The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Telluride

We just got back from a great week of skiing in Telluride for spring break! Considering my knee surgery just 10.5 weeks ago, I’m mostly thankful that we all made it back home injury free! hooray! We drove to Atlanta last Friday night and spent the night close to the airport and had a stress-free flight Saturday morning…

It was a long travel day – fly to Montrose and then take an hour and a half drive into Telluride. We finally got there around 4:00, got checked into Mountain Lodge, and then took the gondola into town at Cosmopolitan which was really good.

The next morning it was ski time! The day got off to a slow start with a little pass mixup – we had our passes but we were apparently supposed to get a reservation? Robert got it all sorted out but we didn’t get out on the mountain with our instructor, Mark, until about 10am. That’s ok though – we were happy to be there and it was a beautiful day!

We spent the day getting our ski legs back and learning the mountain. Mark was very nice and gave us all some good tips.

Overall it was a super successful day on the mountain! My knee was aching by 4:00 but it made it through…and Mark’s tips came in handy to keep it as safe as possible. That night we went into town and tried to eat at Brown Dog Pizza but it was a 2 hour wait! Our tired, cranky crew wasn’t up for that so we headed back to Mountain Village and got some good pizza at Crazy Elk. Day one done and dusted!

School Stuff

More pics from Renaissance Fair…

4th grade cuties…

Field trip fun…

And my smart girl did exactly what she was asked – she drew a conclusion! ha!

Weekend

This past weekend we had plenty of fun mixed in with some weather anxiety! They were predicting a huge storm to roll through Birmingham Saturday afternoon with a very high probability of strong winds, giant hail, and major tornadoes. I spent much of the weekend prepping – moving things into GJ’s basement to keep them safe. We had our plan in place – helmets ready, flashlights and weather radio charged, and James Spann on the tv! Thankfully it really ended up missing Birmingham all together. We just had a regular old thunderstorm that wasn’t even that bad. Phew. I then spent Sunday putting everything back in place! I’d much rather spend my morning doing that than picking up from storm damage. Other than that, we did have a good dinner at the club Friday night…

while Spencer watched the AL game with some friends.

Maxwell was out and about but here’s a cute pic of him and some friends ice skating a few weeks ago!

One interesting fact we did learn during the storm? There’s a Samantha, AL!

See you tomorrow!

Magic

Spencer’s final season of OTM basketball wrapped up and what a great run we had with Magic! Several of these boys had been playing together since 2nd grade and they were so fun to watch. Our final 6th grade season started off a little rocky when two members of the team left to play with one of the other MB teams. We recruited another player and moved forward with just 7 players total. At the time, I was really frustrated with how it all played out…but in hindsight I can see it was one of the best things to happen to Spencer. He really got to step up on the team, be a leader, and get way more playing time than he would have otherwise. He got better this year for sure! We started the season early with a Hoops tourney in October…working out the kinks and learning to play with Henry.

The OTM season then kicked off with the Jingle Bell Jam. Despite only having 7 players and being told by some that they wouldn’t be able to compete, Magic came out strong and made it to the Final 4 only losing to the team that won it all! Go Magic!!

It’s always funny to see just how big some other 6th graders are!!

A great start to the season!

Coach T made them put in the work…

and it paid off! They had a great season with plenty of bright spots and challenging games. They ended the season 4-4 which really doesn’t reflect how well they played. The beat Spartan Green twice and almost beat MB Black – they were leading in that game right up until the end.

Facing off against a former teammate!

In the end of season tournament, they made it to the second round where they got beat by MB Black. It doesn’t matter though – every single one of these boys got better this season. They played with so much hustle and heart. They proved to everyone in OTM that they deserved to be there and they could compete – even if they only had 7 players!

Proud to be part of this team and thankful for the memories made, the friendships formed, and the basketball skills learned! It was Magic indeed!