The Birthday Weekend

So, it isn't everyday that you turn 24 - in fact, i am told it usually only happens one day of your entire life. As a reward for surviving 24 years on planet earth, my dear Mother decided to send my little brother Jon for four days - who happened to turn the grand age of 17 the day before i had my own personal anniversary.

So, of course, because this is such a great gift, i set forth to making sure that Jon only saw the best of my life in the mountains, begining of course, with a temperature in the negative teens.

Jon arrived at my abode on Thursday night, and we spent the end of his birthday that day and the begining of mine the next day doing what all Blocksma boys do best: Sleeping. Hard.

Sincerely, there is nothing much greater than going to bed whenever you want, not setting an alarm, waking up in the morning and never actually stepping foot outside of the covers until you have no real desire to remain within them. So, around 1:30 i found my way to some coffee and my morning reading, and Jon joined me around 2:30. (it should be noted, though, that Jon went to bed nearly 15 hours before he woke up. I must surrender the lazy belt to it's deserved champ.)

(Can you tell Jon slept here... one whole night? yeesh.)

So, since we celebrated my Friday off with our unconciousness, the day was mostly a scratch. The remainder was spent watching Arrested Development, checking out Base, touring downtown Cheyenne and bouldering around the Fort. (again). The morning came quite early saturday, and we got out the door by 5:30 to begin the days trek to the mountains.

We arrived at Cheyenne Berean with giddiness for the snow that had been coming down for the last two days - and the parents of all of the youth groupers that we were planning on taking to the said snow arrived with fistfuls of weather reports

and concerned brows. (This whole weekend had been six weeks of planning to bring out almost two dozen high schoolers who attend the youth group that i work with, it just so happened that Jon was out this weekend as well.) Basically, the windchills and unkown road conditions was enough for a parental meeting to conclude it was too dangerous to allow their teenagers to go three hours south to ski. I stood up and said my piece, that roads weren't really that bad, it is going to be busy and stop and go traffic anyways, and that cold can be mitigated with frequent breaks. And regardless of what they decided, i was going to go ski.

Twenty minutes later with me and Jon in the Mini, and Nessa and Jeff in the Buick behind us, we were on the road to Araphoe Basin. In case anyone was wondering, God does indeed love irony, as the roads were dry and empty the whole way there, the sun shone all morning and afternoon and the slopes weren't even that crowded. I felt vindicated.

Nessa, Jeff and Jon - just before death. so sad.

The Backside of the Basin


I managed to not hurt myself too badly, Jon got supremely worn out by the mountain, and nobody died. It was a good day. In fact, on the way home, we didn't even hit any traffic. I was really quite confused the entire time, because that is not normal for a saturday in the front range of Colorado.




We spent the rest of the weekend at Tiff and Janie's in Denver, ate more food, spent time at a video arcade and acted liesurely. All in all, I don't think i could complain about anything this weekend without being a total jerk.

Sending Jon off early this morning, i have successfully folded back into myself today, spending hours in two different coffee shops in two different towns, bouldering and eating Qdoba. I got suprememly pissed at a practice GRE test (don't get me started) and contemplated continuing the mustache that i have begun over the last three days. I know, I know, think of the children.