Winter Wonderland

A month or so ago, we were invited by our friends, the Estes's, to ski in Durango, CO. It just so happened that Brad had never been skiing, and I had only been once, half my life ago {obvs, I was 15 10}, so we jumped at the chance.

We flew the Company Plane into Albuquerque last Monday night and made the 4 hour drive into southern Colorado on Tuesday morning after meeting the Cooks at the airport.

Everyone stayed in a beautiful condo at the base of the mountain, within 100 yards of the main lift. It was gorgeous with an amazing view AND heated floors, which made for some very happy feet.

The view out the back door.
The first morning, Brad and I enrolled in ski school while the rest of our experienced group went on up the mountain. After a couple of hours, I was feeling confident (which was surprising, since I never felt that way on my first trip), and Brad understood the mechanics so our instructor turned us loose on the mountain. Brandi spent the afternoon on the bunny slopes with us offering encouragement and not letting me quit when I got to one hill I wanted to walk down. I'm better for it, so thanks, lady!

At ski school.
On the second day, we promoted ourselves from the bunny slopes to go on up the mountain. After a pic at the top with everyone, we started making our way down. No falls here, but B bit the big one right on the last run. It was an EPIC fall. It looked like a blizzard with the amount of snow he churned up tumbling down, but he picked himself back up and came in slowly. (See the video of him slowly skiing in after the fall on the previous post.)

The Team.
That afternoon we made one more run down the mountain. I will not name names, but somewhere in there I was led on a wrong turn that ended up on a BLUE instead of a GREEN (green is good, blue is not for me at least not yet.) We had a Major Marital Discussion after an attempted short cut through the woods, which left me in snow up to my knees and crying, "I CAN'T GO ANY FURTHER. FIND ME A SNOWMOBILE."

A fall, but not THE fall.
Finally, we made it back to the "easy way down" and ended the run on a happy note.

I never thought I would ever say this about physical exertion, but I can't wait to ski again.

Thank you Brandi and Aaron for inviting us and for your wonderful hospitality!

Brad Learns to Ski

Here's what Brad's been up to over the past week.

Note to self: quit talking while videoing.

Who Needs Colorado?

In case you were wondering, the streets were fine, and all you people could've gone to work and school on Friday. But I'm not bitter. You stayed home and made my commute quite pleasant!

Valentine's Day is a delicious holiday.

My mother made these cookies for us to take to our school Valentine parties growing up, and now I have made them my own, thanks to heart shaped cookie cutters that my dear friend Alisia gave me for my b-day a few years ago. Love me some strawberry frosting.

(Side note: Do you like how I managed to take close ups of the most sloppily frosted ones? Those are the ones that I layered more frosting than was really necessary and then saved for myself. I personally feel that the cookie exists to hold the frosting.)

These make me want to decorate a shoebox for receiving Valentines. Yum.

Hello World.

Photo by the fabulously talented Hailey Erickson of Hailey Erickson Photography.
Check our her new blog right here.

Over the past three weeks, my man and I have been trading illnesses back and forth, which has caused my absence from the internet. After meeting our deductible in the month of January, I am finally on the upswing and hopefully kicking my final cold of 2010. I have seriously gone through an entire box of Kleenex on my own, and my nose is really tired.

I'll be back soon with more boring details that probably only I care about!