Ski weekend with the girls

Superbowl weekend my wonderful Husband watched the kids all weekend so I could go to Pinetop with some of my girls to go skiing for the FIRST TIME ever. The girls have gone for 3 years straight but this was my first year without a newborn/infant to take care of. Imagine growing up in snowy New England and I had to move to Arizona to go skiing for the first time. ha ha. We drove 4 hours from Chandler through the mountains up to Pinetop. AZ had gotten slammed with so much snow last month that there were 4ft tall snowbanks on either side of the roads. It will be a while before that snow is gone.

It reminded me so much of Home. Scratch that. It reminded me so much of Boston. Will I ever stop referring to Boston as home? I even say to my girls out of habit, "we are going home to Boston in April" and they look at me like huh? We are home Mommy... lol

Anyhow the cabin was so cute (3 bedrooms plus loft) with a gorgeous stone fireplace from floor to ceiling in the living room. We lit that immediately upon arriving and cranked the heat since the cabin was freezing. We each made our drink of choice and huddled around the fire to warm up. It didn't take long before the stories were flying and we were laughing so hard and just enjoying our girl talk. We were having so much fun eating chips and guacamole and drinking beers/wine/champagne etc that we could have stayed there all night right through dinner. But apparently it is a Fri night tradition on these ski trips that the girls always grab dinner somewhere and then hit up the towns only dance club- Absolute Distraction. So we all got ready (my friend Emily made fun of me for still using Covergirl asking me "what are we 16 still?" I have to admit, she was right and it was quite funny of her to call me out, so after showing her the Maybeline and other Walgreen's bought makeup in my bag, I called her a snob and then told her if she looked young like me she could still get away with Covergirl. Touche! Ha ha! We giggled about it all weekend. We snapped some photos before leaving:




At dinner we were a little crazy and loud. Our waiter looked frightened of us, but not sure why since we were probably the coolest and most fun table he had all night. We got much more crazy in the restaurant then these pics will show, but as the saying goes "What Happens in Pinetop Stays in Pinetop!" Yeah right.... ha ha ha. In the end we had a great Italian dinner and lots of laughs as we always do! Here are some pics of us goofing off at dinner. (PS we closed the place. Welcome to Pinetop).

Birthday Girl Teresa enjoying her Tiramisu

Me proving I look silly in glasses

Emily proving anyone can look good in glasses by grabbing your boobs! ha ha

Crissy, Jill, Sara, Yolanda

Better without the glasses???

Teresa, Emily and Jackie

Kissy Lips!

Next we headed over to Absolute Distraction, which turned out to be an absolute DISASTER. Besides having to pay $5 each to get into this shit hole we all got "wanded" on the way in. The only time I was ever wanded was when President Clinton came to my High School and maybe once going through airport security. I asked the bouncer, did I take a wrong turn somewhere and end up in an inner city? He said no, but you're in redneck country now. I was like hmmm... great. Although there weren't many rednecks in this bar from what I could see.
What there was instead of rednecks was a bunch of young white boys trying to be ghetto hip hoppers that could've used a bit of advice from General Larry Platt. "Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Looking like a FOOL with yo' pants on the ground!". Not only that but the DJ was terrible. He was playing hard core rap the entire time. And I am not talking Jay Z or Kanye but hardcore stuff full of F-bombs, P-words and N-words. The type of music you would expect to hear if you were sitting in a car with Snoop Dogg and a cloud of pot smoke. NO ONE was dancing. Our brave and drunk friend Emily tried many times to give the DJ a lesson in good music but he wasn't interested. At one point when he played something we actually could dance to the floor filled up. Then he went back into his ghetto rap and the dance floor emptied. Emily told him and his bodyguard girlfriend "did you happen to notice when you played dance music people were dancing and then you played this and everyone left the dance floor????". They just glared at her. LOL. I do think the highlight of the night was Emily and Jackie doing a full slide across the dance floor on their knees circa something straight out of footloose. It was awesome! My friends are so funny. Here we are at Absolute Distraction, and as usual we OWNED the Dance Floor. woot woot...

We woke up bright and early on Saturday for our day of skiing. Yolanda was staying at the cabin all day alone to relax and read books and sit by the fire and cook us dinner. A part of me was jealous and tempted to stay with her, but I was REAL excited for my ski lesson! Yo woke up with us and made us all fritatas and coffee which we wolfed down as we got dressed for the slopes. Here we are getting ready to leave. It was a 30 minute drive to the slopes during which some of us nursed our hangovers and some of us jammed out to Black Eyed Peas!

Here is the ski lodge and the ski school, where I signed up for my all day lesson! I was the only rookie amongst us, so the 5 of them went off to ski together (and snowboard) while I took classes alone. Which I was ok with cause I really wanted to learn how to ski. My lessons were supposed to go from 10-11:30 which an hour break for lunch and then from 12:3o-2. I was a NATURAL! My first lessons went really well. I picked it up right away and my instructor threatened to throw me off the Bunny slope and send me to the midway slope which I wasnt quite ready for yet. I don't but you all but I think that the next step up from the bunny slope should not be a slope that takes 10 minutes to get to the top. Especially when it takes 2 minutes or less to get up to the top of the bunny slope. There needs to be something a little more in between! Geesh!

Here is my instructor Roger. And me practicing my pizza wedge! I swear I could be heard saying "pizza wedge" and "french fries" all the way down the mountain the first few times down. If you have ever taken or taught a ski lesson you will know what I am talking about. I didn't fall at all during my lessons and never fell once getting off any ski lift all day long. After my first lesson my instructor gave me an extra 30 min private lesson since I was sitting around waiting for my girlfriends. But this then meant I had only 30 minutes to wolf down my lunch before going back out for my next lesson. I wish I had more time to drink more water!!! Who knew skiing was so dehydrating. He also gave me an extra hour lesson from 2-3pm. I took some photos while on the lift of the scenery at the resort. I also got someone to snap a dorky photo of me on the lift- how cool is that?? Here they are:

When my lessons were over I decided to take a lift to the top of the middle mountain and then take a trail over to meet up with my friends over at lift 4. Technically I had been told that as a first time skiier I was restricted to lifts 2 and 8 for the day. (Bunny slope and midway). However my ski pass that printed out said lifts 2, 4, and 8. And since I had been doing so well I figured what the heck. Little did I know that by meeting my friends over at 4, there was no way for us to get back over to the main lodge without either taking lift 5 up to the top of another mountain and skiing our way over, or taking a shuttle bus. Lift 5 did go up to a green slope (beginners) so even though it looked mighty high with my friends encouragement I decided to give it a try. As we are climbing higher and higher on this lift I am really getting nervous. Didn't help that EMT's brought one person down on a backboard with a neck brace on as we went overhead and that we were flying over a black diamond where skiers were actually going off course and landing among trees. Really? Great!

Here is the top of Mount Kiliminjaro where we got off the lift. Ok ok so maybe not that high, but it sure felt like it to Miss First Time Skier. But I have to say being on a mountain skiing for the first time and having it start snowing on me while skiing was pretty cool. Above is a photo of me ready but nervous to start our trek back to the other side of the mountain. There was something kind of majestic about it. Skiing gave me a real affection for snow that I have been lacking after years of scraping it off windshields and shoveling it off driveways and watching it turn from beautiful white powder to dirty brown slush on the side of the road. Luckily my friends Crissy and Teresa were ready to lead me down the mountain and were very encouraging the whole time. Crissy kept telling me I was doing so great as a first time skiier, and I really need to hear that to keep my confidence up. Teresa kept skiing ahead and then stopping to wait for me to make sure I was ok. We had no idea it was getting so late. The lifts closed at 4pm and we got to the top of this big slope at 4pm. We figured 15 minutes down to the bottom. And that is when all hell broke loose. First we got lost. No biggie we turned around and corrected course after about 10 minutes. But I was getting nervous and second guessing myself, was dehydrated, had a pounding headache, was nauseous, struggling in the altitude, and was so tired that my legs weren't really leaning into the skis the way they had earlier in the day. I couldn't turn as well on my right ski. Needless to say I started crashing and falling all over the place. It was funny as heck. I was literally going ass over tea kettle and my poles were flying. I was upside down and spread eagle a couple times. It would take me like 5 minutes to get up each time. I would have to trek back up the mountain to get my pole. My friends were patient and encouraging the whole time. lol. The only way I know to stop is to turn right or left. But as a first timer you are not that good with edge work or fast stops or turns so I would panic that I was going to run out of room. On the left side was an embankment with a ton of trees that I could fall off and on the right side an upturning slope of snow. So I would head towards the trees till I ran out of room and then head towards the slope and ultimately tip over. I fell so much it was ridiculous. Ski patrol came along looking for stragglers on the slopes and I was afraid they were going to ask me what the heck I was doing up this high, but they didnt ask me anything other than was I ok. Crissy went ahead to meet up with everyone and Teresa did her best do hang with me. Her reward was watching me crash into two snowbanks so hard that my ski's popped off. That was when ski patrol took my skis and told me to walk the rest of the way down. I was so bummed and asked was my skiing that bad??? His answer was no ma'am but we closed 45 minutes ago. It was almost 5pm and the lifts closed at 4!!! LOL. Here are the action shots of me skiing thanks to Teresa. And no as much as I wish she got one, there are no photos of my many spills!!!


When we got back to the cabin Yolanda was waiting for us with a spread of appetizers, some wine corked and ready, a birthday cake brownie for Teresa and a hot Spaghetti dinner with fresh baked French Bread! We had such a good dinner, some hot showers, and then settled in for a competitive and hilarious game of Taboo, before turning in for the night. Emily and I left at about 7:30am the next morning and the snow was coming down real hard in Pinetop. We actually spun sideways across 3 lanes while going only 20mph. It was real scary but luckily we didn't hit anyone. I put on my 4WD from that point on and we made it home safe and sound. This was such a great experience and I cant wait to going skiing again!! I caught the ski bug! Here is the last photo I snapped of the snow falling on my way out of Pinetop. See you next year!! :)