Happy Fat Tuesday! I'll be following an annual tradition of skiing tonight...mostly because Samantha makes such a good jambalya! Nothing like a little speed and snow, and then some hot and spicy goodness to warm you up!

We're currently learning all about colic. You can almost set a clock to Renee's crying right now. 11pm-2am, without fail. The plus is that we know that she'll eventually grow out of it. The minus is that that is still in the future... :/

I did get some really great news at work today. I have been given a 1 year rolling horizon on my job. That means that if the school ever wants to get rid of my position, they have to give me one year's notice. Not that I'm expecting any problems at work or anything, but it's nice to have a guarantee of a paycheck for a full year, especially now that I'm a father!

Well that was a long weekend. Started out on Friday hitting the slopes at Tyrol Basin with John. It was REALLY cold, but the skiing was good. John rented some skis, and for having been on a board for several years really got right back on the sticks like he had never left them. It was a lot of fun. Julie and Renee stayed home and John's girlfriend Lisa kept them company. All in all a fun evening. John and Lisa crashed for the night with us, and thankfully somehow slept through Renee's screaming all night.

Saturday I was back at Tyrol for the testing of one of our candidates, who passed with flying colors. He put together some of the best runs that I've seen from him all year, it was really a great day. That night I cooked up some chicken parmasean and we had Heather S. over for dinner, followed by a movie at Scott and Chele's. I have now been introduced to The Pirate Movie, and between the intended comedy of the movie, and the unintended comedy of laughing at all the early 80's stuff in it, made for a very entertaining time.

Sunday was...back at the hill! Where else? 8-) We tested the rest of the candidates, and then I had a board meeting, so I ended up spending 10+ hours there Sunday. The rest of the candidates passed, so we now have 7 new patrollers at TBSP! And the skiing was great, the weather was a bit warmer...I heard it even it the low teens! Woohoo! And Renee even slept for 2 solid chunks of time Sunday night, even better! Sunday night I got more sleep than the last 3 days before combined, it was great!

Sleep, what's that? It's kind of a fuzzy memory right now. Renee is now a month old, and she has her first cold. To make life more fun, of course Julie has it too. I've somehow dodged it, which is lucky considering how busy we are at work and ski patrol right now. Work is crazy with finishing up the data migration from Novell to Windows, plus our annual capex ordering (lots of computers and printers all at once). For patrol last weekend marked the start of three consecutive weekends of various tests that I have to help with. So last weekend I was out there Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, this weekend will be the same, and next weekend as well, except Saturday will be at Cascade. In my spare time I change diapers and try to comfort a baby that has no idea what's going on. I can't wait until I get to take paternity leave. Patrol will be just about done, work will be calmer and I won't have to worry about things that I'm missing there, and I might even get to catch up on sleep! Woohoo!

Even though that looks like a lot of griping...it's still kinda good. No matter how bad your day has been, or how busy you are, when you get to see a little smile on your baby's face, you really forget about the rest of that as you find yourself making a stupid smiley face back...

Renee is growing like a weed. At her 2 week checkup last week she weighed in at 7 lbs 13 oz and 20.5 inches. Considering they expect a baby to be back to birth weight or a little bit more at 2 weeks (they lose weight initially usually), I was absolutely shocked to hear how much she had grown. It was a bit better to hear the doc say that she was at the 72nd percentile for height and 33rd for weight. Looks like she's taking after her mom like that, long and skinny.

Pretty quiet week other than that. Work is busy. Big surprise there. Skiing is ok, the weather sucks, but the snow has been way better than I ever expected it to be. So, for those of you *cough* John and Lisa *cough* Chris and Jen *cough* Seth and Sharon *cough**cough* who promised to come out to Tyrol Basin: the snow has been good, and all runs are open, so get your butts out there! :D

And for the humor of the week: I am a Japanese schoolteacher. No, not me myself, that's the guy's site. A LOT of content in there, and well worth the hours that it will take you to read it all. Absolutely hilarious stuff. Best of all, he's still out there, and you get new stuff to read every couple of days.