Ski Trip Novel (Warning...this will take a while! It's my personal journal!)

From where I left off in the Christmas post...Chelsea and Dane met us in Roscoe early Sunday morning and we all made the trek to Pagosa Springs, CO in the Accord. Although we all knew it would be tight packing, Caleb and I still managed to take too much. Imagine that. So, we got everything in the trunk, but the rule for the trip was "anything you buy, you must keep in your lap" b/c there was no way one tiny piece of jewelry was getting in that trunk :). Garmina, or GiGi, the petnames for our beloved GPS (actually Chelsea's Dad's) helped us all along the way. So, we made it through the tumbleweeds of west texas (actually hit a few.....those things came in families and you can't just stop on the middle of the highway!), got pulled over only once (where Caleb got some of his own medicine of the cop explaining every step of the way what he did so he couldn't deny it; just a warning though), almost ran out of gas, and spent probably over an hour playing the alphabet game because there is NOTHING in West TX/New Mexico. But, 12 hours later, we made it to our home in Pagosa Springs (haha, yes, I did say this to one lady on a lift....what was I thinking?!).

Here is a pic when we were about an hour out.....it was amazing to see the moon rising just over the snow-capped mountains. I wanted to bust out in singing "How Great is our God" but instead, we just all sat and watched in silent awe, thinking about our Creator. This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Here we are our first night, at Junction Family Dining. Chelsea just wanted some vegetables, so this is what we found. Yes, our waiter did pull up and stand on a chair to take this pic in case you were wondering:

Since the condo had a full kitchen, the 4 of us went family grocery shopping and we stocked up on food for the week. On a side note....I think this first night was the latest I stayed up. Now, this shouldn't surprise anyone, but I really could not stay awake past 9 pm here! I would wake up wide awake about 6 (the first few mornings I would wake up Caleb saying "isn't the snow pretty?"....he let me know he would like to sleep longer, there will always be snow) and then after a full day of skiing, I just couldn't make it. I even made coffee for the UT game and still fell asleep in the 4th quarter!

Christmas Eve:

Our first day of skiing! Don't we look festive?!

(On another side note....there will only be "condo" pics in this post because I didn't want to take the digital camera to the slopes. Those are on a disposible, which I will try to add later. Also, the condo was originally decorated in the early 80's with a southwestern motif...and it hasn't changed. So, please enjoy the background :). )

This day Caleb took lessons all day, so I skiied the morning refreshing my skills and then skiied the afternoon with Chelsea and Dane. Caleb snowboarded, and although this was his 3rd or 4th time,he wanted to work on his heel/toe turn. He actually got REALLY good! I was impressed:).

This night we (or Chelsea) made chicken tortilla soup for dinner:

We went to a Christmas Eve service at a local church. It was good.

Christmas Day:

This was the view from our deck Christmas morning.....a WHITE Christmas!

It was actually really nice this year to wake up on Christmas morning, in a quiet little condo, and spend time with the Lord remembering what this day was really about. I wasn't off to open presents. I wasn't feeling guilty because we weren't with my family or Caleb's family. I wasn't feeling stressed. I was just able to sit in bed, look at this out my window, and praise the Lord for sending his Son. What every Christmas morning should be like. I think I started a new tradition.

The slopes were empty. Or, maybe just the slopes that we decided to run were empty because.....let me just share with you our Christmas morning "drama" :).

To preface, the day before, Chelsea and I were saying that there weren't very many long runs. So, we got out the trail map and found a really long blue on the other side of the mountain. Perfect. So, that's where we started Christmas morning. ALBERTA was the name of the lift. We all 4 go up....and start going down. "Awesome! We're the first ones on this run this morning!".....then we start going uphill. What?! So, Chelsea, Dane, and I can somewhat pole through the horizontal and uphill portions, but Caleb found out real quick why there isn't a sport called cross country snowboarding. About an hour later, we get down to the bottom. See Alberta lift. Now, let me just tell you, that we're on a completely different side of the mountain....there are no lodges or restaurants, just a lift. Base is about 2 miles away. So, we look at the map, find a way to go up and get down to base and we're off. Poling through nordic-track style and we lose Dane.....Chelsea and I follow Caleb past the sign that says "no easy way down, expert skiers only". Dang. What are we doing? Push through it! Pass another sign: "no grooming ahead, experts only". What?! Through the trees. Push through it. We'll make it to base and get some food and warmth. Almost there. It's snowing heavier, visibility is getting less and less. We know Caleb's ahead. ALBERTA. What?! Yes, we are back down to this lift. Appreciate this dialogue:

Chelsea: "I can't do it again. I just can't".

Caleb: "We have to. There's no other way"

Chelsea: "I just can't go up that lift again".

Caleb: "Let's just take a break and sit here (in the snow).Then we'll go back up"
Chelsea: "I don't know what we'll do different. If we couldn't get down last time, we'll do the same thing again".

Julie: asks 2 random snowboarders if they have map.

Caleb: Looks at map"We have 2 choices: go up the lift and get back down to base, or walk 2 miles uphill".

Chelsea: starts poling towards the lift

(Meanwhile, I'm silent through most of this....let them deal with it....but, my silence doesn't last long. Fast forward 20 minutes:)

Julie: hands on knees, completely stopped

Caleb: "Julie, come on, you've got to push through it, you lose your momentum when you stop"

Julie: "I can't. I'm blacking out. I can't see".

Caleb: "Come on, you can do it" (hands her very frozen power bar and starts scooting down with his snowboard)

Julie: lays down in the snow, gets sick in the snow

Caleb: who knows what he's thinking at this point; he was such a good sport with us

Chelsea: thinking "I can do this. Atleast I'm not sick"

We all 3 pitifully make it down to BASE! Caleb takes off my skis for me and we take a long lunch break. Whew, all better. What a memorable Christmas morning! I don't want to sound negative....we all laugh about it now. We had a wonderful trip, it was really only 1 hour of the whole trip I think all 3 of us would consider "miserable". Btw, Dane did make it down to base that 2nd run :).

Skiing was great the rest of the day (I actually think we just 2 more runs!). We also saw Santa and those will be must-add pics from the disposible when they are developed :). Went home and had pork loin, roasted potatoes, green beans, rolls, and peach cobbler for our Christmas dinner:

Played a game of Ticket to Ride:

What a GREAT Christmas!

After our Alberta experience, we were all pretty tired and decided to take Wednesday off, be lazy, and play in the snow. We bought sleds, went sledding down the golf course behind our condo (sorry, no pics!).

Made a snowman:

Made snow angels:

Stayed warm by the fire:

Relaxed in our oversized jacuzzi tub. Yes, there was a room in the condo and this is all it was:

On Thursday, Dane wasn't feeling good, so Chelsea and Dane took another day off and Caleb and I hit the slopes. We had a great pace....2 runs, break for hot chocolate. 2 more runs...break inside for gatorade/power bar. 2 more runs....break. This was our pace all day. I did 3 runs at thet end of the day, and I was exhausted :). Needless to say, I knew it was my last day. It was fun to get to ski behind Caleb and watch him carve the mountain. He became a pro! That night we made dinner in and watched the UT game. After the infamous play, our nightly conversation consisted of Chris Jessie....I felt so bad for him. Caleb wanted them to show his shameful face over and over (which they did). He didn't touch it!

On Friday, the boys went skiing and us girls went shopping and got massages in town. We made some friends with the locals....the store owners would send us to their friends' boutiques with notes to give us a discount. We knew we couldn't buy much due to the rule about carrying anything you bought in your lap, but we did both come out with a few good buys (and fit them in our suitcase!). One lady called around to find us a massage within walking distance (the boys had the car). We ended up going to her lady, a "hippie grandma", and I couldn't have described her better. We both said we never would have gone there had we seen her card or her shop,but the massage was great! And a good price! She did some weird humming and put a bowl on our stomach to make some noise and chimes over our bodies.....weird, but whatever. Good massage. We both said later we had a hard time not laughing :). After a day of shopping, we had planned to take a taxi back. Well, we ended up shopping until around the time we thought the guys would be coming back. So, picture this: standing outside in the cold on a streetcorner, waiting to see if the guys drive past. (we had a left a message on Caleb's phone about a coffeeshop we were in but I forgot he couldn't check messages, so they didn't get our message)

Chelsea: "It's cold. This wasn't a good idea. They'll find us inside".

Julie: "I feel in my heart like they are going to be in the next 100 cars. Let's stay out for 100 cars and then we'll go back in." Starts doing step moves to stay warm while counting out loud 1, 2, 3...

Chelsea: "Can you look at me so people will think we're talking instead of counting cars?"

Julie: laughs, attempts to look like conversation, but the counting isn't near as efficient; at 70...."hmm, I'm not feeling it as much anymore"

Julie: "81.....there they are!" starts flailing her arms and jumping, "they're 82!)

Chelsea: laughing and embarrassed

Thankfully, Dane saw us (Caleb didn't) and we made it home and saved our $20 taxi money. We packed up and realized that our vacuum did not have a hose to vacuum back up our ski clothes. So, here we tried to rig it...it didn't work:

The guys were awesome and were able to "cram and slam" our trunk shut. As sad as it was to leave,we awoke and were out the door by 5:30 am for the trek back to Texas. We made it in good time, maybe this is why?

If you can't figure out this picture, it's probably a good thing. But, I coudln't not post a pic of Garmina. She was a big part of our trip.

Whew, that was it. We had a great time and if you made it to the end of this....I'm impressed :).