Where's the snow?

Tiger and I had a lovely Thanksgiving vacation. We spent the holiday proper with a group of her colleagues for a true orphan potluck Thanksgiving. It was my first attempt at cooking the turkey from start to finish, and with a little help from mom, the Denver Post and Epicurious, it turned out pretty well I must say. For those curious about the details, I got an organic bird from Whole Foods and chose not to brine it. I covered the whole thing in butter (pretty reliable cooking advice in general) and was pretty gentle with additional spices. I had cheese cloth and foil on the breast - and then took them off for the last hour or so to get a nice crisp skin.

On Friday, Tiger and I headed up to the mountains to get in a few days of skiing. Unfortunately, the early snow has been sparse this season - so there wasn't much open. But we were able to spend two days at Breckenridge (photo at left) and then Sunday morning at Vail. Despite the crowds (those are the lift lines to the right), we were able to get some good runs in - it was Tiger's first time out this season. I'd managed to squeeze in a few warm up days at Keystone and Loveland earlier in the month. At this point, I'm just chomping at the bit for more terrain to open up. So far - the skis I got back in September are great. I actually haven't been able to ski much in the past few years since I started skiing again. Mostly, I've been able to go away for 4 or 5 day vacations, and just at the end of it when I'm getting comfortable, I have to go home. Already this season, even with the limited snow, I've gotten 6 days in and I feel like I'm finally improving. With many weekends left in the ski season, I can't wait to keep at it.

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, we're all looking forward to Christmas, when my mom and dad will be coming out to Denver along with Tiger's mom and brother. That will give my mother her long awaited opportunity to nag me about blogging in person instead of naming and shaming me on the blog itself.

Although this is a family blog, and as such I plan to keep my political asides to a minimum, I have to say that the recent surge of Mike Huckabee and the prolific fundraising of Ron Paul on the Republican side have been fascinating to watch. And while American politics is usually pretty vigorous bloodsport, it can also create some interesting scenes every once in a while.