A Skier, I am Not

Well. I have discovered that skiing is maybe not the next sport I will be conquering! But let me not get ahead of myself, ha-ha! Friday was a beautiful day... until shortly before we left to head to PA and then the wind picked up like crazy and made for a very interesting drive - trying to keep the car in our lane, ha-ha! 

We arrived in Seven Springs around 4:00 and it had started snowing for the last twenty minutes of our drive and continued to come down for the rest of the evening - although not anything that was ever steady or intense. But still - it was also the first real snowfall we have seen all Winter season! 

 

Ryan spent plenty of his early childhood at Seven Springs - he learned to ski when he was four and has been skiing and snowboarding ever since! So this was a return to a place with precious memories for him and a whole new experience for me! We were able to secure lift tickets and rentals for Saturday but unfortunately the tubing was all sold out - too bad! Once we'd secure everything, we headed to check into our AirBnB about ten minutes away - while the snow still fell all around us! 

 

Our AirBnB was a Catalina Coachman RV that is permanently parked in an RV Resort about 4 miles from the North Entrance to Seven Springs - so the location was great! The RV could sleep up to six people but given there was only one teeny bathroom, I think it's probably good that it was just Ryan and I! It was perfect for our weekend - it had a fully functional kitchen, a Queen sized bed and most importantly - it had heat! It was fun to experience a camper - I've never stayed in one quite like this before.

 

Once we got everything settled, we changed for dinner and headed back to Seven Springs - all bundled up in the rapidly dropping temperatures and explored the Lodge. We grabbed dinner at the Bavarian and perused a couple of the shops before we popped down to the rental shop to pick up our skis and snowboard for Saturday! I absolutely forgot how snug ski boots are - oh my goodness. I also feel like snowboard boots look a little bit cooler than ski boots, but my hubby assured me skiing was easier to pick up than snowboarding - so skis it was.

 

After we had all our things - we headed back to our RV for the night, watched a little TV and got some sleep for our Saturday ahead! I will confess that on Saturday morning, my optimism was HIGH for the skiing. It was the most beautiful day and as I suited up, I just knew that I was going to be able to pick skiing up with no issues and soon we'd both be "swooshing" down the slopes together. It was going to be perfect!

 

Y'all. Oh y'all - when expectations meet reality - oof. I fell getting to the ski lift. I fell getting off the ski lift. I fell before we'd made it even twenty feet down the ski hill. It was a brutal wake up call to me that the last time I skied, I was fifteen and that little adventure had ended in injury - after falling three times in less than twenty minutes, the fear was on the rise. And I realized that the only way down was to ski down and that almost undid me... 

Thankfully - there is something called the Ski Patrol and they will take you down on the ski lift - so that is what I did. My hubby took his board down and we met at the bottom, where I attempted to ski the bunny hill and fell again - and y'all - it was crushing to me. I was terrified, felt like I had zero control and just knew I was going to get hurt... through tears, I told my hubs that I wanted him to enjoy himself and I would read my book in the lobby. *sigh*

 

Blessedly we were able to exchange my lift ticket and rentals over to my husband for Sunday - we had lunch together at the Foggy Goggle and then my husband spent the afternoon hitting every slope on the mountain - literally. I read my book in the cozy lobby and then we met up in the afternoon, headed back to our AirBnB and enjoyed a night in together. 

 

On Sunday morning we headed back to Seven Springs and Ryan was able to get in several more runs while I made even more of a dent in my book, then we had lunch at the Foggy Goggle again before returning the rentals and packing in our things to head back to Virginia! We made the drive home, stopped at my parents to have dinner with them and then headed on to our house - and man - I was thrilled to sleep in our own bed on Sunday night!

Seven Springs is a great spot and I told Ryan - I'd like to make skiing a part of our lives. I marveled at the little kiddos who were so skilled and so small and I told Ryan I'd like to have our kids on skis when they were small, so they'd learn like he did. I also told him I'd give it a try every single time we went - maybe I'd even end up in ski school with our kid one day, ha-ha! Regardless - if I end up being a "ski Mom" that reads by the fire while Dad and the kiddos ski - I'm happy with that too!

Monday was President's Day and I had the day off (sorry Hubby) - and it was so nice to just stay in the bed until 7:45 and then do what I wanted when I finally got up! Granted, what I wanted was to do a load of laundry - but that's okay - it was a day off! I got some things organized at our house - I put out my forever roses from my hubby, put out a few Easter decorations and then headed to my parents to work on our taxes (yay). 

The weekend passed so quickly and y'all - it will be March next weekend - can you believe that? So far, this year is flying by and the coming months have so much goodness in store!