steamboat

I just got back from one of the best vacations of my life and how often do you get to say that?! So excuse my absence. I'm sure all 5 of you have been checking for updates ruthlessly. 

For months, Brian and I have been planning a vacation for February, which turned into a skiing vacation, which turned into a skiing vacation with 7 of his college friends. As the only non-skier in the group, I had been a little apprehensive about the whole endeavor. I'd been snowboarding one time, and it left me with bruises and tear stains, so I have been praying for months that, as everyone promised, skiing would be easier. I'd even been doing skiing-muscle-specific workouts for the last 6 weeks, which included buying rollerblades...that's right...and we now are the social outcasts in the neighborhood. Anyway, I was hoping I would at least tolerate the sport, because Brian skiied competitively in high school and it's something we both really wanted to share. But, I had no idea I'd be opening up this incredible Pandora's box. As it turns out, skiing is insanely fun and I like falling now! At one I faceplanted on a blue and was laughing so hard that I was crying as I skidded down face-first because all I could think about was how I looked like a Mrs. Potatohead losing all her parts. 

Colorado was a phenomenal backdrop for such a great trip, and it felt so natural to be there that it almost scared me (pretty sure I'm a hot-weather kind of girl?). But my mom pointed out that it's bred into me, because she and my dad both loved going there when they were younger, and my dad took me camping there in his burnt orange 70s minivan, pimped out with shag carpet, several times when I was a little kid. He had talked a lot about retiring there and had visited the Denver area last February just before he got sick, which is why we thought it would be appropriate for us to visit a year later and take some of his ashes there. We found the perfect spot on our first day, this beautiful river that went right through town but was totally secluded from people wandering by. It brought me a little more closure and made me happy to know we had taken part of him back to the place he loved most. Tears aside, it was a great start to an amazing trip, and the only bad thing to come out of Steamboat is that now I have to figure out how I'm going to afford the most expensive hobby on Earth...