We're going to Jackson....

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.” ― Elie Wiesel The past two weeks have been filled with quality time with good girlfriends whom I feel so fortunate to have in my life. Last weekend I had my good friend Mel come up from Denver which led to Kyra, Mel, and I hitting the town together... always trouble. After some adjustment to daylight savings and a later night than anticipated we made it out for a beautiful backcountry ski at my favorite secret stash. Thanks Mel for making the trip up and bringing the downhill bike girls together for some winter fun! After two 13 hour shifts at school for conferences last week and a Friday off, the school teachers decided it was appropriate to reward ourselves with a trip to Jackson Hole, WY. Thankfully I work with all my best friends who are on the same sweet schedule so we all piled into two cars - one for the boys and of course one for the ladies (a follow up to our Vegas trip this summer). The biggest thanks of all goes to the Lawrence family who generously opened their beautiful home in Jackson to us for the weekend and of course Emily for the invite. My favorite part of the stay was that I was worried about not bringing a pillow. Emily was very humble about explaining the details of her Jackson pad and to say the least we had a plethora of pillows, a hot tub, and plenty of beer. Snake river brewery was our first priority where Colleen came to meet us for some beers and dinner. So many great people, great beer, and hilarious conversations made for a great start to the weekend. Saturday brought sunshine and warm temperatures to Jackson. Our first official day of spring skiing and what a lucky day we had on the mountain to take in the breathtaking views that you get from the top of the tram or at the base of any lift in Jackson essentially. I forgot how fun spring skiing is! Who doesn't love slush bumps? We had so much fun touring a new mountain, riding every lift and checking out all the fun spring outfits that surface when the weather permits. O.k. and maybe we checked out a few of the Jackson Hole ski patrollers. Apres ski led to a bucket of margaritas and a well deserved hot tub soak. What else would follow up such a line up, but a solid game of "fuck the dealer" and then on to "asshole". I will admit it had been so long since any of us had played that we had to look up the details of the rules. I highly suggest pulling this game back out for those who have put it aside for a few years - guaranteed for a night of memorable laughs. All and all we had a refreshing weekend full of laughter, friends, plenty of beer, and only one minor injury while Emily and I were trying to get rid of her hiccups.

Better late than never.....

I have been wanting to start a blog for about a year now after being inspired by my sister who has done an impressive job posting and updating all of her loved ones about what is going on in her life. I loved the idea of having a more personal place to post memorable photos, captions, stories and most of all to document/keep track of our crazy lives because we all know sometimes it is hard to remember what happened last weekend. So here it is. My first blog. Kind of. I had started a blog briefly with Bo, but since breaking up 2 months ago I thought this would be a good place to restart the the documentation of my new life which has taken a different direction in the year of 2013. Since the start of the New Year I have been adjusting to a life of freedom, along with some loss of course, but overall I feel more at peace with where I am than I have in a long time. January and February have blessed Steamboat with plenty of snow, especially compared to last year and I have done my best to take advantage of skiing as much as possible. One of my favorite parts of teaching at Steamboat Springs Middle School is that we get a week off in February called "Blues Break" and I made the decision to make a stay-cation out of it. I had the best day of skiing in 2 years probably with Becky off of Rabbit Ears, called...I am not sure - we named it sublimation, because I know snow is solid, but when you peeled through it just blew over and around you like gas. Sublimation is when a matter goes from a solid to a gas without ever turning into a liquid. Some true Steamboat champagne powder. Another highlight of the past month has been having Team DuRoss visit twice in one week on the their way through Colorado for a wedding. It was very appropriate timing as their visits enveloped Valentines Day and I LOVE them all so much. We also got to have Colleen here with us to make it that much more full of love and fun!!! I swear I am not a biased aunt....these two kids are the coolest, cutest, and most of all intelligent/curious kids I know. And they can thank their parents for all the undivided attention and love they give. I am continually impressed. We have also made a few snowmobile trips on Buff pass with the added Bailey snowmobile, which now opens up the window for larger groups and more fun for all of us to play in the back-country together. Thanks to the Cougar and the Mountain Cat we have logged a few extra powder runs this winter.