Mis-Adventures of Nate & Jenny: February 2013

Nemo! Ha ha! Nemo... I don't get it.

We had a good half day of Wildcat and then the real fun began! During Friday night, the snow really hit. Supposedly 17 inches of the fresh stuff landed between Friday morning and Saturday morning. Instead of breaking trail, we did the easy way and went back to Wildcat. Unfortunately, the wind was howling so every time we got to the top of the mountain, it was pretty unpleasant. AND because the wind was howling so much, the top of the mountain was losing snow fast and furiously! We would take the lift to the top of the mountain and move as fast as we could down the mountain because the snow was really fun at mid-mountain but it was bullet-proof from the top to mid. I made so many turns that my aching back turned into my aching abs... but I guess I needed to knock my body around a few times to get everything back working again and I'm pain-free... besides my abs... which feel ROCK HARD!!!

Nate driving seriously through a blizzard! Have I mentioned how much I LOVE the Subaru!! She's drives like a charm!!!

The blizzard...

Second chair lift ride... Notice Nate's face thing is already frozen...

Nate making some turns!

Nater looking stylish...

And the best sequence of photos from the day. Nate was skipping ahead to see if I could spray him because I have been practicing this technique (and obviously need to continue practicing) Here is the early start of the spray... I do have sweet dance moves all splayed out...

When I went to really grab in... I must have hit something and only one side of board dug in and it dug in hard...

So my spray attempt ended up being a skid but I dug hard...

And fell on my bum...

And I laughed and laughed and laughed!!!

Nemo?... that's a nice name...

Nate and I live in the northeast and unless you live under a rock, you probably know that the northeast just experienced a pretty rad snow event. They called it "Blizzard Nemo"... which is in my humble opinion, a lame name for such a sweet snow storm but whatever... they didn't ask me... AGAIN.

So, we knew the storm was coming but I waited until pretty much Thursday to get excited about this snow event because the snow storms they said were coming before that never showed up ... and by never showing up... I mean, they said 6 inches and we got ZERO!!! So, Thursday night came, the forecast looked like it was for real going to happen so we started packing up. We decided to stay home Thursday night, sleep in our own bed and then drive up Friday morning. We left early Friday morning, hit up the chateau and then took the dogs to Echo Lake to wear off some of their energy. We then grabbed our gear and headed to Wildcat mountain for a half day of freshies. We walked in the lodge and who did we run into, but Mr. Nevins!!! He had just went through the trees which weren't quite covered enough and banged up his board pretty good. He told us to go do a lap and that he'd meet us at the lift so that's exactly what we did.

Our first lap was so full of snow that it didn't seem like we were just getting started at noon, but that we were there from the very beginning. We did our lap and then met up with Mr. Nevins. We did a few more laps and then he needed to meet up with one of his buddies. So we then ended up riding with Mr. Nevins, a sports photographer, and one of his buddies who ended up bring a film crew along... I'm totally serious!!!

If you skip ahead past the artsy stuff to about 1:05, you'll see a shadowy figure kinda haunting the guy in the blue coat... that's me... :) I'm not fancy enough to get any other footage... all of my sweet moves are strictly in my head... Then you can skip ahead to 2:03 and you'll see Nate!! He got a whole 5 seconds of footage!! But we got to hang out with Nevins for the afternoon so it was all worth it... Except when he made us duck a rope "to get a shot"... I'm not sure that was worth it...

The only picture I took on Friday...

My advice to couples who play together!

Nate and I get in regular... uh... spats while we are exercising. Typically, it goes something like this:

Jenny: "Ouch, that one stung a bit"
Nate (helping Jenny up off her bum): "You should bend your knees when you ski"
Jenny: "Yes, Nate, you said that 20 times now"
Nate: "I'm just trying to help!"
Jenny: "Yes, I know you are trying to help and I'm trying to bend my knees, but sometimes I forget."
Nate: "Well, if you bend your knees..."

So, in one of our recent cross country ski adventures, I was thinking of what annoys me so much about when Nate tries to help. I do actually know that he's trying to help. And the boy is a saint for dealing with me through times like this and this and this... However, it's incredibly irritating when he gives me constant direction while we are supposedly playing. There are many times that I have looked at him and said, "I'm not training for the Olympics, can you please just let me have fun without giving me pointers?" or "Why don't we go swimming so that I can constantly telling you what you are doing wrong?" Each time he gets more upset because I'm not letting him help me. I'm such a jerk! :)

While we were going on our third hour of cross country skiing, I was trying to rationalize what drives me crazy about the critiques. We had actually been going along fine and not spatting at all, but then I did something silly and he critiqued me. In my completely irrational attitude, I told him, "Ok, that was your one critique today so I hope you meant it." His critique was to bend my knees because I flew down a hill uncontrollably and I fell on my bum once again! The light bulb went off. There are times when I am cross country skiing and I'm doing the "bend your knee" thing correctly and Nate never says, "That's it. You are bending your knees. Nice work"... I am an adult after all, but in being someone who is still learning how to do all these winter sports, I need a little positive reinforcement that yup, I can do this correctly. So, I said, "Ok, if you point out when I'm bending my knees, you can earn more critiques." He looked at me like I was a crazy fool but I expressed to him that I think I am doing it correctly but I'm not sure and it would be nice if he is going to point out when I'm doing it wrong, that he also points it out when I'm doing it correctly. That was my new years present to him!! A critique on critiquing!

So all you boyfriends out there teaching your girlfriends a new sport, my advice to you... You can critique all you want IF and only IF you pay attention and praise her when she's doing something correctly! I see WAY too many couples fighting out in the "field" and just want to look at the girl and say, "chill, it's going to be ok. He's just trying to help" and say to the boy, "you get ONE critique and then you've got to earn the rest! Now help her up and keep cheering her on!".

Day 2 - Quick & Easy!

Thankfully, my lack of updates to this doesn't mean that we have been sitting on our rumps doing nothing... We have been doing stuff, I just forget to write about it... So here's the first catch-up post..

WAY back in December, Nate and I went up the Cog side for a second day in a row. The first day we went to Sam and his brother Matt. Day two was just Nate and I and the crazy puppies. We decided that since the day before it wasn't worth going too high that day two wouldn't be worth going too high either. We set our goal to the cross-over and headed up. Thankfully for day two, the skies had opened up a bit and you could see the summit, but it didn't last long and started as we climbed up.

The summit from the base of the mountain. Not a blue-bird day but at least you could see the top. And you can also see how scoured the mountain looks.