Skiing through Thanksgiving and Christmas Trees!

So I know you all have been on the edge of your seat wondering if I would "get back on the horse" and try skiing again. You all can rest secure, I did! Over the Thanksgiving holiday Austin and I along with another couple, The Whites, headed up to Keystone for what I hoped would be a much much better skiing experience. With my bruises from the last time almost completely healed, I convinced myself that I could ski and could have fun! I guess attitude is important! We had a great time. The first day I fell a little. I told Austin he could go on any runs he wanted, but I was going to master the green (easiest) runs. As I got better, I fell less and less. By the end of the second day I was having fun, although still sore, and I knew each and every bump, turn and dip of those green runs! On the third day, we were basically in blizzard conditions, with the most beautiful powder I have ever seen. It was so much fun! I was zipping down blue (intermediate)runs. Yah, baby! I am officially addicted to skiing and we are going again with Austin's unit next weekend. What a great thanksgiving to eat all we wanted with no guilt because we literally exercised for three days straight!

So my spiritual connection to the story is that, once you get knocked down and defeated, you must get up and trust that you can get down that mountain and enjoy it! Sometimes God wants us to go back to the basics and really get to know Him just like I had to take the time to know the "easiest" run again and "master" it (I know we can never "master" it and I will have to go back sometimes). God came to give us an abundant life with Him. I enjoyed being in His creation and sometimes I got really scared (scared of falling or not being good enough to get down). I would convince myself that I had the ability and was equipped to get down the mountain. I learned how to talk myself out of a fall!

On another note, we moved on post this week (yes, we moved again...I think number 5 since we have been married). It was a lot of work even with movers, but we love our place and I will post pics as soon as I can get my camera working. Then yesterday, we decided to get away from boxes for a few hours and go cut down our Christmas Tree. I know what you are thinking...that is so fun to go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down your little perfect tree! Nope! This year we found out that we could go to Pike's Peak National Park and cut down our own tree with a $10 permit fee. We bought our little bow saw and had our map. Let me tell you this is no Christmas Tree farm...this is a freakin' forest!! We took one road and I literally felt like I was on a crazy snow roller coaster. There were no rails, hairpin turns, big rocky bolders, and no one else to rescue us. It was an adventure. We searched for a couple of hours to find our "perfect" tree. We sang Christmas carols and tramped out in the snow. These trees are either huge or not full at all. So we found our tree...sort of a really fat version of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree. We call it ghettofabulous. We decorated it last night and laughed as you can see ornaments from one side of the tree while standing on the other side. But it is our first tree together and we found it and cut it down ourselves! I love it! Posted below are pics from the cell phone. I'll post better ones later! Also is one of Austin out in the field.