City. The powder left from the recent snow storms was amazing! I don’t think I’ve ever boarded in conditions like these. On one run, the powder was so think we couldn’t make it down without the boards getting buried over and over again. As the day went on, it got warmer and warmer outside. Some of the runs turned to slush, so we decided to spend as much as time as possible at the top of the mountains. The warming also led to the previously mentioned sunburn. I have learned my lesson, and will definitely wear sunscreen at all times, if my skin will be exposed.

Later that night we took rode on the free bus system to historic Main Street. We had dinner at Buona Vita, which was excellent and a good value as well! From there I got us a guest membership at The Spur, so we could have a drink. Utah has some of the strangest liquor laws. Restaurants can serve alcohol but only to customers intending to eat. These private clubs can serve alcohol to anyone, regardless if they are eating or not. I guess you can think of it as paying a cover to get into the bar. Fortunately, The Spur was giving away free memberships!

Saturday we headed to the slopes at the Park City Mountain Resort. The early conditions on the mountain were fairly similar to the previous day, although some of the lower lying area had turned to ice from the previous day’s slush. Again we tried to stay as high on the mountains as we could. I think that overall I liked Park City better than The Canyons, mainly because Park City had more intermediate runs. These are still the runs that I enjoy the most.

After spending the entire day on the slopes, we again went to Main Street for dinner. This time I wanted to go someplace with TVs so we could watch the end of the frozen four. We decided on the Hungry Moose Pub. We had some good beers on tap from Wasatch and good bar type food. After the game, we headed back to the hotel. By this time both of our sunburns had gotten the best of us.

Early on Sunday we drove back to Salt Lake City and had a little tour of the city. We first drove by the Capitol building and stopped in at the nearby visitor center. From there we drove past Temple Square, which is the main temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If we had more time, we could have taken a tour and then maybe I would have more to add about the center of downtown. After just a few minutes there, we drove out to the Olympic Cauldron Park, where the cauldron and stadium still stand from the 2002 Winter Olympics. We were then out of time so we returned to the airport and flew back to Kansas City. Not only was this a great trip, I have now visited 33 states!

Park City on Dwellable

With most of the house stuff out of the way, at least on our end, we should be able to relax this weekend. And what better way to do that then by visiting wonderful Utah. Actually I don’t know if it’s wonderful or not. I’ve never been there before, well besides a previous layover in Salt Lake City, which looked amazing from the flights in and out. I guess I’ll find out shortly after 7:45 tonight, when I land there and actually leave the airport, thus visiting my 34th state!

Kim is already in Salt Lake City doing business, so I’ll meet up with her tonight. Then after spending a night in downtown Salt Lake City, we will head up to Park City early tomorrow for two days on the slopes! When we first booked this trip we were concerned if it would be too late in the season. I guess this is not the case, since they just got 10 inches of snow in the last day. The weather for the next couple of days should be sunny (or at worst partly cloudy) and fairly warm. The conditions are perfect for me to return to Kansas City in serious pain!

I got up at the normal time on Friday morning and drove out to the airport. No problems with my flights, although I must admit that the flight from Cincinnati to Dayton was pretty pointless. By the time portable electronic devices were allowed I only had time to listen to one song on my mp3 player before I was tapped on the shoulder and told it was time to shut it down. If it will save me a couple hundred bucks I guess its worth it. Anyway, Kim picked me up in Dayton and we drove over to my parents’ house.

Later in the night we headed down to the Holy Grail with my parents and my brother. We met up with Fighty, Liam, and the Hemmelgarns there and after a few rounds of Guiness we walked over onto UC’s campus for the second round NIT game against Charlotte. Unlike most college’s across the country, UC typically serves beer at the games, but unfortunately the NIT does not allow it. We all had great seats on the end of the court in the student section. At halftime we headed up to the UCATS Club after Fighty heard that it was open to the public for this game. We watched the second half of the game from up there and had drinks served through the end of the game. It made the bearcat victory even better!

After the game we spent a couple of hours at Christy’s and ran into a bunch of family members of mine and Kim’s. And of course, no night in Cincinnati is complete without a late night trip through the Skyline drive-thru.

After hanging out at my parents’ on Saturday we went to my aunt and uncles house for Emma’s 1st birthday party. In case you have forgotten, Emma is my godchild. It was nice to see everyone again, although we could only stay for an hour or so.

My buddy from high school, Jeff, was getting married and we were already skipping the ceremony so we didn’t want to be late for the reception. After picking up Jon, another buddy of mine, we finally arrived at Ivy Hills Country Club for the reception. There we met up with yet another friend, Chris, and his wife. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, so it was nice to catch up. The food was good, the band was great, the fireworks were a nice touch, and it was a very nice reception. This will probably be the only wedding that I ever go to that has a 15 minute fireworks display. I was a little disappointed by the lack of musical accompaniment, but I guess you can’t have everything. :) Congrats to Jeff and his wife Megan!

Our next stop after the reception was at Million’s to meet up with Amy and some of her friends. That bar has really changed since the last time I was there, but I was just happy that it wasn’t too crowded.

We got up early on Sunday and drove over to the Hais’ house. Kim’s brother Jason had a birthday present to give to me, and wanted to see us before we left Cincinnati. He made a marble mouse pad for me, something he has learned to do at his new job. I also got a bottle of Woodford Reserve from her family. I can’t wait to open that up! It was nice to see everyone again, and meet James, their latest foster child. Kim’s sister Bobbi drove us to the airport, complete with a trip on the Anderson Ferry and a stop at the Gap outlet store. This ended our trip to Cincinnati, but we’ll be back again soon.

I had another hockey game last night to round out the weekend. We won yet another game to finish the regular season undefeated. We don’t count our overtime shootout loss as a real loss. The playoffs start next weekend and hopefully we can win the mini tournament.