A Big Kid Ski Lesson in Park City, Utah

We started our morning pre-ski with some delicious caffeine free coffee-like substances.

The ski rental company delivered and helped us try everything on.

We found some pretty hideous sweater hoodie things in the Target Christmas discount bin, so we bought some for the girls to wear on the trip.

Throughout the day I could hear big pops in the distance. Apparently they use dynamite to clear out snow that is an avalanche danger. It was so avalanchey today that some of the slopes in the area were closed.

Everyone else in the group knew how to ski so we split up and I headed to the training area. The lining up, checking of passes, scared recruits in helmets, and avalanche explosions in the distance made me feel like I was in some kind of space marine boot camp.

A lot of people were better skiers than me but nobody, nobody was better dressed than me. I was rocking a pair of Zeal Optics with custom Breckenridge Brewery head strap that Zoe won. I also had my new Tipsy Elves Night Run ski suit that Lydia bought to bribe me onto this trip. Woo wee I was really shakin' up some ladies' snow globes. The St. Bernard that finds my frozen corpse gonna be like "damn that's a tasty popsicle!"

The fact that I was no longer at Hidden Valley in MOssouri was quickly apparent. The gondola went fast and high enough to make your ears pop. I was about to go skiing down the side of an actual mountain. Tell my story if I don't make it back.

We started off with some of the same dipstick "walk around with one ski on your foot" stuff that we did in Hidden Valley, but it quickly progressed.

I guess it snowed a lot yesterday because the magic carpet conveyor belt thing was snowed under and we had to wait while they dug it out.

I learned that skiing is all about turning. If you have your skis pointed straight down the hill you are going to pick up too much speed and have a bad time, so you have to constantly be turning back and forth down the mountain.

A lot of good men lost their lives on the slopes of Sweet Pea.

These signs were terrifying. This place seems a lot more dangerous than anyone here seems to acknowledge. There are areas where you could easily go over the side of a slope and then I'm not sure what would happen to you. You'd definitely do some plummeting.

We stopped for a couple of water breaks.

I'm not sure what was colder, the snow or my icy blue stare.

Since only rich people could possibly have skiing as a hobby, the food in the cafeteria was pretty high brow stuff.

I made it all the way from green rated Sweet Pea to green rated Mellow Moose.

After skiing my friends were like "lets hang out and drink in the hot tub and do fun things" and I was more like "I'm still on China time and I'm friggin' tired from falling over 42 times I'll see you tomorrow if ever."

Colonial Politics, Cuban food, and Ill Gotten Ski Gear

We're weird and we went to the Old Courthouse for the 1769 Twelfth Afternoon Ball.

"Celebrate the end of the holiday season as St. Louisans did in 1769. The Twelfth Afternoon Ball at the Old Courthouse recognizes the completion of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which leads to Mardi Gras. This year’s ball highlights music, food and dancing from 1769. Dennis Stroughmatt et L’Esprit Creole will perform 18th-century music, Deborah Hyland will lead dances from the time period, and food historian Suzanne Corbett will demonstrate historical food recipes common to St. Louis dinner tables during the 1769 holiday season. King’s Cake will be served, and the king and queen of Mardi Gras will be crowned. Historical clothing is not required to participate."

"Fort San Carlos and the Battle of St. Louis

On May 26, 1780, St. Louis was attacked by an allied force of American Indians and a small number of British and French-Canadian fur traders. The British hoped to gain control of the Mississippi Valley by occupying the Spanish-governed settlements on the west bank of the river.

St. Louis had been warned to expect such an attack, and had on hand an organized militia of citizen-soldiers, regular troops of the Spanish Army, and reinforcements from Ste. Genevieve, a village 80 miles to the south. Still, they were outnumbered more than two to one. The village was protected by an encircling entrenchment and a stone watchtower named Fort San Carlos. Led by Lieutenant Governor Fernando de Leyba, the defenders repelled the attack with musket and cannon fire. The battle lasted over two hours, but the attackers finally withdrew. DeLeyba reported 21 villagers killed and 71 captured out of a total St. Louis population of about 700. Spanish control of the west bank of the Mississippi was retained."

Atlas Obscura:

"ON MARCH 10TH, 1804—213 YEARS ago today—the city of St. Louis went through a brief, well-organized identity crisis. The day before, it had been Spanish. In the morning, it was French. And as soon as noon hit, it was American, as it has remained for all the days since.

This multi-part switcheroo, which historians call “Three Flags Day,” was the symbolic and bureaucratic culmination of the Louisiana Purchase, in which France sold a massive swath of territory to the United States for pennies on the acre. The deal came as a surprise to the American government, which had only been trying to buy New Orleans. Instead, they got a piece of land that effectively doubled the size of the country and today makes up 15 U.S. states.

The deal was equally surprising to the Spanish, who had ceded the land in question to the French very, very recently—so recently, in fact, that they were still effectively running most of it. The sudden need to play catch up led to a strange 24 hours for St. Louisans."

Lydia's been wanting to eat at Mayo Ketchup for a while so we finally made an appearance. I personally am not a fan of mayo so the name of the place makes me sad, but the food was pretty good. It's a Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban mix, but I think I was personally most interested in the Cuban fare. I went there and beat Obama, don't like to brag though.

We played Settlers of Catan at Zoe's house.

Vinny played too.

So I found this Breckenridge Brewery contest where you get amazing prizes. I tried with like 8 different emails addresses using incognito mode on my browser and all sorts of other dark internet arts. All I got were these damn "sorry here's some coal" messages.

As usual I sent the link to my dumb friends and they proceeded to effortlessly win all sorts of dumb stupid prizes.

Joel won a holiday pint glass and even sent me pictures of himself opening the comically large box.

Zoe won a pair of friggin hundred dollar ski goggles with a custom Breckenridge Brewery head strap.

Next we went to Parlor and we beat the Simpsons arcade game. It's amazing what I can accomplish when my mom isn't being stingy with the quarters. 

The girls like Tapper because it's free. I agree.

Later Trevor and Kyle came over for some board games.