Snow Buddies!

Well, we are back after a great weekend in Big Bear with our friends. We left on Friday afternoon and all (Jeremy and Nicole, Travis and Harmony, and us) loaded into a car to head up to the mountains at about 2pm. We hit a little bit of traffic but we think that we made it to the cabin at about 6pm. As we turned down the street of the cabin, we joked about having to shovel snow when we got there...hmm...well, the joke was on us! As we got closer to the cabin, we overshot it, realizing that the driveway was officially covered in snow. With no other option, Jeremy and Aaron grabbed the 2 shovels and got to work. Us girls decided to walk down to any house with lights on in the hopes of borrowing some other shovels to help out. A neighbor lent us 2 metal shovels even though she was pretty nervous to let us have them (um, who would really want to steal shovels, ma'am) and the shoveling continued. I'm so glad that Nicole took a few photos of this adventure!

That's me in the back, shoveling the softer snow. Aaron and the rest of the boys had the lovely task of attacking the snow closest to the street which was a lot more like ice...solid ice.


We would guess that the snow was about 2-3 feet high. After about 2 hours of shoveling, we woofed down the pizza that Jeremy and Nicole went to get for all of us for dinner. Even though we were all pretty ready for bed once we had full tummies, we loaded back into the car to go rent our skis and get some groceries for breakfast. After we finished those errands, the other 2 couples, Kelly and Ryan and Mike and Kristin, arrived at the cabin. They also had to shovel a little bit to make room for both cars when they showed up! After figuring out where everyone was going to sleep, we all pretty much hit the sack for a full (and early) day of skiing on Saturday.

We knew that it was probably going to be pretty packed on the mountain so we planned to head to the resort at 7am. It definitely paid off because our guess was spot on--it was packed! While we waited in line to get our lift tickets, we were able to take a few photos.

The gals--Harmony, Nicole, and me!

Team Durango (the car we drove up in)
We were on our first lift by about 8am. I knew it would be a good day because I didn't fall getting off the ski lift, woo hoo! Unfortunately, my first run was less than lovely. I actually didn't fall the entire day but--let's just say that Aaron was kind to me as I dealt with my love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with skiing. I actually kind of enjoy it once I get going, but I am almost always cold (even when we are not in the snow) and so that is hurdle #1 with me and snow sports. The other thing about skiing is that I have a pretty unhealthy mix of fear and frustration
with it. I'm actually genuinely afraid of falling down so that prevents me from really picking up a lot of speed or taking chances as I make my way down the mountain. And then the frustration kicks in when I realize that I have such an unwarranted fear of falling! Anyway, things definitely got better as the morning went on and we ended up having a great time before meeting up with the crew at lunch.

The obligatory chair lift picture

Isn't the view amazing?

At lunch, we had to decide if we were going to do one of 2 things: 1) stay for the afternoon and take dull advantage of our day pass or 2) turn in our day pass and get a voucher for $19 and come back for $10 to night ski. The issue with night skiing was that we would have to go back to the rental place and rent for another full day. By now, the weather was getting good and so we (The Marrs, The Webers and us, aka Team Durango) decided to go with option #1. The afternoon got really crowded (as we imagined) but we had a lot of fun skiing and boarding together. We even found a part of the mountain that was a little less congested.

Jeremy, Nicole, and Harmony on the lift

The Marrs and their boards

I love the beautiful view from the top!

At about 4:30pm, we called it a day and headed back to the rental place to return our skis. We all decided on a place to eat and headed to dinner--most of us in our ski clothes still! We came back, showered, played a short game of Catch Phrase and were all probably in bed by 9:30. There's nothing like a full day in the snow to tire you out.

In the morning, we all packed, cleaned the cabin, and loaded the cars by 9am. We had not really decided if we were going to ski on Sunday but watching the traffic coming into town to head up to the resort, we were glad that we had decided to head home first thing this morning. We were back in LA by noon and we've been able to unpack, do laundry, get groceries, etc this afternoon. Before we headed out, Aaron and I took out the Nikon and got a few pictures of the cabin and the surrounding area. The snow and snow topped everything is so pretty!



Our cabin for the weekend






Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs." Proverbs 10:12