Snowboarding (or attempting to) at Giants Ridge

Ok, so - Steve is a snowboarder. Lindsey is a klutz. Steve loves snow and winter and being outside...Lindsey loves sand and water and sunshine. And being inside where it is warm and dry when sand/water/sunshine are not available. Steve is an adrenaline junkie who loves to do scary and fast things. Lindsey is a sissy. 

I will stop talking in the third person now. 

Moral of the story - Steve has been buying me all of the gear (board, jacket, boots, clothes, helmet, long johns, etc) in order to guilt me into going snowboarding with him, because he greatly underestimates my clumsiness. But, because I want to be cool and I'm still trying to impress him (and because if I am going to have to live in the frozen tundra, I seriously need a winter hobby), I agreed that I would try. Steve didn't get his second round of chemo on Friday and was feeling good so we decided to go up to Giants Ridge on Saturday for the day. Tara and Eli went with us...Tara is also a seasoned professional and Eli (like me) had never had his feet strapped to a snowboard, so I had someone to fall down with. The pictures are hilarious, so I had to share. Plus, every inch of my body hurts today, so about the only thing I can do is sit in my pajamas and blog. And I love it when people have a laugh at my expense. 

In all my sweet gear...

Top of the bunny hill, I think Steve is helping me strap into my board...or he is coaxing me to plunge down the hill one more time towards certain death. Or a least certain bruising.

 

Here is Eli, all dressed up and ready to go...if you look at his goggles, you can see Tara in the reflection taking his picture.

Riding up the "magic carpet"...you can see from this picture how steep the bunny hill is. But it was still terrifying. I think I will forever stay on the bunny hill with the magic carpet, because ski lifts scare me. Did I mention I am also afraid of heights?

Here are some pics of Eli shredding the hill. He did really good - better than I did. He even went down the bigger bunny hill. Alone. I went down but I wouldn't let Steve get more than a couple feet away from me and I'm pretty sure I screamed the whole time. 

 

Go Eli!

 

Ok, get ready to laugh...

 

Getting ready to push me down the hill

 

I even look awkward.

 

 

 

See what I mean about not letting him get very far away from me? I needed him to prevent me from crashing into other people or inanimate objects. Some lady came up to Steve and I and said that she would try to learn to snowboard too, if she had a good looking man to teach her, lol!

 

 

Not quite sure how I pulled this one off...obviously I wasn't going very fast. Did I mention that I wiped out every.single.time. I went down the hill? It's a good thing I wear a helmet.

 

And it's a good thing Eli wears one too...

 

 

Hee hee hee! It was a rough day for both of us. 

 

But in the end, our hard work and determination was rewarded by a sense of accomplishment...

...YEAH RIGHT! This was the real reward:

 

Pizza and drinks at Vi's!

 

Nothing like a couple of bloody mary's to make all your pain go away!

I am mostly just whining though - overall it was really fun and it was nice to get outside and do something. I feel bad for Steve and Tara though, they barely even got to strap a snowboard on because they were so busy making sure we didn't kill ourselves. Cheers to our teachers! Thanks guys! Can't wait to go out and try it again.