Happy Mother's Day To Me

Last week I entered a drawing for a great Mother's Day package from Springs Family Values and I got the call this weekend that I was the lucky winner!!  The owner stopped by yesterday to deliver my package personally. What a pleasant surprise and it's an incredible gift.  I'm so excited to start redeeming all the lovely prizes.  Anybody need a ham?  :)

Prize package includes: A Romantic stay at Sundance Mountain Lodge with included meal at Oakley's Restaurant, a spring cleaning package from Dust Bunnies, A Ham from Colorado Smokehouse, and a special gift basket from Couture Cupcakes Co.

If you live in the area you should check out Springs Family Values.  It is a new magazine in town that offers lots of information for the entire family.  The first issue was just mailed out a couple of weeks ago and it contains an article on summer camps, an entry from a local chiropractor and lots of other great information on deals around town.  You can visit them online or look them up on Facebook.  There's already a new give-away on their site... a helicopter ride over Garden of the Gods... now that sounds like a blast.  What are you waiting for?  Go check them out.  

About the Uniform

Tonight was VIP night at the club so we've been cleaning and cleaning getting everything just right for the members.  Tonight was also the first night that we were all required to wear our uniforms so the members could pick us out of the crowd.  So this afternoon my boss hands me a t-shirt, pair of shorts and a swimsuit to go try on.  I grabbed it and ran to the locker room.  Being the full bodied woman that I am, I tend to have a hard time finding things that fit, so I really would have rather preferred having this stuff a few days back so I could make sure everything was just so.  But alas I had only a few hours before having to don the uniform in front of thousands of members and perspective members.  I was anxious and excited to put this sucker on.  Imagine my delight horror when I opened the package to discover this...

I tried it on.  Surprisingly, it did fit.  Needless to say, it was not pretty.  :)  

I marched right out to my supervisor and asked him if he was trying to scare the patrons away.  He looked confused, so I explained to him, "This is not a bikini body".  He got a good laugh and half-heartedly promised to order me a one piece when he places the next order.  He ordered bikinis for all of us and I'm not the only one upset about it.  There are even skinny girls who are not interested in showing off their midriff.  So, I hope this gets resolved soon.  Everything else about the place is fabulous... of course, we're not even open yet, but it seems like it will still be fabulous after Friday.  

Tonight was crazy... the amount of people and the steady stream of folks through the pool area was amazing.  The excitement was in everyone.  It's so fun to be a part of the grand opening of a facility like this.  Just watching the way everything is so well-planned and coordinated... it's like a well-oiled machine.   They even had folks parking in a nearby school parking lot then had a tour bus serving as a shuttle between the club and the school.  The CEO was here teaching a spinning class when the first people walked through the doors.  Kids visiting the child care area got free face painting and I think these folks were true artists.  Some of the designs on the kids walking through the pool were AMAZING.  They were giving away smoothies at the poolside Bistro.  And throughout the facility there were demonstrations going on for things like tennis, rock climbing, swim lessons, swim team and even zumba.  Fun times ahead!

Cute Spelling by Sanjay

And he still forgot to take in a paper crane last week.

The alphabet song, upper and lower case letters.  :)

My New Office

So we haven't put together lawn chairs yet, but I hear they should be here by Monday.  In the meantime we've carried box loads of stuff to aquatics, unpacked and organized it all, assembled benches for swim lessons, put together the poolside basketball hoops and done some cleaning.  We still have lots to do but it's looking pretty good.

I am enjoying the first days at work and I could spend many more of them reading manufacturer instruction manuals with this as my backdrop...

Working Woman

On Thursday, for the first time in 8 years I'll be able to say to Bartee as I'm walking out the door... "I'm headed to work, see you later".  I'm excited.  I'm nervous.  I'm anxious.  All kinds of things are going through my head.  Even though it's part time and should really only take up about 20 hours of my week, it's a big change from what we have going on now here at home.

There it is... my official uniform.  If only I had the figure to go with it.  I'll be able to cover up with the uniform black shorts though.  I have been hired on as part of the aquatics team at the brand new Lifetime Fitness that's opening up here in town.  It's exciting to be part of something that's just starting.  There's a lot of buzz about it among the community, and the staff that I met so far have been lots of fun.  This Thursday we are receiving equipment and they need us for "set up" which I can only imagine involves assembling lawn chairs or something fun like that.  Maybe we'll get a chance to go down the slide, too.  :)

Ski Season 2010-2011

Ski season doesn't officially end until April 24th at most of the resorts, but I'm ready to move on to spring.  I've compiled a video of our season highlights...

Sheltering the Kids

Bartee and I commonly have disagreements when it comes to the kids and "pop culture" for lack of a better term.  I am usually a little more liberal with what they can get away with in terms of clothes to wear, books to read or TV shows to watch.  That said, I feel most people would consider me a prude when it comes to these things.  I do shelter them from most of network TV because I find it to be inappropriate.  In the same sense, I enjoy watching TV as a family so there are a few shows that are not off limits in my opinion.  Wipe Out, Undercover Boss, The Amazing Race, Biggest Loser and American Idol to name a few.

On Sunday night we again found ourselves among the company of stray dogs.  Turns out, they belonged to a neighbor who was out of town for the evening.  While they were out enjoying the basketball game, the dogs managed to find their way out of the backyard through a hole in the fence.  One of our furry house guests was a pint-sized Lhasa, if I'm not mistaken.  The kids were enamoured with him, primarily because they are used to our larger-than-life beast of a dog.  So naturally they were fighting over who got to hold him and who held him longer and who held him on the couch vs. the dining room chair.  Yes, there was a lot of love for this dog.  So we decided to take turns on the couch for 10 minutes each while watching TV.  I sent them over to turn on Idol while I finished cleaning up from dinner.

Bartee was flabbergasted that I would send them over to watch it alone because it's one of those shows that he finds borderline appropriate for the kids.  I tried making a case... but inevitably ended up going to the couch to watch alongside them.  It was the results show and so the kids lost interest somewhere in the middle.  And it was about that time that I was hit with the Iggy Pop performance that sparked all the fleeting comments I had read on Facebook days before.

My goodness gracious, I see now why Bartee prefers to censor this show.  Now, don't get me wrong... I love me some Iggy Pop (well, I did back in the 80s) but seriously this performance really doesn't belong on primetime TV.  The fact that he's shirtless is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that are wrong with this performance.  To name a few of my favorites:  The gesture with the microphone at the beginning, his awkward approach and singing to Jennifer, the constant out of breath singing talking, and the odd positioning of himself on the edge of the stage to engage the crowd.

In case you missed it, you can find the whole thing right here.  You can thank me later.  :)