Happy Easter!
I had another fantastic day in Cleveland, Ohio with the Alex Moore family. The little girls were so excited for the Easter bunny to come last night. It didn’t take long for them to collect all the eggs this morning.
I’m in Cleveland, Ohio for the weekend with my good friends Alex Moore and Carly Debenham and their three beautiful daughters. I first got to know Alex and Carly when Alex got a job as a U.S. Ski Team strength coach and they moved to Park City from their home in Australia. That was six years ago.
Last summer Alex was offered a job as the high performance director of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Although they didn’t want to leave Park City, the opportunity was too good to pass up, and Alex just finished an incredibly busy NBA season.
I am so glad I had the opportunity to stop here on my way back across the country. It’s so good to see them, just like they never left. Hearing stories about life in the NBA is incredible. The amount of money, the crazy travel schedule, the unique personalities and the super late hours make Alex’s stories hard to relate to.
The guest room looked like the Ritz Carlton when I arrived last night.
Today was my final day staying with the Doughty family in Boston, Massachusetts. Less my day in Washington D.C., I have been in Boston for a week to do events for my title sponsor Thoughtforms Builders, which Mark Doughty runs.
Early this morning Mark dropped me off at the beautiful home of my relatives Alan and Cecily Morse. We had a delicious breakfast of bagels and smoked salmon; some of our other relatives joined as well. It was very nice to see everyone, and I’m so glad we were able to make it work.
Alan then drove me out to the construction site of the future Doughty home in Lincoln, Massachusetts. I saw the site earlier in the week, but this time I was meeting Mark and Pilar there to see the business side of Thoughtforms.
Although Mark runs the company, today he was acting as a customer. Each week Thoughtforms meets with their customers to update them on progress and ask them questions about decisions that have to be made. I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on the meeting and see how it all works.
In order to appropriately dress for my trip to the White House today, I had to borrow clothes from numerous sources. I was wearing socks, shoes and a belt from Mark Doughty, pants from the Doughty’s neighbor Anthony Marinello, and a jacket and shirt from CSU and EMBK parent David Brams.
Yesterday I got to tour a couple of Thoughtforms construction sites. Thoughtforms came on as my title/hat sponsor last fall. I knew they are custom home builders with a focus on quality, but I didn’t have a clear picture of what that means. What I saw yesterday blew me away. We viewed some houses in the Boston suburbs, and they were the nicest houses I’ve ever seen. There are of course many very nice houses in Aspen, but the quality and detail of what I saw yesterday seemed to be unmatched.
Honestly, the amount of detail and coordination in these houses seemed almost impossible to coordinate; insurmountable. The detail was more impressive to me than the size and number of amenities because I’ve seen large houses in Aspen often. The Thoughtforms houses I saw yesterday had swimming pools, hot tubs, AstroTurf lawns, full modern school-worthy playgrounds, tennis courts, multiple kitchens, deck roofs, etc… It was an incredible experience to see some completed structures and some in-progress structures. Here is an elevator being installed in one almost-finished house.
I had another very busy day here in Boston, Massachusetts. I started the day at Anneka Doughty’s preschool. I was her guest for “special person day”. Here we are playing on the swings.
I had a busy and wonderful day in Boston, Massachusetts. I am here for the week to be involved in the local ski community and the community of my title sponsor Thoughtforms Builders. I am staying with Mark Doughty, the president of Thoughtforms, and his extremely welcoming family. This morning Mark’s son Nathan made me a Rainbow Loom bracelet with my name on it. I had never seen Rainbow Loom before. It is a series of interwoven rubber-bands. Here I am with Nathan, my bracelet and the anklet he made for himself.
I knew I was going to be spoiled at the Doughty house in Boston this week when I was served incredible pancakes soon after waking up this morning.
I slept last night at the Radisson Blu Hotel connected to the Oslo airport. Generously, I was there on my ski company Madshus’s dime. Everything in Norway is extremely expensive, so I was glad I wasn’t footing the bill. It was very convenient to be at the airport and also very nice. The breakfast this morning was the best continental breakfast I’ve ever had. I had delicious lox.
