My first time down hill skiing!

As part of our anniversary, we went skiing at Brighton. In the past when Matt went skiing, I was either pregnant or nursing and couldn’t go. So this was a big deal for me!

A good friend of mine highly recommended taking lessons before I hit the lift, so I decided to follow her advice. Brighton has a great package deal with a lesson so I was thrilled.

I picked up my equiptment and headed out. By the time the lesson started my feet were numb…my boots were much too tight. So back into the building I went to change to a bigger boot. When I got back out to the next lesson, no one else had shown up. So the instructor and his two side kicks in training gave me personal instructions.

The instructor found that I caught on rather quickly to what he was teaching and flew through his curriculum and started the next class. I was thrilled to be taught to classes with a personal trainer in the time of one class, for the price of a group lesson! He took me down the bunny hill twice and I didn’t fall once….YET.

So then Matt and I met for lunch and warmed up a bit. Shortly thereafter, we were headed up my first real lift. It was only a green, (in the direction I was headed, anyway,) somewhat of a short mountain and boy was I in for a surprise. The mountain was plenty big and there were several rather steep parts. I stopped two or three times just for need of slowing down. I made it to the bottom without falling, but realized I had a terrible headache. I thought about it for a moment and decided it was because I didn’t breathe on my way down the mountain. *note for next run….breathe*

So Matt and I got on the lift again and headed back up, only to discover we were on a different lift taking us much higher than the first lift. This run was mostly blue, and I terrified. But, there’s only one way down, so down I went. I figured out my problem, fear of speed. I got going so fast I decided there was only one thing to do. So I headed for the side and threw myself into some softer snow. I think Matt thought that was pretty funny. So my first fall was intentional.

My next fall was quite unintentional. I was looking at someone else to make sure I wasn’t in his way and down I went. Arms and legs and poles flailing madly. Surprisingly, my skiis stayed on. I did manage to put a huge bruise, about the size of a softball right below my knee on the inside of my calf. I was thrilled that I didn’t break a leg.

On another run, Matt was ahead of me when he went down, not very gracefully, on a rather steep spot and I swerved around him yelling, “HOLY CRAPOLA.” I managed to get to the bottom without falling, but was sure I was going to take out several people trying to slow down and stop at the bottom.

One other time I fell and my skiis came off. It took me forever to get them back on because of the angle of the mountain.

Anyway, I’m no longer sore and I’m ready to go again! We may attempt the next one up in Idaho after Christmas. I must say, that’s the most expensive two pounds I’ve ever lost!