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So I’ve had a cold, or the flu, or some kind of horrible combination, for a full week now. Laralee caught something about two weeks ago, suffered through it for about five days, and then I caught it from her. She and I were both coughing and sneezing for a few days together, but she finally recovered while I continued to be laid low. I skipped out of work, missed several ultimate league games, had to get substitutes for my seminary class, and basically spent day after day in bed or on the couch. Ugh.

I rarely get sick– maybe once every year or two– but boy, this one is probably the worst I’ve had in a decade or more. It reminds me how nice it is to feel well. Hopefully I’m finally on the upward swing (although I stayed home from work again today) and can put this behind me. Sheesh.

I thought this was pretty funny…

Every now and then someone publishes a list of “life hacks” which are basically clever things you can do to help make your life a little simpler. Most of the time I find them pretty pointless because they’re obvious things anyone would figure out if they’d sit and consider the problem for a moment.

Today I stumbled across a list of life hacks from, oh, the turn of the century or so. Here are the ones that made me laugh:

Today’s kids won’t even get these jokes.

Every morning, the Zing team gets together for a “standup” meeting where we review our projects and make sure things are on track. Since we work at home on Fridays, we all join a video call on Google Hangouts for the meeting.

Today Nick showed up in a cowboy hat and… well, maybe nothing else.

Well played, Nick. April Fool’s.

This weekend was the first ever Grass Roots Ultimate “retreat”. GRU runs year-round ultimate leagues in the Boulder area, and even though I’ve been a player in the leagues for more than 15 years, I hadn’t done much “behind the scenes” work until recently. In the past couple of years I’ve been running the Longmont leagues and the “big” summer league in Boulder, and finally a few months ago I took the next big step and joined the board. There are seven of us, all volunteers, who not only oversee all of the leagues but also the larger goals of bringing ultimate opportunities to the community– including a big emphasis on youth sports and involving more women.

This was my first GRU board meeting. The board usually meets about once a quarter, and in years past they’ve always gathered at someone’s house for a few hours, or met at a coffee shop, or whatever. This year, we decided to do something a little different and have a “retreat” up in the mountains. That involved renting an amazing cabin near Glenwood Springs– the cabin was 6,000 square feet, could comfortably sleep 14 (and probably less comfortably could have slept 40), and was on 40 acres of mountain hills. Wow.

We spent long hours discussing various topics related to the organization, the volunteers, the players, and even our mission. We got a lot of things done, and also realized how much more we still have to do. I’ve known all of these guys for years, but this was a cool opportunity to get to know them a little better.

When the weekend finally wound down and we headed back east over the Rockies for home, I think we all felt a combined sense of purpose and enthusiasm. Oh, and we managed to take a group picture on an old-school fire engine.

Yesterday as Kyra and I were walking back from lunch (it’s nice having a great pizza place right outside the neighborhood), I thought the trees looked amazing with all the snow on them. Here are a couple more shots of our winter wonderland.

Kyra and I agreed that “surprise snow days” are the best. Sometimes the weather forecast says it’s going to snow, and the night before everyone is going to bed thinking surely tomorrow it’ll be a snow day, and then at 5:30 the next morning it’s not, and it’s a huge disappointment.

Today, on the other hand, we were surprised. Well, maybe not entirely: the National Weather Service had issued a “winter storm warning” (upgraded from a “winter advisory”, apparently) for the area. Still, it had been 60+ degrees yesterday– in fact, I played ultimate in bare feet for the first time all season. So we didn’t really expect more than a few inches.

At 5:07 the phone rang with the happy news from the school district. Sure enough, looking out the window I saw that it was the real deal.

The temperature is hovering right around 32 degrees, so the snowflakes are those big wet ones. Of course, Laralee and I had to shovel the foot-deep heavy snow in our enormous driveway…

It’s still coming down, meaning we’ll need to shovel again later, but in the meantime we’re enjoying some fun at home.

Well, Google Plus finally figured it out. I might know myself.

What happens if I become friends with myself? Does it create some kind of social-media infinite loop?

Ben received a 3D printer for Christmas, and he and I were chatting a few weeks ago when he mentioned that he saw a “recipe” online to print tiles for the Settlers of Catan board game. It sounded intriguing, so I asked if he’d be willing to print some for me. He did, and they were awesome. I think they’ll add a whole new dimension to the game. (Dimension– get it? Hah!)

Of course they’re not too exciting in their native white.

But with a little paint they’ll be amazing. I went to Michaels and bought a bunch of acrylic paints, and for the past few weeks we’ve been sitting down as a family now and then to work on them.

This is Zack working on a water tile:

He really did a great job on the tornado (which replaces the robber):

Here’s my first attempt, a wheat field:

Kyra’s mountain was the best so far though:

We’ve also invited “guest artists” to join us. Kyra’s friend Hannah did an incredible job painting one of the forest tiles (although I don’t have a photo of it now). Hopefully over the next few weeks we’ll complete them, and can play a sweet game of Settlers!

A few weeks ago Kyra played in what is probably her last flute recital. She’s been taking lessons from Kaye Lloyd (the wife of Kyra’s band teacher in sixth grade) for almost six years, but once she heads off to college I don’t know if she’ll continue private tutoring.

She was great, of course, and it’s been wonderful to have someone like Kaye teaching her all this time.