I know it's still the middle of February but today felt a little bit like spring. It made me long for warm sunshine, cookouts, going to the lake and longer days.
But, just as soon as I began thinking that, I recalled how I experienced a "real" winter this year. I'm not talking 50 degrees Texas days (although it was colder and snowed more here than I've ever remembered) either. This past December I made my first trip to the snowy mountains of Colorado and took in some of the most beautiful scenery I feel I'll ever see.
You should know that when I write "ski", I really mean Courtney and I tried learned to ski. Sort of. The boys were lucky that neither of us had been skiing before and that they could leave us with an instructor all day while they took off down the slopes. So, that's what happened. Court and I met Craig, who we immediately told we used to "blade" together in our neighborhood back in the days of 1996. (Craig loved us despite this.)
After learning how to literally, put our skis on and how to walk in them, Craig decided we were ready to go up the mountain. Doubtful, Court and I agreed and boarded the lift all the while asking him a million questions about how we exit the lift at the top of the mountain. Craig assured us we'd be fine--he had never had a skier fall getting off the lift.
Until December 20, 2009 that is. As soon as we reached the top, Craig counted to three and the following scenario happened at the instantaneously:
But, just as soon as I began thinking that, I recalled how I experienced a "real" winter this year. I'm not talking 50 degrees Texas days (although it was colder and snowed more here than I've ever remembered) either. This past December I made my first trip to the snowy mountains of Colorado and took in some of the most beautiful scenery I feel I'll ever see.
Courtney and Rett invited John and I to Rett's parent's cabin near Wolf Creek, Colorado to ski, relax and hang out before Christmas. We drove all the way there, picked up some food at the grocery store in town, and then hunkered down and embraced the cold weather with a giant supply of hot chocoloate, Christmas movies, Scrabble and Phase 10!
After learning how to literally, put our skis on and how to walk in them, Craig decided we were ready to go up the mountain. Doubtful, Court and I agreed and boarded the lift all the while asking him a million questions about how we exit the lift at the top of the mountain. Craig assured us we'd be fine--he had never had a skier fall getting off the lift.
Until December 20, 2009 that is. As soon as we reached the top, Craig counted to three and the following scenario happened at the instantaneously:
I exited, miraculously landed on my feet, and took off. Took off about half way down the mountain at full speed since I hadn't been instructed how to stop. I panicked and screamed until I finally realized that if I turned up the mountain, I would stop myself. By the time all this happened, Court did actually fall exiting the lift (probably jinxed by Craig's comments) and was totally fine. Needless to say, we were both traumatized within the first 20 minutes of our lesson.
After two hours of taking small stretches down the beginner slopes, Court and I slowly mastered what I refer to as basic skiing. Take a look for yourself...
The next day we were able to go down some (easy) slopes with the guys and even attempted a few turns along the way. I must admit that for first time skiers we did pretty darn well and we were certainly impressed by John and Rett's jumps, tricks and speed!
I'm surprised John was able to capture us flying down the hill in that video...
ReplyDeletehahaha. that did my heart good. y'all are the most graceful skiers I've ever seen!!
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