Does This Seem Fair?

Elizabeth and Anika are heading to Utah with some friends on Thursday to go skiing for six days. Oh. And they are staying in the Stein Erikson Lodge. Yaah! POSH! AND... I heard that Utah was hit--or is being hit--with a HUGE amount of snow. I also heard that deer mountain is for skiers only! Eeewww Hoity Toity... can't have any of those low-life snow boarders around.

What do I get? Well... I get to help them afford ($$) to do this trip. I get to go shopping for their last minute neccesities. I get to rummage through all our ski stuff and help them find what they need. I get to help Elizabeth pack during my busy busy week. I get to "sit" at home, wondering how everything is going all week, hoping and praying that they are safe and sound. I get to cover their chores while they are off galavanting around the Rockies! I get to have Caleigh trying to sleep in my bed every night because her roommate is out of town.

I definitely have the tail end of this deal!

Youth Retreat 09

I figured it out

I know I look R E A L L Y G O O D here... but I figured out why I don't "really" look THAT great in a hat! It's because I have no visable eyebrows... and I'm too lazy to wear make-up. Well, I'm not exactly lazy... I just don't have time for that kind of stuff.

So, now that we've established that I have no eyebrows to speak of... what's with the mustache?

Below is a video... it's mainly of Anika in the beginning. She's in the red, gray and white coat. But if you look closely, you can also see me in the distance heading toward a jump. I had no speed and was planning to just make it to the top of the pitch and glide over... but I didn't make it and ended up going backwards back down the slope into a heap. It was all in good fun (although my cell phone put a mongo bruise on my hip). Next you'll see Nico in the tan coat and then Nate sitting there with the astronaut googles. Next is Luke in the blue checkered pants and then you'll see a bunch of snow (you may get motion sick from watching) and finally, you'll kind of see a few of them taking the jumps. Terry was filming. The clip is nothing great. Just a glimpse of our good times.

I have bragging rights--although no one got it on film.

BJ and I took advantage of the race course for much of the second day. There was an announcer at the top at the starting gate, which triggered the timer for each racer, and there was a camera finish at the end to give proper run times. Well! T and I raced 5 times against each other and I beat him 4 out of 5. YESSSSS!! He even waxed his skis. He then went down alone and beat all of our times... so he has bragging rights for that. And I also raced Mike twice. He beat me fair and square the first time, and the second time by a mere .02 of a second, but was disqualified for going through my finish flags. HAHHAA. SO I WON!! I think he was trying to take me out at the finish! But I'm too swift.

As you can tell... we're not very competitive.

When I got home from the retreat, Nicki brought over an amazing cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory!!! YUM! and today one of the youth members, Samantha, brought over dinner. You GUYS ROCK!!!

We Are the Champions of the World...

hahaha... I feel like we conquered something in our travels North. We got out the door by 7:15 am--a feat in itself--in order to catch the New London ferry. The snow started just about the time the ferry left Orient Point. After an hour and a half it was snowing hard and fast. The rest of the trip took twice as long. Nine hours vs. the five hours it took to get home.

Once we checked into the hotel, the three men of the family headed back out in the weather to the mountain. Night Skiing!! We girls stayed behind to swim, and order dominos for dinner, and watch the New Year's Eve TV programming. The guys snowboarded and skied for about 5 hours in -8 F temps. CONQUERING THE ELEMENTS, THEY WERE! As were we...

The next morning we all got up (all 8 ogf us), had breakfast, got dressed for the cold and made it on to the slopes by 9:00. IT WAS FREAKING COLD! about 2 degrees F not counting windchill. We could get one or two runs in and then have to come in to get warm. But everyone had a good time. It was a great way to start the new year. Family time!

The following day, we packed up the car and headed to the mountain one more time before the trip home. By the second day, the beginners basically knew how to ski and were ready to hit it. No more practice was needed on the bunny slope. We eventually got everyone, including Caleigh and Elizabeth on a blue run (not that it was great for them--but they did it). No one got hurt either--not badly anyway. Terry busted his shoulder on the first night. He was sore. Still is. And Luke hurt his hand the last day on a terrain-park jump, but no hospital runs to contend with. Caleigh fell when getting off the ski lift on our final run. SHE WAS SO MAD ABOUT IT TOO!!! It was all Jennah's fault because Jennah didn't help her--but Caleigh told Jennah she could do it by herself and didn't need help. I'm such a good mom to let Caleigh tough it out with her sister.

I wish I knew how to get pictures off my phone--because I only took my real camera up the mountain twice, and those were the only two times that I couldn't find the others in order to take pictures of their amazing tricks and all (small mountain)... so I resorted to camera phone pics... and those are stuck on my phone.

January 2nd was WAY CROWDED! and warmer too.

Anyway HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! And thanks to everyone who sent Christmas cards and pictures. Lovved them all. I didn't send ANYTHING out this year--so don't think I forgot about you. Maybe I'll send something in January, cuz I have to send a change of address to people anyway.

Here it is--what you've all been waiting for...

I'm still pretty wiped out from the trip and so is Terry. He has a tremendous chunk of things to tackle back at work. I've been tackling my fair share at home. Just when I think I can't do another thing (like vacuum or clean the bunny cage or empty the dishwasher or do the bills or take a shower) I have to force myself. I am amazingly disciplined (har har). What I really want is to take a nap.

Anyway... here are some pictures from our Winter Youth Retreat 2008. (Photo editing WAS my top priority, of course). You can click on the photo collections below for a closer look.






Our activites included driving for miles and miles... Goofing around and being absolutely ridiculously funny...Playing arcades games... Taping kids up to the wall to see how long they could hang there... Teaching kids how to ski and then convincing them to go beyond their fears...(This can backfire btw, as you'll see below)

Building ramps and lining up volunteers to jump over...

Watching skiers and snowboarders descend the mountain with torches just before the fireworks display... Having the best room of girls... Ice skating on a flooded parking lot...

Of course, eating (this picture is so funny to me, sorry Terry)...

We also had some "talks" and worship and other things I'm probably forgetting... playing cards, wrestling, four-legged races, tubing, yada yada...

And then there was Nate's infamous attempt at a back flip... this was a jump they all built just outside the youth dorm.

Nate! Are you alright?
Nate! Are you alright?

Phew! He's fine. Everyone is fine. He just had to try it. There was no stopping him--so like a good mom and dad, we at least went out to watch... and take pictures.

WAAAAAYYYYY KOOOOOOL!

It was an awesome and completely fun youth retreat to Sunday River Ski Resort. Can I say... that mountain was enormous!! Incredible, really. I loved it! Now I know, we don't have to go all the way to Colorada or Utah to ski... at least for a few more years. And the kids (24 teens) were a lot of fun. I enjoyed them a lot.

It was a pretty nasty snow storm in which we had to drive through on the way home. The Burb (pet name for our Suburban) handles perfectly well. Our new 25 passenger church bus did very well also. It's definitely one way to break in a brand new vehicle--take the youth group on an 8 hour trip.

There will be pictures, video clips and stories to follow... when I get around to it. Let me say this--my kids are CAH-RAZY!! They make me proud (sometimes--ahem). I can hardly wait to show you a few of the videos of the boys jumping their man-made snow ramp. They didn't get quite enough time on the slopes. They had to come back to the youth dorm and continue the fun out back. HOLY SMOKES!! It was totally sick, yo.

Gone Skiin'

Be back on Friday...