We'll be coming down the mountain....

Last Wednesday I ran around the house frantically packing despite the fact that I had spent hours the day before making various piles throughout the house. Pile of coats. Pile of mittens and gloves. Pile of socks, snowboots, goggles, hats, etc... Piles of doggie belongings for her journey down the street to Coolboots K9 Camp. It doesn't matter how behind on packing I might be but the house has GOT to be clean before I can leave. The last thing I want to come home to is a messy house in need of a scrub. As I cleaned out the fridge and accumulated a nice sink full of food that wouldn't withstand the five day absence, the garbage disposal konked out in memorable fashion. After a stomach-turning disposal of the disposal contents we swooped through the school, picked up the kids, met our convoy partners and headed north to Lubbock, our pit stop halfway to Red River, New Mexico.

In case you had forgotten....Texas is big. It's like a whole other country I've heard tell. We traveled through small towns, bigger small towns, wind farms with eerily synchronized red flashing lights for miles and miles in the west Texas blackness, before finally making Lubbock around midnight. Whew. Long day.

Next day we finished the trek and made Red River in time to get all equipment, lift tickets, ski school reservations and even a swim in the pool (seriously???!). CCC and I peeked out the door long enough to get a photo but I stand firm in my belief that if snow is piled up around the pool then one should not be swimming in it. That's just me.


We hit the slopes bright and early the next day, enjoying some grown-up ski time while the kids spent their all-too-brief time in ski school. The weather was fantastic, the snow was really good, especially for New Mexico, and the crowds were relatively thin.



I did experience one of those split-second moments that seem as if the wheels of time suddenly get stuck and every second ticks by like minutes. Bubble Boy, CC, MC and Little A had just come down from an afternoon up the mountain killing the slopes, they get to the bunny slope, I'm hearing about the awesome-ness of Little A's abilities, when I look 30 feet below me where a snowboarder (f@&%ing snowboarders!) is careening down, out of control. He's digging in with his heels, making that infamous snowboard scraping sound, but still seeming to flail forward. Little A is innocently skiing along, so proud of what he's done. The snowboarder is headed straight at him. I see this. I know it's going to happen. But I'm too far away and what could I do even if I were closer? He's a grown man hurtling down a slope totally out of control. The snowboard hits, knocks A off his feet, he's falling backwards. Snowboarder is trying to fall forward over him. They're both down. Snowboarder is on top. I don't remember getting there, but I'm there, pulling A up. He's wiping the snow from his face looking stunned. Are you OK? Are you hurt? There's snow in my jacket, he says. Snowboarder looking dreadingly at me, expectantly waiting for me to get my maternal freak on. He offers lame apology. I decide it's better to say nothing. Relief that we've avoided what could have been something really, really bad. All is well until 30 minutes later A slips and face plants into packed snow, scraping up his face. My fault for asking him to stop climbing on the outside of the deck railing.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Snow TripZ

I lost my glove from the chair lift trying to get this photo. It was worth it. Right after this shot, Little A asked me what my favorite thing was. You and Big E, I say.

His favorite thing in the wide, wide world? Skiing.

Good trip.