ONE FUN WEEK

As I have sort of eluded to in previous posts, I spent the last week in McCall, Idaho It is a smaller resort type town in the mountains of Idaho. It is about 2 hours from Boise, our capital city. My parents are part of a timeshare so they booked it for one entire week. The plan was to have my parents, sister/brother in law, brother, and sister there. We were going to be there the week prior to when the McCall Winter Festival starts. Our plan was the be there for the opening days and then get out of town before the 50,000 arrived. Having that many people there probably triples the towns population. The lady at one of two local grocery stores told us that during the second week, their shelves get bare. They just simply have a hard time keeping up with the demand.

It all started on Sunday. We left right after church and Gunnar left with my parents before church. We ended up driving pretty much in the dark there. We had such a nice drive and were making pretty good time. We turned on the first of two main roads we needed to get there. It was of course snowy. I clearly remember Jeff speeding up and saying that he was "testing" out the car. We drive a 2000 Passat with 4-motion (all wheel drive), so this thing is awesome in the snow. However it is NOT awesome on the ice. McCall had been dumped with about 4 feet of snow about a week before and was having a hard time keeping up with the roads, roofs, etc. So this particular road and incredibly deep ruts in it. Let me just say that we started sliding all of the way down the road, Jeff could not get it corrected and we slammed really fast into a gigantic snow bank on the left front side of the car. I WAS TICKED!! I was so mad. I tried calling my dad. The phones have a tuff time getting reception up there. We had just switched to their plan 2 days before so I was about ready to throw the phone in the snow because I could not reach anyone. The car was not moving, the wheels were all spinning. Finally these super nice people stopped to help. They of course were prepared. They had a shovel with them, tow rope and chains. They tried and tried to pull the car out but we found out the the car was completely high centered on the snow. All of the wheels were turning and nothing. The other problem was that their Tahoe was going nowhere but turning their wheels on the ice. Basically what happened was that the lady and I stood on the side of the road watching as our husbands kept shoveling out the car, chaining up the Tahoe and yanking the car out with huge jerks. Thankfully we found out we have a tow hook on the back of our car. The bumper had seperated slightly from the front of the car but that was the only damage. We were incredibly thankful for them. The next day we ended up seeing them up at Brundage. The next morning we also looked at our bumper and it went back into place. I should have gotten a picture of this 'problem' but I was waaaay to frustrated to even think about it.

Monday was Martin Luther King Day and the plan was to go up to Brundage Ski Resort. I am so in love with this resort. It is a fairly nice sized resort but it has the small community feel to it. About 45 minutes from McCall is the world renowned (and expensive) Tamarack Resort. Having that so close has really made Brundage that much more homier. It has better snow than our one hour away Bogus Basin Resort and the drive is so nice to get up there. My sister and I timed the drive from the condo to the mountain. It was 20 minutes and just about 10 minutes more in snowier conditions. Love it!! We were lucky enough to have about 100 people on the mountain during the weekdays. It was great. The weather was COLD the first day. It was about 10 degrees in town and about 4-5 on the mountain. The first day was slightly snowy. But the snow was not typical. It was what I called Tinkerbell's Fairy Dust type snow. It was just like glitter in the air. I tried to get a picture of it and this was the best that I could do.

I took my camera with me about everyday but the first day I just had to get a picture of the view. I took off my left glove to get the camera out and take a picture, put the camera back and took off. I had thinner gloves underneath so a few yards down on a really steep part of the hill, I felt my left hand being a little cold and drafty. Hello...I had forgotten my glove up the hill. I had to take of my board and starting hiking up. The cold weather made it hurt to breath and my sister kept yelling to me wondering what was taking so long and that I needed to keep going. Luckily a skier spotted a lonely glove, looked down to see me hiking and brought it too me. Never again will I do that.

I am pretty sure this was the picture that I took when I also left my glove.

The second and third days were absolutely fantastic. The runs were groomed and the sky was completely clear and blue. It was warm at about 25ish degrees. Jeff missed out. He had to go back to work but was planning on coming back up on Friday. He just started his job at the end of last year and did not have the time yet. On Wednesday, I caught an edge twice on the same stupid cat track and fell right on both of my butt cheeks. It HURT so bad. I have never been in so much pain there. I had a hard time just sleeping on my back because of it. It was so hard that I know that my brain bounced around in my head a little. Brundage also has a guy that will ski the mountain and take pictures of anyone along the way. The crowds were so non- existant that he followed our group around for quite a while. He was able to get a great group picture of all of is. He was also able to get some great pictures of the guys doing tricks/jumps in the terrain park. My dad bought the CD, so when I get the pictures I will post some. There is this great sequence of my brother in law Ren on a rail. First it looks like he is doing great, second picture the same, third picture is him in the middle of a fall on the rail. This fall was so hard right on his tailbone. Quite funny now. We also have video of my dad on a rail. The only problem is that he hit chest first and bounced off. It is so painful to watch. Thursday we all decided to take a little break. We were all in so much pain from some fall or another that we needed a much need break. But Friday morning we were back up there again. It was so nice to beable to snowboard for a couple to a few hours and then go back to a warm condo. We did not feel obligated in anyway to go a full day because of our season passes. It was great.

I love this picture of Heidi. She has pictures of me on her camera that I will have to post later.

This picture was taken on the Bear Chair as we were headed up. I just had to freak my sister out. I took off my glove and took out the camera while my sister was adamantly telling me that I was bound to drop them both. It was fun to scare her.

Friday night Jeff showed up without my little sister because her fiance got really sick. She decided to stay behind and we were all bummed. Saturday we were back on the mountain, this time it was slightly windy, extremely snowy and very foggy. Heidi twisted her knee really bad on the first run so we decided to go a couple more and go back. The powder this day was just awesome though. I love knowing that if you fall, it will be a great soft landing. We were both a little sad because this will probably be the last time we snowboard for some time. We are both hoping that we will have babies before the next season. We will see. :)

Everyone had such a great time and I was so happy to be able to spend a lot of time with my sister Heidi doing something we both love to do.