Easter Holidays Holiday!!! PART 1 - Skiing in Utah

Hello friends!

I'm back after a few weeks away from the blog. We took the opportunity of the school Easter break to go away on a family holiday (which was awesome of course). Hence the lack of blog posts!
Quite honestly Rog and I both needed it. There's been a lot going on with work for the both of us over the last few months and a getaway was just what the doctor ordered!

On our way!

We love to go skiing every year so this year we went back to our favourite place just outside of Salt Lake City in Utah. We love to visit here. The snow on these mountains is quite simply amazing and the area we stay in feels like small town USA which means it feels really relaxed to us. The ski resort itself is pretty basic with no big restaurant or après-ski facilities. However, what it lacks by way of typical European resorts it more than makes up for it in skiable acres of terrain, friendliness, value for money, lack of crowds and that all important POWDER. It truly is a one of a kind winter wonderland! I feel so blessed that we're able to visit such a wonderful ski resort each year. I can hardly imagine skiing anywhere else now! We usually go skiing with some very good friends of ours but this year they couldn't come with us (as if emigrating to Australia is even an excuse!) so it was just the four of us for the first time ever. We missed them very much but we had a brilliant time just the four of us too.

We were dead excited because the mountain had been getting a lot of snow over the last few of months and for the first couple of days we were there it was still snowing quite hard. George got on his snowboard again on the first day (he spent a couple of days on a snowboard last year) and got right back into it. Joe decided to learn to snowboard this time (he's only ever skied) and he took to it like a natural. I was so impressed with the both of them for sticking it out in the early stages when you end up spending more time on your knees and bum than you do actually boarding! For Joe especially, he could easily have given up and gone back to skiing but he persevered and actually ended up picking it up really quickly and progressing to carving before we knew it!!!
Roger has always snowboarded. He loves it and would never switch out to skis. I always ski. I have tried snowboarding but I hated being on my bum or knees in the cold. It's not for me, and I really didn't pick it up well. I'm much happier on skis and I try and push myself harder and work on improving my technique each time I go.

Looking like some sort of weird Tellytubby

Anyway after the first couple of days there was a MASSIVE dump of powder. Like LEGENDARY. We decided to switch the boys back onto skis so that we could go out and enjoy it without the boys getting frustrated as beginners on the snowboards. It turned out to be a really great decision as the powder was so deep it was really challenging at times. There was one point when I was up to mid thigh trying to get down a (normally groomed) piste. That was not fun, I can tell you. There's only so far you can lean back when you're trying to ski down a hill and I kept getting stuck deep. And it was impossible to turn! I pretty much ended up hiking my way down the mountain in my skis. Oh my God! That was a workout in itself. It didn't help that the cloud was so low that I couldn't even see 10 foot in front of me. N o t   I m p r e s s e d.



Our fantastic 'fly' impressions

By the following day it had all settled down and we finished our skiing days in the most beautiful conditions. True Bluebird days without a cloud in the sky and lovely snow that was a dream to ski on. Couldn't have asked for better <3


Such an amazing view (the mountains, not us!)

 

Whilst we were there we also went to see the Utah Grizzlies play against the Alaska Aces (ice hockey). We try to do this every time because it's such a great evening out. Ice hockey is mental! There's always a punch-up and this game did not disappoint! The biggest team fight we've ever seen! Plus, the Grizzlies won which is always a bonus!!!

We also managed to eat our own body weight in ice-cream. Not even kidding. There's an amazing place called Farr's Ice Cream where we stay in Ogden and it's this little ice-cream parlour dating back from the 1920's. It makes loads of amazing flavours of ice cream and it's always a treat going in and picking which flavour to try each time. We LOVE Farr's!!! A trip to Farr's was basically our apres-ski each day!!!! Having tried nearly all of the flavours they have by now I think my favourite is Butter Brickle. Yummmm!

Whilst we were there in Utah we managed to squeeze in a trip to the cinema to see Zootopia. It's a brilliant film. Go and see it if you haven't already! There's also a Surf Rider there. It's one of those things that generates a permanent wave and you can surf or bodyboard it. Rog and George both went on for an hour. They were awesome and had great fun. Joe and I aren't fussed with getting wet. It just seems like a lot of effort to me......we were fabulous at being spectators though.

It was a sad day when we finished skiing on the last afternoon and had to hand back our rentals. But we'll be back next year (hopefully!).



We'd spent 10 nights in Utah and it was time to get our internal flight for the next exciting instalment of our holiday.....

Next time...PART 2 - Disneyland!!!

Missing in Action....

I thought I'd check in with you all because lately I've been AWOL. I didn't want you to think I'd completely disappeared or anything.
I've not been posting because I've been ill :( I can't believe the irony because extremely shortly after making my last blog entry (yes, that one down there...
 |
 |
 |
 |
\/
you know, the one that tells you how to avoid getting a cold and flu) I got a cold! And it was a nasty one too in the end. I thought that I'd be able to just fight it off like normal, but this time it was playing hard ball. I spent the weekend feeling absolutely rubbish (OMG the sinus pain! Never had anything like it in my life!) and I've even had to take a couple of days off sick from work, which is completely unlike me. I'm actually writing this from the comforts of my duvet (sad as that sounds).

Me being pathetic (I don't have much sympathy, even with myself)

Quite honestly, being ill doesn't suit me at all. It really just won't do. The last few days I've been mainly sleeping, eating (because I get starving when I have a bad cold), getting bored, having hot and cold episodes (nice), getting bored, napping, reading, popping pills, getting bored...... it goes on. One thing that I absolutely refuse to do though is to watch daytime TV, anything but that!

So, because this nasty bug wouldn't let me out of it's grip I've not exercised for 5 whole days. I KNOW! But I've tried to be good and listen to my body for once. And I'm glad I did, but I just can't shake the feeling that I've put myself a bit behind. My eating hasn't been on point either so that's not even a saving grace. I'm counting down to our annual skiing holiday and every day counts.

Now, there are two reasons for this...

1) The sensible reason, which is that I want to be as fit as I can when I hit the slopes. Now that I can actually ski "alright" *smugness* I don't want to have to be stopping every few feet to rest my aching thighs like I normally do. I want to be able to ski hard and use it as a workout in itself. I can picture it now, elegantly and swiftly carving through the sparkling powder, leaving everyone else behind in my wake. OK, OK, I know that's not going to happen, but a girl's gotta dream right? And it certainly won't happen if I don't keep up with my squats and lunges!

2) The self-imposed reason (and probably the main reason), which is that I've got new salopettes to squeeze into. So I bought myself a new ski jacket and salopettes, no biggie. Jacket is fab, no problems there. But the salopettes are a slightly different matter. They're tight and stretchy. AND TIGHT. For some crazy reason I decided to go for streamlined 80's ski chic, instead of baggy snowboarding cool. I thought I'd look a bit glam and classy as if I'm skiing in Klosters or something. Yeah, right! Anyhoo, I still need to be able to shimmy myself into them somehow, and of course I need them to not split when I spectacularly face plant at some point (which I will). Probably on a black run, just underneath the ski lift whilst everyone on there's watching me magnificently fail.

So what I'm saying is, hurry up cold and go away so that I can get back to the plan. Even if it's just to save me from future embarrassment!