Senior Ski Trip!!! (just the first 24 hours, but it's long!)

This is a pretty long post. Mainly because I'm reliving a lot of what happened and not just a little overview of each day. I generally like to tell the whole story or nothing at all. Plus, it's nice for me to look back on and remember all the memories. So, this may not be exciting for you at all. I'll understand if you skip and just look at pictures.

Many of you have already seen my pictures on facebook. All 160 of them! Sheeesh! The sad part, I took WAY more than that. I had such a hard time picking my favorites to put up on facebook, so I have a feeling it's going to be really hard to pick my favorites for the blog, (because there is NO way I'm putting up 160 pictures here.)

I will say I was pretty proud of myself to have such round numbered albums on facebook. (60,60 and 40) :)

Like I said in my last post, we left Sunday night after church and drove through the night, planning on sleeping through the drive--which pretty much happened. The bus didn't completely quite down 'til after our stop in Amarillo at about 1AM. It wasn't too bad. My friend Katie and I had our own seats across from each other, so we laid across the them, kind of like a bed. Except for the fact that it, well... wasn't. I I did sleep, though. I wasn't even sure that would happen, so I consider that a success.

I stole this picture from Katie:

Me and Katie on the bus, looking a bit rough after a looong night. Our poor curly hair... it didn't fair so well..


Bad hair day aside, it was cool to go to sleep in Texas and wake up in Colorado.

AKA- Going to sleep with the flat lands out my window and waking up to enjoy views like this...

Yeah, that was definitely cool.


We got to Keystone around 12PM Monday. We were waiting on the bus for a while, because most of our rooms weren't ready yet. We ended up taking all of our luggage to one room, because we had to go get our ski rentals and get to the ski lesson that afternoon.

Before we headed over to get our rentals, we went to a little pizza place for lunch. It had a big window with a pretty view of a frozen lake...


After lunch we headed to the ski rental shop to get our skis...

Then the people taking ski lessons headed over to the mountain. I couldn't go because I wasn't taking one.

So, I had to head back with some of the guys not taking lessons, which you'll know, if you read my tweets from that day, was an experience... we ended up getting lost on the new and unfamiliar bus systems and didn't get back to our lodge for an hour. (Did I mention I was lugging all of my ski stuff around town for that hour!? Yep, big heavy boots, skis, poles, and my over-sized purse full of stuff for the bus ride.) But, we did get back. Of course, to add fuel to the exhausting fire, I was locked out of the girls room. (AKA- the room with all of the girls' luggage, because our actual rooms weren't ready yet.) But after a call to Jay, who gave me Nikki's number to call, who had Anette come give me a key, I DID get in! I know, I'm confused too. Just so you know, Jay is my awesome youth minister, Nikki is his lovely wife, and Anette is one of the moms that was on the trip.

You're exhausted, aren't you? Believe me, so was I.

After I got into the room I just sat for a minute, then proceeded to tweet about the day so far. After that, I realized this would be the perfect time to call my mom and give her an update. So I did that, then I got some seriously needed hydration from some Powerade I luckily had left over from out stop in Amarillo. Once I got a chance to breathe, I realized I was all alone. It was a weird feeling. The day had been so hectic and full of people up to that point, and all of the sudden it was so quiet and peaceful. Don't get me wrong, it was nice, just felt weird. Not too long after that, one of the moms got back to the room and said that the people taking ski lessons wouldn't be back for at least another hour, so I decided to take a little nap on the chair in the not permanent room.

An hour or so later everyone got back, and all chaos returned to this little room we were all stuck in with our luggage. Thankfully, soon after that, all of our real rooms were assigned and Jay started taking the different groups of girls to their respective cabins. Once it was our turn, ("our" being some of my best friends- Katie, Kristen, Jennifer and Rebekah), Jay helped us get all of our luggage down the stairs and out to the rental Jeep...

Four of us, and half of our luggage, had to fit into the middle seat of the Jeep. It was so crammed, Jay had to close the side door for us, which was not easy. It was quite painful actually, but so funny! We could not stop laughing. Of course, we couldn't let this moment go by without taking a picture, so I had Rebekah, who was in the front seat, get out my camera-- my purse was up in the front because when we got in, we tossed a lot of things up there to make more room-- and she took a few pictures...

First Take: Smiling and pretending to enjoy this interesting ride. Except for Kristen, she didn't get the memo, haha!
Yes, we know we're looking rough. Need I remind you we hadn't really had a moment to freshen up, change clothes, shower, etc. since we got on the bus 24 hours before this!? Considering that, I don't think we look that bad.


Take Two: Showing our true colors of how we feel about this little ride. Kristen looks about the same in both of these pictures. hahaha...

This lovely ride led us to our condo-lodge-thing. It was amazing! Following are the tweets I sent out right after we got there and saw our room for the first time...

"Oh my gosh. I am so glad we had to move cabins. We have the most awesome room now. Like, EVER!"
8:29 PM Mar 16th

"Me, Kristen, Katie, Jennifer, and Rebekah all to our selves in this awesome cabin. It has a little spiral staircase! :)"
8:33 PM Mar 16th

We were too excited to take pictures when we first got there, so these are some I stole from Katie that she took on the morning we left. This is after we lived in it for a week and made it messy, so it doesn't really have the same impact, but you get the idea.

A view of our main living area from the loft. Yes, it's messy.
It was so weird having such a big place to just us five girls, but it was so much fun!


Our little spiral case leading up to the loft. This was sooo much higher and steeper than it looks...

Once we got to our room, we just explored, started getting our stuff out, and relaxed until they called to let us know it was time for supper.


And at some point before supper we all ended up on one of the beds, being goofy and taking pictures with Kristen's camera...

Me, obviously I am ready for this day to be over.


Rebekah looking cute, but tired like the rest of us.


Jennifer, obviously feeling the effects of the day on her psyche.


Katie laughing. Ha.


Then time for dinner.

We had most of out meals that week in the living/dining area of the condo-thing that our youth minister and his wife were staying, since she and some other moms cooked the meals. We also had our group times in there.

We had a late supper, the whole group hung out for a little while and then, instead of having a group/devotion time, Jay just told us all to head back to our condo-room-things and get to bed early, because he knew we were exhausted and needed to rest up before the first day of skiing. We definitely did.

So we headed back, took showers and hit the hay. But not before I had a little bought of altitude sickness. Ha, real fun. I felt great after I threw up my supper, though. I slept like a baby. The best part of getting sick was I didn't have to feel guilty for the over-indulgent Italian meal we had for supper!

I'm sure you wanted to know that.

That was pretty much the first 24 hours of the trip.

I've decided this post is already ridiculously long, so I'm going to stop now and start a new post that will, hopefully, fit the rest of the week.

Hope you enjoyed it. Or at least the pictures.

I'm hoping to get the rest of the trip cranked out in the next few days, so stay with me!