Holiday Valley

Anyone who knows me pretty well, knows that I love a good routine, or a tradition.

The tradition of going up to New York to Holiday Valley with our next door neighbors is one that I look forward to every year. This trip started out with our family [Brad, Laura, Alli and myself] and the next door neighbors [Mr. B, Mrs. B, Rachel, Jen and Erica] and now the group of 9 has grown to 14 [which include 2 husbands, 1 fiance, 1 boyfriend, and a kid]

It has been more than fun incorporating the new additions to our large group along the way.
If you are new to the blog here is last years post

Most of us before our first run of the trip
[minus rachel, mike and madison who were all over on the bunny hill for madison's first ski lesson]
this picture is also on the Holiday Valley home page currently as well - were kinda famous!
I love how we all line our boots up in the hallway after we come in from a day out on the slopes - i'm sure the people who we shared a hallway with appreciated it too - ha!
While we were out on the slopes Saturday I went over to help my sister's fiance with learning how to snowboard [well I thought I could tell him how I taught myself how to] well during my trip over to visit him I somehow got the courage to go on the bunny hill terrain park. I am here to tell you that I am a decent snowboarder when its just going down hill or going in the woods - however I have never been one to do jumps/tricks/half pipes.... ect

So here is how it all went down [and I promise its worth reading because at the end I went down a few times]

Attempt #1
Hit a mini table top heading down hill - dismount perfectly - FUN!
Attempt #2
Successfully hit the same jump - feeling VERY confident - I COULD GET USED TO THIS!
Attempt #3
Decided to get fancy and square up on the table top - rode the entire thing [fine it was only about 7-8' long - but still] and Andrew [who was encouraging me to do this] forgot to tell me to re-position myself down hill before i dismounted - EPIC FAIL - landed hard off of a 3' jump - yes i know it doesn't seem possible
Attempt #4
To show off for my sister's fiance I thought I would show him what I had been doing... and in the attempt to get myself situated in the 15' between the orange fence [remember I was on the bunny hill - and its pretty smart of HV to put up a barrier so a newbie doesn't hurt themselves] and the jumps I couldn't turn myself around causing me to nearly hit 2 barrel jumps and 2 flags... EPIC FAIL #2
Attempt #5 [my final attempt]
I regained my composure and tried the table top again - heading in facing down, square up and got a little too fancy and ended up rotating 270 degrees causing my board to go off of the table top and my, you know what, to land right on the edge of the table top - EPIC FAIL #3

I decided at that point that there was a reason that I had 3 epic fails in a row and I decided to pick up my pride and head in for lunch, never returning to the mini terrain park again!

That night I decided to evaluate the damage I had done to myself - sure I saw a small bruise on my hip and I thought that was it... oh no - clearly I forgot how hard that I had landed - and forgot to check my complete backside - HOLY EFF there is a bruise the size of a grapefruit and in a pretty dark blue/purplish color... [i'm just worried about the dr asking how this happened tomorrow and me having to tell her that "Yes, I'm 27 and I tried to hit a jump on a snowboard story"] [and if my pride being crushed on vacation wasn't nearly enough-trying to run with a huge bruise on your backside hurts even worse!]

okay - i digress about my attempt to be Hannah Teter for the day...

Oh well - its not a complete ski vacation without one little minor bump and bruise

Saturday night we went out after dinner to our favorite place, Madigans [and clearly I needed a drink or two to rid me of the pain on my ass].
Alli, Erica, and myself
Erica somehow convinced the bartender to allow her to ride the dummy waiter [that just transports ice and beer upstairs and downstairs!]
Justin and I
We headed back out on the slopes on Sunday before we headed home for Ohio.
Everything was going pretty smoothly until we tried to back out of parking spot, and because of the warm weather we had on Sunday - or truck had sunk a little bit since the night before... so the boys got out and pushed.
It was a fun and adventurous vacation - like always.

Its a trip I look forward to every year and I can't wait for next year :)

Thanks again mom and dad for another fun ski/boarding vacation!