a fantasy tale of bruises and snow and wine

I just finished entering my time for the month of March. Did you know we lawyers track our lives in six minutes increments? Yup, I live by every six minutes. Tangent over . . . after I finished my time I realized why I haven't been writing. I billed a full month AND took a week of vacation. As in, there won't even be a blip in my billing and I TOOK A WEEK OFF. WTH? Been working too much, eh?

Ok. Ok.

The ski trip. It was wonderful. Really. Four teenage girls and all.

We spent a week staying in a cabin just outside Granby, Colorado and skied Winter Park and Mary Jane. That's our "little" ski house. We went with Car-man's sister's family. They have a daughter a month older than Younger. We let Eldest bring along a good friend to even out the kid numbers. It worked out really well.

We skied with the Sister's family last year and it was great, so we planned it again this year. Car-man did something very creative and oh-so-n0t Car-man-like, he went and has surprise t-shirts made for us all. They say "Joysucker's Ski Club". We have this inside joke on the ski trips; anyone who is "sucking joy" from the trip is called out as a "JOYSUCKER" by everyone else. And we either beat you with spoons or pummel you with snowballs. The shirts were a great hit.

The teens all learned to snow-board this year. Just let me say, DO NOT TAKE UP THAT SPORT!! It's like hell thinly disguised as a sport. Here is why I suggest you avoid it:
^Cousin's ouchie arm!

Eldest's banged up knee!-->

The left one is my niece being tended to by the EMT's on the mountain. (Yes, she's fine. Just a sprain. Aren't I a super aunt? Niece gets hurt? Niece is being tended to by the Red Cross. What do I do? Snap pictures.) The other is Younger's knee which turned purple and green from falling on it. Car-man is actually taking her to the doctor for x-rays tomorrow as her arm is still hurting. Both Younger and the Cousin say they won't snow-board again.

However, the older girls finally got the hand of snow-boarding and liked it. That's Eldest on the left.

But their first day on the mountain (after a day of lessons) was my biggest nightmare of the trip. The plan was that I was going to take them to mid-Mountain and drop off their lunch. (With as much time as they were spending on the ground, we figured they would pulverize their lunch if they carried it.) But reality was that we didn't reach mid-Mountain until almost NOON. For you non-winter-sport types, as a skiier, it would have taken me a 7 minute lift ride and 7 or 8 minutes of skiing and a short rope-tow to reach mid-Mountain. Instead, as I waited for them to ride 10 feet, fall, get up, re-position, ride five feet, fall . . . over and over and over . . . this same SINGLE run took 2 hours and 15 minutes. This is the day where I blogged from the mountain. I read blogs on my phone. I answered all my work e-mails from the side of the slopes. I wanted to shoot myself (and one whining 15-year old I gave birth to.) After an hour lunch, we reached the base at 2:15. Ugh. I promptly abandoned them and went and got about and hour of good runs in by myself.

The next couple of days we had some fabulous skiing off the top of the Mary Jane mountain. This is a new ski area opened last season. It is spectacular. I think I could spend a good portion of my life up there. It's a dome at the top of the world--12,600 feet to be exact. I didn't have my camera up there with me this year, but here is one from last year.

There are all these open runs off the top . . . blue, black, blue-black, orange (for the crazy bastards) that shoot down into the tree-line where the runs become gladed and you fly (or drift, depending on how late in the day it is) between the trees. Amazing, I tell you. I want to go be a ski bum. Still. Screw lawyering. Call me Dude.

One afternoon when I was trying to rendevous with kids and so was doing some skiing by myself. I went out on a limb . . . or a cliff . . . and put my 43-self at risk . . . this style>>>>>>>>

Yeah. That's the edge. It was FUN. But one is enough. I'm old and the days get long. 23-year-old knees are wasted on the young.

It was a really good vacation. Relaxing. Refreshing. Fun. We had wicked good dinners, ala the crock-pot, at the cabin in the evening paired with wine, margaritas and charades. For the most part we almost like each other most of the time. I'm already looking forward to next year.

I look this from our cabin's living room looking toward Winter Park. Awesome, no?