The kind of experience that comes around once every 23 years

Well, we didn't make it to the ski slopes today. The roads were a bit treacherous, so we stayed home.

Remember what our back yard looked like a week ago? This is how it looked when we woke up yesterday:

I was so excited when I looked out the window! K and I gobbled down breakfast, then headed outside to play in the snow with Piper.

She's quite the snow bunny! What's funny is that she hates rain and will absolutely avoid going outside if it's raining. Snow, however? She loves it! K and I took turns taking video of her frolicking around in it. She's such a dork.

Obviously she's not frolicking here; she's sitting. The frolicking was on video, though, remember?

K and I made snow angels (mine's on the right),

and then K tried to help Piper make one.

(Turns out she sucks at them.)

We decided to venture out to see how things looked beyond our neighborhood. With K's SUV, we knew we would be OK in the snow, so off we went! The highways were covered in snow. Other than that, they were empty.

That exit sign really had writing on it. I just blurred it out so the stalkers can't find us. Not that it was our exit, and not that I have stalkers -- that I know of. You can never be too safe!

We headed to our favorite beach because I wanted to see what it looked like covered in snow. First, though, I'll share a couple pictures of how it looks not covered in snow.

I took these pictures Jan. 5. This is actually my favorite place in all of Virginia. It's a private beach on the post where K works. On nice days, we love to have lunch on this bench.

This is what "our" beach looked like yesterday:

The wind created a cool mix of sand and snow on the sidewalk.

When we got back home, I made us some snow ice cream. My friend Danielle mentioned that she had done that when OK got hit with a ridiculous blizzard at Christmastime. Evidently her family had always done that when it snowed enough. I thought I'd give it a shot.

I found a recipe online that involved a gallon of snow, 2 cups of milk (or more, if needed), a cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of vanilla.

The website had said that snow ice cream isn't about making creamy, gourmet ice cream; it's about the experience of making it. Still, I thought it was pretty dang good! For extra awesomeness, I added chocolate syrup to mine.

K, on the other hand, took one bite and made a face. He asked if I'd be offended if he didn't eat it. I guess I'll just have to hold my hopes of making that a fun tradition for another 15 years or so when we have kids. Oh, well ...

By the end of the day, we were surprised at the amount of snow that had fallen:

Since we're so close to the coast, it's rare for weather like this here. In fact, according to our local weatherman, snowfall like this hits every 23 years. It had been 21 years, so it was only a little early.

It makes me feel lucky we got to experience it! Definitely made for a pretty cool Saturday!

I know people

I've never really been a big pageant person. I don't have a problem with pageants, but I haven't ever really set out to watch one.

I've seen the Miss America Pageant a few times. I've never really watched the whole thing, but I've dropped in on it from time to time when there wasn't much on TV.

Tonight, though, for the first time ever, I'm planning on watching the pageant. The whole thing.

Because this time, for the first time ever, I know one of the contestants!!!!

I've actually known M!ss Oklahoma, T@ylor Tre@t, for several years. She's a few years younger than me, so I never knew her very well, but we are friends on facebook (and it was her doing back before she was M!ss Oklahoma). She's always been a very sweet, nice girl. She's really smart, very talented and very driven.

I can't wait to cheer her on tonight!!!

Since you asked

L asked me after my final Colorado post if I'm excited to ski again.

Believe it or not, yes!

We're actually going to try to go somewhere nearby on Sunday. The part that makes me most excited is that I'm pretty sure the mountains here won't be as steep as in Colorado. They might just be right up my alley!

We're supposed to get 6 inches of snow tonight and tomorrow. If the weather allows us to make a drive on Sunday, I just might have a few exciting new stories to tell about how I've become a rockstar skier.

Stranger things have happened!

Colorado, Part 5 -- Or, How I ended the trip on a good note

Since you can collect some good stories when you go skiing for the first time, I'm sharing them in installments, some of which are still ridiculously long (sorry). Find out why my instructor called me "The Troublemaker," and then read here about how I earned that nickname by having a screaming Tourette's tantrum on my first green slope. Learn how I finally made it to the bottom on an intermediate slope, only to come back for Day 2 and get yelled at by a crazy dude.

The man started walking toward us. "I want to apologize. I completely overreacted," he said.

We told him not to worry about it. I told him I felt horrible. I could understand why he overreacted; he was trying to look out for his daughter. "I saw her over there, and that's why I was heading to the right rather than going between you two," I said.

The man told us that the day before, his wife had gotten hit when someone skied into her on the slopes. She had to go to the hospital and get a CAT scan. (The man wasn't wearing a helmet. I wondered if his wife had been wearing one when she was hit. K and I both had helmets on.)

"Oh my gosh!" K and I both said. "Is she OK?"

"Well, we don't know."

(OK, this guy's a douchebag again.) He looked at me. "Lessons!"

"I did! I took beginner's lessons yesterday. I tried Schoolmarm afterwards. It was awful. That's why we were up here again today. But I'm pretty sure we're done for the day."

"No," he said. I think he thought it was because of him. Which, honestly, it kind of was. "Don't let that stop you." He was taking a couple steps backward to head toward the gondolas. We wished each other a good trip, and he was off.

And not a moment too soon.

My eyes welled up, and they started overflowing almost before I knew what was happening.

"Are you OK?" K asked me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I have no idea why I'm crying." It was getting worse, so I put my goggles back on.

I was relieved that the man had apologized, but that act had made it harder to brush off what had happened. Instead of crashing into an asshole, I had collided with a father who had watched his wife get injured the day before. He had probably said everything to me that he had wanted to say to whoever hit his wife. (Never mind, again, the fact that his wife was potentially still in the hospital while he was out here skiing with their daughter.)

After a couple minutes, I felt better, but I was still in shock about the whole thing. I couldn't quit replaying it in my head for a long time.

It had been lightly snowing all morning, and by the time we got to the bottom of the mountain, it had picked up a bit more. K and I walked through the charming streets of the resort to the restaurant where our friends were waiting for us. We actually passed the man and his daughter sitting on a bench on the side of the road, but I pretended not to see them. (Two run-ins was enough.)

We had managed to work up quite an appetite, so once we reached the restaurant, we destroyed chips and queso, and each of us had one of the biggest burritos I've ever seen. (Not to mention one of the most delicious Cokes I've ever had. And a couple ginormous glasses of water.) I actually almost finished my burrito. I'm not kidding, it was massive.

Since it was our last day in Keystone, I left the restaurant to return my rental skis, and the shop guys actually gave me my second rental day free. Score! The snow was still picking up as I walked the short distance back to the restaurant. All our other friends had arrived, and we decided to head out before traffic picked up on the one highway that led back to Denver.

By the time we walked from the restaurant to our rental car, the snowflakes were big and thick. It felt like we were really in a snowglobe. It was the most beautiful snow I'd ever seen!

We hurried to load 10 people's gear between our rental SUV and our friend's pickup. K was warming up the car, and he had turned up some music. Volbeat's "Still Counting" came on. It's a decently new song, and for some reason, it really makes me happy. There's a line in it (evidently it's actually "for betrayal, for betrayal") that I always sing the way I hear it: "a puppy trail, a puppy tray-hay-hayul." There's a funny dance that the beat always makes both K and I want to do, so we were goofing off doing the dance in the snow.

And one of my favorite things to do when it snows is to spin. I don't know why, but I think it's amazing. I go outside, and I stand in an open space, bring my arms up to my shoulders, turn my head to the sky, and spin. Something about the snow makes this an awesome experience.

So there I was, in the middle of the parking lot, laughing at the song, singing about a puppy trail, and spinning in the middle of a real-life snow globe.

Not a bad way to end Day 2.

Definitely not at all.

Colorado, Part 4 -- Or, How NOT to stop on a ski slope

Since you can collect some good stories when you go skiing for the first time, I'm sharing them in installments. Find out why my instructor called me "The Troublemaker," and then read about how I earned that nickname by having a screaming Tourette's tantrum on my first green slope. Then learn how I finally made it to the bottom on an intermediate slope.

We got to the top of the mountain on Day 2 around 10:30. K headed off to ski with one of our friends. I assured him I'd be OK doing a few warmup runs on the bunny slope by myself. As he and our friend walked away, I put on my skis. As soon as they were on, a feeling of uncertainty washed over me. All I could remember was the struggle, frustration and anxiety I had had on the supposed green slope at the end of my first day. Had I forgotten everything I'd learned?

I pushed myself forward in the direction of the bunny slope. The area I was on was level, so I wasn't exactly skiing yet, but I was nervous. I felt shaky.

When I got to the bunny slope, I realized I couldn't do it.

There were classes on the slope. Snowboarders. Skiers. Kids. Adults. Instructors, including mine. There were families. Friends. I was by myself. By myself on Day 2. After intense failure on Day 1.

I was stuck on what to do. I didn't want to call K because he was going to get in some good skiing with someone who knows what he's doing. I didn't want to go by myself because I had no confidence. I didn't want to bug my instructor because he had a new class of people to teach (and tell to avoid Schoolmarm).

I searched for people from my class, since several had said they'd be out that day. I couldn't see any of them.

So I took off my skis, and I sat at the top of the bunny slope. K had said he was going to do a couple loops with our friend. I couldn't imagine he'd be gone that long.

I felt stupid. We had paid $60 for a lift ticket, and I was wasting it. I thought about just hopping on the gondola and heading to the bar at the bottom of the mountain, where the one friend of ours who doesn't ski was hanging out. Since I figured that would be a bit dramatic, I stayed put. I felt like my semi-pouting was completely acceptable. No one else was skiing alone. Why should I?

When K showed up, he was surprised to see me sitting. He felt bad, since I'd told him I would warm up on my own, but he understood why my nerves had gotten the best of me. So we conquered them together.

We went down the bunny slope slow and easy. I took long, wide turns so I wouldn't gently bring myself back into it. When we reached the end of the slope where we'd ridden the Magic Carpet Ride (a Jetson's style conveyer path that takes you back to the top of the bunny slope), we curved to the left instead, where our friend told us the slope continued.

The curve to the left was a little steep, but not bad. Nothing like on Schoolmarm. Once you curved, though, on your right, there was a rope on the edge of the slope. Past the rope, there was a big dropoff. About 15 to 20 feet beyond that, there were trees. Basically, if you managed to slide under the rope, you'd fly into the trees and die. (Funny thing to line a bunny slope.)

On the left side of you after the curve, the mountain started climbing up again. There were trees a couple yards up, so there were mounds of snow at the base. If you hit the mounds of snow, coming down them could increase your speed, which (if you're going fast enough) could leave you flying to the right ... and under the rope and into the trees to your death.

Other than that one area, the slope was all right. Past the curve, there was a long straightaway (probably 100 yards, easily) that ended with a chair lift, just like our friend had said.

"This is exactly what I was wanting for you yesterday!" K said. It was awesome. Just enough slope to get me comfortable, and wide enough so I could practice turns. The base of the slope was perfect for me to pick up a little speed and try to stop quickly.

We went around several times. Each time, I picked up a little more speed. I weaved through snowboarders and skiers, anticipating their movements to plan out my path in the snow.

I was having fun.

"You're doing great! I'm so proud of you!" K kept saying.

I was always careful around the curve. In the beginning, I all but stopped before taking it. By the fourth or fifth time, I let myself keep a tiny bit of momentum going into it. And by the fifth or sixth time, I took it fast. I was a little nervous about my speed, but I'd gone pretty quickly the previous run, and it was fine. How else would I start going faster?

The slope in front of me was pretty clear, so I went with it. I was going so fast. Ridiculously fast! It was so much fun!

Up ahead of me, there was a little girl on the left of the slope, at the base of the trees. In the middle of the slope several yards ahead, a man was heading toward her. I decided to curve to the right around him. I moved my hips just a bit, and I continued to race forward.

But then he stopped. Or curved right again. I really can't remember what it was he did, but it was a move I hadn't seen coming.

Oh God.

I'm going to hit him.

I did the first thing I could think of: I applied my imaginary brakes, complete with sound effects. "ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!"

I turned my body to the side to try to slow myself down. Damnit, I'm not good at stopping yet!

I braced myself, and I crashed into the back of him. I collapsed into the snow, but he was still standing. "Ohmygosh, I'm so sorry! Are you OK?"

I looked up at the man. He had moved over so that he was now a few feet from my right side. He had a funny look on his face, as though he was still trying to process what had just happened.

"I'm so sorry! Are you OK?" I asked again.

Suddenly, his face changed. It was as though he had caught up with everything that had just happened.

"GET YOURSELF IN CONTROL, GOD D#MN IT!" he screamed over the mountain.

I'm pretty sure my eyes doubled in size. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to!"

He continued to scream and curse at me. What's funny is that while he was doing the screaming and cursing, he was mentioning that there were children on the slope.

K, who had been skiing behind me, took a step toward to him. "Sir, you need to calm down." I noticed K had removed his right glove.

"This a beginner's slope! You shouldn't be here!" the man said.

"She is a beginner. That's why we're here," K said.

The man said something along the lines of, "Well you shouldn't be flying through here like that. My daughter is over there!" (He was still yelling.)

"Well, what kind of example are you setting for her right now?" K asked.

That shut the man up. He headed over to his daughter, and they skied down the hill.

I was still sitting in the middle of the slope, with my left leg (and ski) underneath me. I was shocked, dumbfounded.

"Whoa ... um ... I'm the beginner, so I'm going to assume that was my fault, right? Or was it both ours? Be honest. You can totally tell me if it was all me. I need to know. I was probably going too fast, right?"

K said something. I was too busy replaying everything that had just happened to really hear it.

"You didn't do anything wrong," a voice said behind me. I turned. It was a ski instructor. He'd seen the whole thing. "Don't worry about that guy. I heard you try to warn him. You did everything you could."

I was so glad an instructor had seen the whole thing and was able to tell me I hadn't royally screwed up. An instructor would definitely tell me the truth (not that K wouldn't, it's just that he's biased).

"Do you think he's gonna apologize later, like maybe his initial reaction was to get pissed off?" I asked.

"No," K said quickly. "That guy's just an asshole. If he was gonna apologize, he would've done it right then."

I gave the man and his daughter plenty of time to get to the chair lift before we did. We went around the slope a couple more times, but I was completely gun shy, opting to work on my turns and my stopping (real stops, that is) the whole time instead of picking up much speed. I think K was a little disappointed that we'd had such a hit to my momentum, but it was understandable to have that reaction.

We decided to call it a day and take the gondola to the base of the mountain to get some lunch. When we stopped to take off our skis, the man and his daughter were a few feet away from us. I intentionally didn't move elsewhere because I was curious to know what the man would say if he saw us again.

And he did.

Oh my gosh, how could I leave you hanging? I know. I wanted to keep going. It's just too long as it is. The conclusion of the Colorado trip will be here tomorrow morning!

Colorado, Part 3 -- Or, How I managed to take an intermediate slope on my very first day

It turns out that you can collect some pretty good stories when you go skiing for the first time. To avoid a ridiculously long blog post telling you all of those stories at once, I've gone with installments. Find out why my instructor called me "The Troublemaker" here, and then read here about how I earned that nickname by having a screaming Tourette's tantrum on my first green slope ... in front of children. Not that they heard me. Those a-holes were flying!

Thank goodness my husband is smart enough to know that I wasn't going to make it down the mountain on my own, but nice enough not to make me say that I needed the Ski Patrol to rescue me. And it was even as though God wanted to make the move easier: At the bottom of the steep cliff in front us, there was a break in the trees, an entrance to another slope. But what sat at the corner of that crossroads was one of the most beautiful sights I could have imagined: a Ski Patrol sign. With a phone underneath it.

K, who has been skiing pretty much since he could walk, flew down the hill to the phone. Since (no matter what method you use) it's easier to get down the mountain than to climb back up it -- and since I wasn't sure how long we'd be waiting on Ski Patrol -- I relied on my favorite this-cliff-is-way-too-steep method to narrow the gap between K and me: sliding on my a$$ down the hill. K took my skis and planted the bottoms in the snow so they were standing behind us.

It was only a few minutes before K, who was facing the top of the slope, said, "Here we go." I had hoped for a snow mobile, but I didn't hear anything. Before I could even turn my head, my method of rescue was resting in front of me. I was mortified by what I saw.

So mortified that I immediately started crying.

My "snow mobile" was a man with a long sled behind him that had a pole attached on each side of the front end. So because I was intimidated by the cliffs and grade of the slope, this man standing before me was going to have to ski my wimpy butt down the rest of the mountain.

(My knight on skis with his rescue sled looked something like this. Although this isn't him. This isn't even Keystone. I got this from AmericanIdle.com. Because I'm the one who always takes pictures, and I was a bit busy at this point. Busy crying, remember?)

The man greeted us. Made sure we were the ones who called. He looked at me, still sitting pathetically in the snow. "Do we have any injuries?"

"Just my pride." He laughed and said something about how that made his job easier (the lack of injuries, not the injured pride). He asked where we were headed. When we told him, he said, "Gooood! That means when I'm finished with you guys, I get to go to the lodge and relax and have a beer!"

K was trying to figure out why I was crying. I explained. (In case you forgot, it's in the paragraph above the picture. Also, I really didn't cry long -- only a few seconds. There was just a lot going on in those few seconds.)

My rescuer had heard my explanation. "Well, where are you from?" he asked.

[sniff] "Oklahoma." [sniff]

"Well then this is to be expected!" my rescuer said as though that explained everything. "You guys don't have mountains like this in Oklahoma!"

"I know! I've never even seen skiers until this weekend. And this is the most snow I've ever seen in my life. By the way, this is NOT a green slope!"

K chimed in. "Yeah, this is nothing like the greens in Pennsylvania."

"Imagine that!" my rescuer said. "The mountains aren't as steep in Pennsylvania either." He had a good-natured way of teasing that didn't make you get defensive.

Me rescuer turned to me. "If it makes you feel better, I've already done this 3 times today."

K asked my rescuer how long he'd been ... well, rescuing people. "Seventeen or 18 years," he said. "We've kind of lost count."

My rescuer told me to climb in the sled and to grab the reigns between my legs, as though I were riding a bull. He even told me to resist the temptation to let my right arm fly like I was riding a bull. (Seriously, best-natured rescuer ever!)

When he had me all loaded up, just before he grabbed the poles on the front of the sled, he turned to K. "Are you a good skier?" K nodded. "OK, great!" He turned to me. "Since we don't have any injuries to worry about, I'm going to take it a little faster than I normally would, OK? Just hang on!"

And we were off.

We were flying! I was actually worried we were going to catch some air and I'd fly off the sled. But my rescuer was very capable. He flew down the smooth slopes, and when we hit the cliffs, he turned his body completely sideways, with his skis almost on top of each other. We were still going quickly, but it kept us in control and kept me inside the sled.

Then, my rescuer turned us onto a blue slope -- an intermediate slope. I looked to the side and saw K skiing confidently and quickly just behind us. (My husband is a good skier!)

Where I sat on my rescue sled made me the perfect target for the spray of snow from my rescuer's skis. Slightly because of that, and slightly because of the cliffs ... and slightly because of the speed, I closed my eyes a couple times on our ride down the hill.

Which was over in a matter of a couple minutes.

"Is it pathetic that I was actually scared just riding on a sled down that hill?" I asked. My rescuer laughed. "You really are a superhero. You know that, right?" As far as I was concerned, for his insane skiing skill -- all while carting me down the mountain -- and for getting me to the bottom so unbelievably quickly, he was a superhero.

K and I thanked him and headed on our way. As we walked, K even commented about how fast we'd gone. "I was skiing full speed just to keep up!" I was glad K had gotten at least a little good skiing in for the afternoon.

"Hey," he said, "now you can tell everyone you went down an intermediate slope on your first day!"

We headed back to the condo for dinner. The 8 other people (all guys, by the way) staying in the house are rock stars at either skiing or snowboarding, so they were eager to hear how my lesson and first day went. K had said he wouldn't tell them about the Ski Patrol, but I told him I didn't deserve that treatment for wussing out on the hill (even though I did make it halfway down on my own through various techniques).

When we finished telling them our Schoolmarm-1, me-0 story, one of our friends (the one person there who actually lives in Colorado) brought up the bunny slope: "You didn't take the whole thing?"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He explained that on one side of it, the slope curved to the left. It went on a good distance longer, and you take a ski lift back to the top.

"Are you kidding me?!" We had seen the curve, but we assumed it went on to some slope I wasn't ready for. How could we have missed that?

I suddenly had a lot more hope for Day 2 of skiing. Little did I know, it would bring me an even crazier story than Day 1.

An even crazier story? What the heck am I talking about? Find out here!

Colorado, Part 2 -- Or, How I got schooled by Schoolmarm

It turns out that you can collect some pretty good stories when you go skiing for the first time. To avoid a ridiculously long blog post telling you all of those stories at once, I'm going with installments. See the first post here. Seriously, read it first.

We headed over to the green slope, Schoolmarm, which was just a few yards away from the bunny slope. Surely it would be harmless, right? How could something I wasn't ready for be so close to the bunny slope? K assured me we could stop whenever I wanted.

I took a deep breath as I looked down the slope in front of me. I lifted my goggles and scratched my eyebrow. "It keeps itching," I said. I tightened my glove straps. Adjusted my helmet. Pulled out my camera to take a picture.

Shifted my goggles again to scratch my eyebrow (again). "You know I'm kind of stalling, right?"

"I'd picked up on that," K said patiently.

After a couple more fidgets, I said, "OK ... let's go." I pushed myself forward. I started making broad turns so I'd go slowly down the mountain. It worked, until the slope increased. When I felt like I was going too fast, I made myself fall over. I skidded for a bit, and my ski actually came off. I passed it and continued to skid a bit farther down the mountain.

K, who had been skiing behind me, picked up my ski and headed toward me. "Good job! That's what you should do if you feel like you're going too fast."

I looked at the slope in front of us and saw a cliff. The slope was a lot steeper for several feet below it. It wasn't exactly a dropoff, but it was more than I was ready to tackle on my first day. K assured me I could to it. "You know everything you need to know. You're a skier. Just keep doing your turns and you'll be fine."

Skiers and snowboarders were flying by us. Children were flying by us (a-holes!).

I settled on the tactic of plowing down the steep decline. I brought the front of my skis together and turned my ankles out as far as I could to keep my pace slow. Before long, though, the slope won out and my speed was more than I had wanted. I made myself fall again, and this time, both skis stayed on.

The slopes ahead showed more cliffs. Many more. "This isn't what I thought it would be! This is steep!"

K agreed. "This wouldn't be a green slope in Pennsylvania." That made me feel better. I wasn't a complete wuss after all! "Look, though. The slope isn't as bad as you think it is."

I looked to my left, at the side of the slope. The angle of the slope against the horizon wasn't exactly close to a 45 degree angle, but it was a lot closer to an obvious triangle than I wanted it to be. "That's plenty steep to me!"

But still, I picked myself up and headed down again. I was relying almost entirely on the plowing tactic now. Again and again, I plowed down, picked up speed, and opted to fall.

This was taking forever. It was starting to get dark. I was ready to stop. I wanted a ski lift. Evidently the only one nearby led to a steeper slope, rather than the bottom of the mountain. The only way to get down was on skis. "But you said I could stop whenever I want! I want to stop now!"

"I meant we could take a break whenever you want."

At that, I decided to throw a screaming Tourette's temper tantrum in the middle of the mountain. "THIS IS F*#KING RIDICULOUS! THIS IS NOT A GREEN SLOPE! I'M NOT READY FOR THIS SHIT! I CAN'T EVEN PUT MY OWN F*#KING BOOTS ON YET! THIS IS HORSE SHIT! ..."

K had started losing his patience. My outburst didn't help. He kicked into Army leadership mode. "I have never seen you quit before!" He gave me a look of disappointment. I wasn't phased (or motivated).

I suddenly remembered why our instructor had told us not to try the green slope that day: He didn't want us to end our first day of skiing on a bad note. I made the mistake of telling that to K.

"Thanks," he said. "That makes me feel great." He had already apologized several times along the mountain. Like me, he hadn't expected the slopes to be so steep. He felt like it was all his fault.

"Will you stop apologizing?! You didn't make me go on this slope. I chose to. Besides, this isn't about you right now. It's about me and the fact this should NOT be labeled a green slope. I think it's more of a teal." (Blue is the color that represents intermediate slopes. Since teal is blue-green, I felt it would be a more appropriate label, even though there's no such thing as a "teal" slope.)

I was still sitting on the ground the way I'd made myself fall. K was getting antsy. "Do you want me to call Ski Patrol?"

"No." But I wasn't going to ski down that cliff either. Somewhere in his Army leadership mode, K had (probably jokingly) asked if I was going to slide down the mountain on my ass. That seemed to be the best option, so I went with it.

K grabbed my skis, which I'd taken off so I could slide easier, and flew down the mountain to burn off steam. He stopped at the base of the giant cliff, where the slope leveled out a bit. I had slid at least 50 yards when two snowboarders came by and slowed beside me. "You missing something?" one of them asked, looking around for my skis. It was slightly embarrassing to explain to them where they were. The guys both gave me weird, "I don't want to get into this" looks and continued down the mountain.

A minute or two later, I was by K again. I mounted my skis, and we continued down the mountain. More speed, another fall. The lights had come on at the edges of the slopes. It would be dark soon.

We were about halfway down the mountain*. The road and shops at the base still looked so, so far away. It had taken us a long time (not sure exactly, but it felt like a f*#cking lifetime) to come this far. I didn't know how we'd make it to the bottom. The cliff just before us looked even worse than the ones that had given us trouble before.

"Do you want me to call Ski Patrol?"

"No. ...

"I don't know ..."

Wanna know how we made it down the mountain? Or even IF we made it down the mountain? Find out here!

*I just googled "Schoolm@rm Key$tone" to get specific info on the slope, and I just discovered that it's the longest freaking slope in the entire freaking resort. Fan-freaking-tastic.

Colorado, Part 1 -- Or, How I went from 'The Troublemaker' to the head of the class

It turns out that you can collect some pretty good stories when you go skiing for the first time. To avoid a ridiculously long blog post telling you all of those stories at once, I'll go with installments.

I signed up for beginner skiing lessons for my first full day in Colorado. The lessons began at 10:30, and our instructor gradually introduced us to the basics of skiing. It was after noon when we finally started actually skiing, with a ski on each foot, poles in hand, and headed forward on a gentle downward slope.

Our instructor had told us earlier in the day that by the end of our lesson, some of us would naturally progress to an intermediate-level skill called a "wedge christie." He didn't explain what this was, but he said he'd point it out if he saw any of us doing it.

All day I had felt like the dunce of the class. At the very beginning of our lesson, the instructor had jokingly labeled me "The Troublemaker" for having two pairs of socks on (he said a baselayer is plenty; anything more can cause chafing) and for not knowing how to remove my own boots when I decided to take off said extra pair of socks. Plus, I'm not a natural athlete, so sports never come easily for me, and I always worry too much about looking like a jackass in my attempts at learning. And I'd managed to fall 3 times in the course of the lesson.

So imagine my surprise when the instructor pointed me out -- me!!! -- as being the one who was doing the wedge christie. Score!

By 2:30 (4 hours into the lesson!), I was pretty tired. We still had about 30 to 45 minutes left. I couldn't wait to rest and relax after we were done.

That all changed once K came by to meet me. Our instructor was giving each of the 7 people in our class individual things to work on. When he got to me, he proudly told K about my natural progression to an intermediate-level skill. He told me to work on my speed and on faster turns.

My ready-to-rest attitude disappeared with my instructor's praise and my excitement to show K my new skiing skillz. We went down the bunny slope together a few times.

"Look at you!" K said proudly. "You're not even plowing!" (Plowing involves bringing the front of your skis together, forming an upside-down V, to make you go slower down the hill. Beginners often heavily rely on plowing.)

After another time or two down the ridiculously short bunny slopes (we're talking maybe 30 yards), K started mentioning the nearby green slope. "I think you're ready," he said. "You know everything you need to know to ski." He said the green slope would be like the bunny slopes, just longer.

I was definitely ready for longer [THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!!!]. But the instructor had explicitly told us all not to tackle a green slope that day. I wasn't sure I was ready for that just yet.

A young guy working the bunny slope overheard us discussing the green slope. "It's mellow," he said.

"Really? Well, if he says it's mellow, then I guess we can try it," I said.

"Well, I mean, it's mellow compared to all the other slopes here."

His sudden disclaimer had me a bit worried, but I pushed it aside.

"OK," I said to K. "We'll give it a shot."

To find out if I went through with it, read part 2 here.

Some reward for all that hard work!

K and I are back in VA now. We've been back almost a week, actually. In that time, I've stayed busy unpacking, cleaning around the house, and doing yard work.

It turns out our yard accumulates quite a bit of leaves if you leave (ba-dum, ching!) them to build up all season long. When I saw our neighbors had yet again raked their tiny back yard, I decided it was time to deal with our leaves.

On Wednesday, I bought us a rake and got to work. I accidentally locked myself out of the house, so I was forced to get it all done in one day. K was able to get out of work a little early, so he got home at about 4:30 to let me back in. In the 3.5 hours I'd spent stuck outside with the rake, I got some pretty nasty blisters at the base of my thumbs, but I got our yard from this:

to this. I was surprised to see that our grass is still green!

Once K got home, we spent an hour or so trying to bag up all the leaves. At that point, it was getting dark and starting to rain, so we quit for the night.

On Thursday, I set out to pick up a few more piles. It was in the 40s and drizzling, but I wanted to get as many up as I could since the forecast called for wind and rain for the next few days. After a couple hours, the yard was done, and so was I with the outdoors and the cold.

Unfortunately, the cold was just getting started with me. By Friday night, I was pretty congested. In the past 48 hours, I've made my way through an entire box of Kleenex and several doses of Dayquil & Nyquil ... and that's about all I've done.

Hopefully one more dose of Nyquil will leave me feeling better. I've got a lot of catching up to do in Blogland!

NYE 2010 totally kicked NYE 2009's butt

Remember that time it changed from 2009 to 2010? It turned out to be a pretty good time for me.

The holiday has always been big for K and me. We spent our first New Year's together in Times Square for the start of 2006. We rang in 2007 in Boston. Both trips were planned in the days after Christmas. Both trips were awesome. (Remember, K was in Iraq for both 2008 & 2009 New Year's celebrations.)

We had friends who tried to get us to join them for a cruise to Mexico, but we wanted something simpler for our trip. I suggested to K that we go to Buffalo. I've never been to Niagara Falls, and Buffalo wouldn't be too far from K's dad's house, where we'd be for Christmas. So that became the plan.

Niagara Falls was awesome. We made plans to go again sometime in warmer weather (that will give K time to get his passport so we can head over to the Canadian side, which evidently offers the best view of the Horseshoe Falls).

We actually wound up taking the Cave of the Mist tour, which is an elevator ride that takes you down to the bottom of the falls. We had originally been unsure whether we'd want to mess with the tour since it was cold and a little foggy that day, but the tour wound up being absolutely worth every penny. Seeing the bottom of the falls was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life! It was actually frozen!

We got to see a little of the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls too, and after we rode the elevator back to the top of the falls, we saw a black squirrel! (Until then, we'd only seen brown or gray.)

After the Falls, we headed back to Buffalo for lunch and to watch my Sooners beat Stanford in the Sun Bowl. We had to check out Anchor Bar, which is where Buffalo wings were invented. They were delicious!

The city seems to be pretty proud of its culinary creation. This statue was a few blocks from Anchor Bar, just on the side of the road in front of some random building.

For New Year's, we just headed out to downtown Buffalo. I had wondered if I would look like an idiot for wearing a sleeveless tank top with a camisole over it. Granted, I was wearing insulated boots and a ski coat, but still, we were in Buffalo. It's not exactly known for comfortable weather.

I was surprised at the number of oblivious girls roaming the icy streets in stilettos and nonexistent dresses. Many of them weren't even wearing coats! I made a game of capturing their intelligence on camera.

We actually didn't realize it until after we started planning our trip to Buffalo, but it turns out that the city has the 3rd-largest ball drop in the country, behind NYC & Atlanta. We found ourselves a pretty decent spot to watch the show, and there was a 10-minute fireworks display after the ball dropped! (The first picture below is pre-ball drop. The second is after [hence the fireworks].) :) It had started snowing in the hour before midnight, so it was the perfect Buffalo experience.

After the fireworks were over, we headed back to the bar for a while longer. I guess if you like to party, Buffalo is the place to be: Many of the bars actually get 24-hour liquor licenses for New Year's.

Considering we had started our beer consumption with our buffalo wing and football lunch (You're supposed to drink beer with wings, and you're supposed to drink beer while watching college football. We don't make the rules; we just follow 'em.), even pacing yourself can catch up to you over the course of 12 hours.

So at about 2 or 2:30 a.m., the beer and sleepiness were beginning to hit me. "Sweet Home Alabama" came on, which made me very excited. I sang every single word. I was the only person in the bar who seemed to care about the song (weirdos). I was appalled when the entire bar erupted and sang along enthusiastically to "Mr. Jones" and then "Santeria" (both of which I hate). It was at that moment that the beer and sleepiness really hit me, and I stepped outside the bar. K was soon behind me, and before I realized what was happening, I was the drunk girl crying outside. Because ohmygosh, I totally just realized we're practically in Canada, and these are obviously not my people. I miss the South.

I thought for a split second that maybe I should be ashamed for being the drunk crying girl outside the bar ... until I realized that everyone in the bar had more reason to be ashamed than I did for the spectacle that had upset me in the first place.

The bar was still going strong, but we'd gotten a pretty good headstart on all the college kids (they seriously didn't come out until 10!). Considering it was nearing 3 a.m., we decided to call it a night.

We had a blast on our little trip. We're already planning on going back to Niagara Falls some spring or summer to get the full experience. I'll just remember to not quite go for the full experience in the Buffalo bar scene. Pretty sure I've already got that one covered!