6th Annual Family Ski Trip

"What if we ALL made this the year of no excuses? The year we throw all caution to the wind and GO FOR IT? The year we hold nothing back…not our feelings, our dreams, our talents, our plans, NOTHING?" ~The Single Woman

As we do ever year, we headed to Red River for our family ski trip. Remember trip #4 and #5? And by family, I don't just mean blood family (although many of us are), I mean ski trip family, which has taken on a new meaning.

Even though this year we were a smaller group and I had to cut it a day short, we still had a great time. We added two new faces this year, Cousin Whitney's boyfriend and one of my best friends, Blonde Oklahoma Girl. They've now been officially added to the family and are required to attend from now on.

Here's how the trip went down.

First off, Blonde Oklahoma Girl and I loaded up on bagels, candy, and red dirt music for our first road trip together! Pretty sure we sang, danced and solved all of the world's problems in those 4 hours.

(And yes, she looks like a supermodel in a self taken portrait, 3 hours into a road trip. If I didn't love her so much, I'd hate that girl.)

Once we arrived, we all headed to the Lift House bar for a few drinks and then to the slopes for some snow tubing. We had never done that before (snow tubing I mean...we're regulars at the ol' Lift House!), but it was a lot of fun! And after that, we headed for dinner at Timbers....hello green chile chicken alfredo!
That night ended with some chit chatting at the condo, and a facebook session among the dads, who we refer to as Los Viejos.

And then day two rolled around and it was time for some skiing. I've skiied a lot in my life, and I honestly think this might have been the best skiing I've ever done. Great weather, not too busy, lots of snow, I loved it!
And in honor of the new year, which I'm calling No Regrets 2012 (based partly on this blog), I decided it was time to finally ski this black diamond called "The Face." You'll see it behind Blonde Oklahoma Girl and me drinking above. Here's a photo montage of how that went down....

I start off slow saying, "I want to change my mind, I want to change my mind."
Eventually I get my legs under me and off I go.
And then, when I get to the bottom--where it's easy and the part of the trail that I've probably skied 100 times, Blonde Oklahoma Girl yells, "Way to go, Tiff!" I look up, go to put my arms up in the air in a victory move, and bust my butt....like a dork. Here I am saying, "What just happened??"

Hey, if you're going to fall, fall on a black diamond. No Regrets 2012!

I love this ski trip every year--great skiing, great people, lots of fun. Hard to beat it, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we'll try next December on trip #7!