Of course there’s a story.

And there are going to be more words than pictures. Not because I am wordy (which I am) but because it is really hard to take pictures with a slippery iPhone 7 while skiing. Plus I was a photo taking slacker.

Anyway…

This was not my first time skiing. My first time was when I was 12. And it was awful. Like stupid awful.

I didn’t have waterproof pants. I’m pretty sure I was just wearing sweats. And the skis did not have brakes. So every time I crashed (and that was a lot) the skis went flying down the mountain. And I had to chase them.

The next time was a little better. Not the skiing part. I was still terrible at that. But I did have proper gear and skis.

I continued to go up with my good friend Tanya. She’d drive her Toyota 4×4 and I learned to ski alongside her. We had a blast. So many good memories. I wish I had a photo from those days.

There’s also the bratty memory of me throwing a fit because I wanted to wear her new ski gear and not the old stuff. Mind you I didn’t even have anything of my own. So the polite, respectful Angie would have been ever so thankful for the opportunity to use anything at all. But the proper, respectful Angie was buried deep on that day.

So Tanya if you are reading this: I’m sorry I was such a brat. Thank you for always being such a good friend regardless.

My husband on the other hand skied like a badass for years. He would ride the ski bus up to Stevens every Saturday starting in middle school and he and his friends made many amazing memories too. He was close to Jaxon’s age in these.

Then this one day while I was away my freshman year of college, I remember getting a phone call from Tanya. She was telling me all about this accident that Beau had while skiing. He’d broken his jaw and it was wired shut and he had to slurp his pudding through a straw.

We weren’t dating then. We were just from a small town and everyone was friends with everyone. It wasn’t until a couple years later when we became a couple that I learned the whole ugly story.

He really is lucky. It could have been way worse. Although he’ll say, “If I were lucky I wouldn’t have landed on the damn ski at all.

He’d taken a girl up to teach her how to ski. His mom made him. It was the daughter of someone she worked with. He’d taken his skis off to help her and then he snapped his boot back in too quickly. There was snow packed in and it didn’t latch properly.

He proceeded to go off a jump and attempt a daffy. Well his ski flew off, landed in the snow upright and his face landed on it.

Broken jaw. Gaping gash through his face requiring 100 some stitches inside and out of his mouth. A bumpy ride down the mountain and to the hospital. Surgery. A jaw wired shut. And 8 weeks of pure torture for him not being able to move his jaw. Or eat. Or talk. Poor guy.

It didn’t keep him off the skis.

He’s tough like that. And determined. I see a lot of him in Jaxon. Those two make me proud.

He went a few times in the last 19 years that we’ve been together, but we never went skiing together.

Last year we took Jaxon up, but he wanted to snowboard, so Beau took one for the team and rented himself a snowboard.

He said never again. While he could do it, he hates having to bind and unbind and the falls hurt way worse (especially as our age is ever increasing).

Jaxon picked it up quick, but didn’t want to be the only one snowboarding. So this year, everyone got new skis and up we went.

Emilee and Jordan rode up with us to go sledding and to do a little filming. But that didn’t pan out because sledding is “prohibited”. They just hung out in the lodge and played in the snow a little bit.

We sort of made a mistake and took Jaxon up Hogsback for his first run. That took forever to get down. He psyched himself out and got pretty frustrated.

Beau was itching to go on some bigger runs. So he took off and Jaxon and I stuck to Daisy practicing turns. He did awesome and we went back up to conquer Hogsback a couple more times. He learns fast, that kid.

Then the power went out. Everything went pitch black. I mean pitch black.

And we were stuck on a lift.

Emilee was filming while it happened…pretty cool to capture the moment:

 

It took about 15 minutes for the power to come back on.

But that definitely added to the adventure of being on skis next to my husband for the first time.

I wish I could ski like him.

Maybe one day.

That’s all for now,

Adventure awaits.