"Panic is not a vacation."

It's been a busy week. We went skiing last weekend in Colorado and I started school this week.

I'd never been snow skiing before but Chuck has been going his "whole life" and I like to water ski and love to visit Colorado so we figured it would be a good trip. I'm not positive how it came about we just sort of decided to go and went! We wanted to bring my brother, Jon, along because awesome and we had another seat in our car so we also invited my close friend, Suzanne. We had a blast. We drove all night Thursday night and although I only got a few hours of sleep Ruby slept well and somehow the excitement kept me going the next day. We bought a ski package that included hotel and tickets to a hot spring pool near our hotel. We did that on Friday and Ruby loved it. We don't have pictures because we were all wet but she loves the water. This summer is going to be so much fun!

On Sat. and Sun. we skied. Chuck's Dad and Gran met us at the lodge to watch Ruby for us. It was so nice to see them as well. Suzanne has been skiing her whole life and Jon had been a few times on class trips and with youth group when he was in junior high and the like so I was the only first timer. We decided I should skip the bunny slope, however, because of the amount of people and small children on it and went to the easiest slope half-way up the mountain. I fell over twice on the way to the lift but didn't let it get me down (figuratively). We did a quick tutorial on how to turn and what to do if you're going to fast and want to stop (fall over - that I can do!) and then we were off! I went really slow to begin with and tried to turn and make long sweeps across the slope, which went pretty well until I got going to fast and then I would freak out and wipe out. I only fell over about three times, however, and in between those times my form was perfect! By the end of the day on Sunday I made it all the way down one of the runs without falling over once! Yay!

 

I loved skiing and look forward to doing it again. I hope that we can take more family vacations as Ruby grows and we add to our family. I'm glad that we have extended family and adopted family that we can vacation with also. We didn't take many pictures because we were skiing most of the time but Chuck did get some video and here are a few of the best photos. The first is us in the lodge all suited up to ski and the second is us at a local bar on Saturday night trying to soak up some local color and be hip young people even though we were exhausted and it was only 8pm. (Don't worry we left Ruby in the safe, warm arms of her great grandmother back at the hotel)

We had so much fun not only because skiing is a great activity but because we're all so crazy. There was lots of ragging on each other, relaxing, adventure and laughing until our sides hurt. For example, Chuck commented on how fast I had gone on one of the slopes and I whimpered that I didn't mean to go that fast! Suzanne added that she doesn't like going on harder slopes because she'd rather enjoy herself on an easy one than panic the whole way down. "Panic is not a vacation," She assured Chuck. We all almost fell over in the snow laughing. I can't wait to do it again next year!

Have a great Friday!