And a swooshing we will go...

We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand... and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it before it is too late. ~Marie Beyon Ray

For someone who hasn't been skiing in 5 years but absolutely LOVES the sport... I'm glad to report my skiing drought is now over.

The sweetheart and I got to go skiing this past weekend up at Wintergreen, here in Virginia. Granted, it's not the Rockies I'm use to skiing in, but it was white, cold and had slopes to swoosh down.

While the sweetie was in his conference during Saturday morning, I walked out the door of the studio we stayed in, walked 3 feet up a hill, strapped on my snowblades (Those are mini-skis for you non-skiing types. Great fun and great for helping the skiing-impaired!) and went flying down the mountain.

Okay, so it wasn't flying, but it was still great fun. The mountain was a lot different than what I am use to out west, but it had great slow runs for the sweetie to get better at skiing on. I scoped out the easy stuff for him that morning and he came out and joined me after a quick lunch. (Which, by the way, all ski cafeterias - whether east or west - charge WAY too much for barely edible food...)

And off we went. I'm sooooo extremely proud of my honey. While still having a spill or two on the slopes, he really was getting the hang of it all and by the end of the afternoon skied all the way down a long pretty mild green and didn't fall once. And as a bonus, he told me of all the times he'd gone skiing, this trip was by far the one he enjoyed the most. So that's pretty good, right? He's still getting use to that whole side-stopping instead of snow-plowing the whole way down, and he's doing great. A couple more casual trips like this one and he'll be ready for some bigger mountains.

It was great! Below are a few photos. These first couple are the view from our room, both day and night (The mountain is open until 11 p.m.!):

Here's one of the snow guns going full-steam. They make snow day-in and day-out to keep things somewhat powdery and the base full.

Here's me and the sweetie all bundled up in the lift line... (Yes, that's another snow machine going behind me)

And here's a couple of the hottest couple on the slopes... note the completely brown mountains behind us - that's why they must make the snow all day long...