Family Ski Vacation

For President's Day-Week (is that what people in the US call it?) Christopher and I met up with both his parents and my parents in Vail, Colorado for the first ever Ma-Schwartz joint family vacation. We had rented a 3 bedroom townhouse in East Vail at the Vail Racquet Club for the week. While most of the action is in West Vail, the Racquet Club is conveniently located along one of Vail's free bus routes to the Village and has a really nice fitness center with outdoor hotubs, wet and dry saunas, and a 75-meter swimming pool. We also dined at their Bighorn Bistro one evening and enjoyed a fabulous meal.

My family and I have been to Vail a few times before, but this was Christopher's family's first time. It was fun to see what they thought of the resort and our favorite restaurants. We had lunch at my all-time favorite place to eat in Vail - Sweet Basil. Though it's not what would be classified as an inexpensive restaurant the food, service and ambiance is really fabulous. I think lunch is a bit easier to justify on the pocketbook than dinner, and also easier to get a table - this place is everything but a well-kept secret!

Since we had rented a 4-wheel drive Suburban, Christopher and I put it to good use trying some of the other nearby ski hills. We visited Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, and Breckenridge in addition to skiing 3 days at Vail. At Copper we took advantage of their free snowcat skiing to access Tucker Mountain - skiing Chute #3 of the Fremont Glade. After waiting in line for over an hour for the Cat, it was finally our turn for the 10-minute ride up. We then followed that up with a 20-minute hike (at over 12,000 ft. - I was quite short of breath at that altitude) up the ridge to access the chutes. It was super windy along the hike - when we stopped to take a pic I was afraid I was going to get blown over! As was to be expected, there was a ton of snow on the run due to the limited access. By the time we got to the bottom we were quite tired and ready to meet up with my parents for lunch - and we had only done one run!

Although I was slightly apprehensive about how my parents and Christopher's parents would get along for an entire week together, everyone seemed to enjoy their vacation. Vail was a good location for all of us, giving us each a different way to spend our time as we saw fit. This was the first ski vacation for Christopher's parents in 10 years, so they took things easy ski-wise, spending alot of their time strolling through Vail Village and relaxing in the pool & hot tub at the Racquet Club. My parents skied quite a bit and as usual my mom took a day off to shop shop shop at all her old favorite stores in the Village. And of course Christopher and I skied skied skied! In the evenings we all dined together, enjoying all the fabulous culinary gems that Vail had to offer, and recapping each of our highlights of the day. Hopefully the first of many joint family vacations to come :)

Snow Day!

This morning I phoned our Employee Information line to see if my office would be closed or have a delayed opening due to this winter storm that hit the east coast today.

And... to my surprise, the recording announced that the office was closed - SNOW DAY!!

Yippee!! All those fond memories of snow days when I was in school came flooding back. It's funny - I love my job just like I loved school (yes I know, I'm a geek), but there is something decadent about being able to stay home during the week on a stormy winter day, watching daytime television and drinking hot chocolate.
Strangely enough, I have this urge to go outside right now and make a snow angel :)

Night in NYC

This past weekend Christopher came down to visit and planned a surprise trip to New York City for my birthday. He made arrangements for Tyson to go to Doggie Daycare for the night and we took the Metro-North train into Grand Central Station. It is fairly reasonable to visit New York at this time of year and Christopher was able to book us into the Millennium Hilton (where we have stayed in before and I really like) on Priceline.

That night we had tickets for Translations - a show that just opened on Broadway a few weeks ago that received good reviews from the New York Times. Now, one thing we have yet to master is the subway system in New York. Christopher is excellent at reading the map and figuring out which line we need to take and where we need to get off. But one thing we haven't quite figured out is how much time to budget when taking the subway. Since we're often in the city on the weekend, when we take the subway we run into some lines being closed, stations being closed, and infrequent trains.

After waiting awhile to take the subway to Times Square for our 8pm show, we came to the realization that we wouldn't make the show if we continued to wait for this subway that didn't seem to be making an appearance anytime soon. So even though we had already paid our fare, we decided to head above ground to catch a cab to have any chance of getting to the theatre on time.

Unfortunately, it being a Saturday night, it was tough to find a cab. On every street corner we saw other people struggling to catch a cab as well. With a little bit of luck, we managed to flag one down after not too long and were surprised to find out that we had snagged the best cab driver we've ever had in the city. Once we told him where we were going, he knew we were trying to catch a show and drove like a madman. He was honking his horn at cars that were lingering in intersections and drivers that weren't doing the right thing. I never felt that our driving was being a jerk to other drivers with his driving or his horn.

Since there was a bit of traffic closer to the theatre, we decided to get out a few blocks away and run the rest of the way. Christopher ran up ahead to go pick up the tickets, while I paid the cabbie and gave him a big tip. We managed to make it to our seats with minutes to spare!

After the show we had reservations at Tao for dinner, so we walked uptown to the restaurant. When we got there the place was packed. Even though we had a reservation we still waited for quite awhile in the bar area. After awhile we were quite hungry and I had a craving for some galbi, so we decided to leave and head to 5th Ave. & W. 32nd St. where there are many Korean restaurants that stay open late into the night.

The next day we had lunch in the East Village before heading home. It was great to just go for one night - we each packed a small bag that we could easily carry with us on the subway and around town. This way we didn't have to worry about checking our bags with the bell desk and then going back to the hotel to pick them up. Plus, going for one night keeps the expensive hotel costs down - this is something we should definitely do again!

Thanks Christopher for planning such a fun weekend!

When your nose doesn't know...

For the past little while I've been fighting a cough/cold. My nose is all red and sensitive and I have gone through so many boxes of tissues! I don't feel bad other than this though. But what annoys me the most is not being able to smell. And more importantly, not being able to taste. I really feel crippled by the

loss of these two senses. Well, I can still taste very basic categories of sweet/salty/sour/bitter, but eating isn't very fun.

Now, you would think that not being able to taste anything would make me less interested in eating. However, I have been going through the opposite - I am craving food more! What's happening is that my brain still remembers what it is like to taste things. And it wants them. But when I eat the things that it wants, it can't taste those flavours so the craving isn't satisfied. So crazy!