Still Waiting

Andi-rae still has the bun in the oven. The little boy seems to be a bit stubborn. I am just hanging out with her and the family in Fort Collins, CO waiting for the big moment.

Skiing and the waiting game

Aji and I tried spending Friday working on our respective projects. We let some fun in that night though when we met up with a group of friends from Austin who happened to be vacationing that weekend.

Saturday I took Aji skiing. His skills very much impressed me as he was already skiing with grace (well, that might be a stretch - we will say minimal grace) steeper greens on his second ever day of down hill skiing. After a long day on the hill we made our way to the popular happy hour Quandary Grille and did not leaving until nearly 8:00pm. We peeled ourselves away from the Quandary and walked to the other side of Breckenridge to visit an dear old friend. It just so happened that PJ had some of his musician friends visiting that evening and Aji and I listened to an in house private concert (OK - well maybe it was a rehearsal but we still truly enjoyed the folk music).

Sunday we enjoyed another day on the mountain although this time a bit colder and less visibility. We welcomed the smaller crowds. After a quick hot tub and packing up at our fourth host house (Maggie and Wally) we made our way to one last final dinner in Breckenridge. The highlight to our dinner included a chocolate lava torte with smoked chocolate ice cream.

Our last stop before Aji flew home to Texas included Ft. Collins to visit extremely pregnant BFF Andrea, Brandon and Zoe. As much as we anticipated Andrea having her baby, the unnamed baby boy is still in the oven. This morning I took Aji to the airport and said a heartfelt good bye. We had a wonderful 12 days together traveling Utah and Colorado.

I am currently staying at Andrea's house in Fort Collins until she has the baby. This is a frustrating waiting game! We are all hoping he will start making his way out soon. She has been at 3cm for a week now.

Breckenridge and Francie's Cabin

Aji and I started the week off with me teaching him how to Nordic ski. Although he was frustrated that near perfection did not come within an hour of skiing, he came around and found his rhythm. We also met many of my old Breckenridge friends. Although it has been 2 years since I have lived here full time, it still very much feels like home. My group of friends of course help create that home feeling, and I enjoyed watching them welcome and embrace Aji.

I can't say that our days are filled with all play as Aji works during the day on his computer and I am trying to get things together to figure out my future life plans. After two days of working, Nordic skiing and meeting up with friends we traded in our skis for snowshoes. We loaded up our packs and headed up Spruce Creek Trail where we spent two nights in a hut.

The hut systems in Summit County are beautiful and quite posh for a "back country" experience.

Aji and Moab

Pictured outside - Brook, Doug, Jerry, Nicole, Dave, Tony and Aji (in red pants)

Pictured inside - Nicole, Dave, Tony, Brook, Jerry, Doug

Pictured - Tony and Brook with Nicole butting her head in the background (so typical)

Aji flew in from Texas on the same day we made it to Salt Lake City. We made a plan to spend about 12 days together traveling between Utah and Colorado. On our first night we met up with a group of couchsurfers in Salt Lake City for a couple of beers and entertaining conversations based on the Mormon culture of Utah.

After dropping the girls off at the airport and once again repacking my car for what feels like the 100th time we hopped over to a friends house who cooked a beautiful lunch including warm chili to help ward off the chill in the air. Salt Lake City (just like many other cities) looked like a magic winter wonderland as the trees, cars and streets had a beautiful coating of whiteness.

We took a trip to Salt Lake City's library which might as well be a tourist destination. It was the most beautiful library I have ever seen! After trying to get some "work" in on our prospective projects we took off for a four hour drive to Moab where we met the wild bunch of crazy trail runnin freaks! Nicole, Doug, Tony, Dave, Jerry and I were supposed to run our 20 mile trail run the following morning.

Aji was our support and dropped us off at the starting line. It was a balmy 24 degrees with snow covering the ground. It took me 4.5 hours to complete this rugged course complete with snow, ice, slick rock, elevation gain, sand, mud and rocks. I had a TON of fun and ended up running along side Tony and Holly (who Tony and I met at mile 4 or so). We were quite the trio of a team and helped each other get through the challenge. I looked at that event as a really long hike with an opportunity to jog here and there. The view of the snow covered canyons, spires and valley is indescribable. The sun glistened over every surface and provided some warmth as it had reached 50 degrees by the time the run was complete.

I nearly came to tears as I crossed the finish line. That race meant so much to me. When mom was sick in the fall I fell into a bit of a depression eating myself through the pain and sadness and not exercising in any capacity. My BFF Nicole (Ft. Collins, CO) egged me on to sign up for this ridiculous race. It gave me reason to pick myself off the couch and to stop feeling sorry for myself. I spent several months preparing for the race as much as a flat-lander Houston girl could. I owe a big huge thanks to Nicole for inspiring me to get running and feel better about myself!

After the race we completely indulged in food, hot tub action and libations. We had one heck of a good time painting the town of Moab red.

A painful morning to follow we gave it our best effort to pick up our sore legs, baby our aching heads and bellies and enjoy our last day in Moab with a very short walk about and dining at the local restaurants.

Aji, Doug and I drove from Moab to Frisco that Sunday night and we enjoyed a peaceful slumber!

Women's Yurt Trip

Two quick cute you tube videos of Brook and Lucy chopping wood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkgIDeMg8Lc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xXBDbeqSks

I had a superb three day yurt trip with my good friends Lucy and Nancy (who is blind) in the mountains of Utah. After ski for light was over the three of crammed into my Forrester with all of our stuff and waved good bye to Provo and headed for our next adventure.

We landed in Park City in the afternoon where Mary Lou (a fellow Ski For Light guide) our host for the evening greeted us. With next to no sleep from the entire week of Ski For Light we scrapped up some energy to grocery shop for our trip, pack our bags and cook a lovely meal together. We slept soundly and after a quick breakfast headed towards Wyoming for our adventure.

We could not have asked for better weather as we pulled into the trail head parking lot. With enthusiasm we jumped out of the car, threw on our packs, took a quick photo and off we went into the woods.

It only took us an enjoable 1 hour ski in to our yurt. On our way in we saw 4 fellow ski for light friends skiing to their yurt. After quickly getting settled in we had time for an afternoon ski and then made the most delicious dinner!

Apparently it was a VERY cold night and us ladies made a huge error. We only stoked the fire at 12:00am and by the time 6:00am rolled around the coals were as cold as ice and our visible breathe decorated the air. We stood around the fire at 6:00am unable to go back to sleep or ski. It took me about 30 minutes of convincing to head outside to take care of business in the outhouse.

Many hours later once we warmed up and filled our bellies with some comforting breakfast we put in a full day of skiing. Lucy and I had tons of fun chopping wood and kindling when we got back and worked up an appetite for a Mexican dinner delight! I am proud that we learned from our mistake from the night previous. Since Nancy is blind she was unable to comfortably stoke the fire so she had to task of setting her alarm for every two hours and waking up in shifts Lucy and I to stoke the fire. It was a perfect system and on our last morning we woke up to a toasty warm yurt.

After our last enjoyable ski day we packed our things, cleaned the yurt and skied back to the car.

We headed to Salt Lake City and stayed with a generous couchsurfing host and in the morning we gave our hugs good byes as Nancy flew to Bend, Oregon and Lucy to Houghton, MI.

Ski For Light in Utah

Ski For Light is perhaps one of my most treasured weeks throughout my entire year. It is tough to put into words why and how this week means so much to me.

A little background for those who may be unaware (www.sfl.org). It is a week long event (250 people) that changes locations annually. We cross country ski during the day and drink a lot of alcohol, dance to a lot of good music and have fun evening activities. Nearly half of the participants are blind so everyone essentially has a skiing partner. This was my sixth year in attendance and I am also on the board and event planning committee.

I had a rough SFL in 2009 due to a personal issue with a very close friend and event planning tension with fellow organizers. This year those issues did not exist and I felt so engrossed in the moment throughout the entire week - it was a magical year. I will go into several reasons why the week was so special to me.

Lucy - I invited my dear friend Lucy from Michigan to participate this year at SFL and she jumped on board with both feet. She fit in instantly as I knew she would and even met the love of her life. I hope those two stay together for a very long time, this will be the first time I am involved with match making! Spending so much time with Lucy filled my heart because since I moved to Houston last August my heart has desperately missed spending quality time with my friends I deeply connect with and cherish. Lucy was a perfect run around and almost cause trouble partner.

Stress free organizing - Since I was caring for mom over the previous months I had to pull myself out of many aspects of the event planning committee which freed up my time at SFL and I was able to just enjoy the week.

Dancing - There is something so incredibly euphoric that happens in my body when I get to dance. It is my creative outlet, stress reliever and so many other repressed emotions fly out of my body when I just let the music move me! I love the SFL dances because everyone dances with everyone. For some of the blind participants this might be their only chance all year to dance and boy do we make the best of it!

Friends - It was my first year at ski for light where I felt like I had a solid group of friends. Many of the folks in attendance I had the opportunity to visit throughout the year while traveling. It feels like family - I felt like my friendships solidified into something more than just a one week ski week each year. My heart felt filled up with love!

Maureen - I was so excited this year to ski with the Mobility Impaired Program. I was originally paired with Jeff for the week (he is a sit-skier - paraplegic). At the beginning of the week I was approached by a guide and good friend, Karen, who was having difficulties with her skier Maureen (who is blind and deaf). After sharing my past guiding experience with her and several other folks we realized the best solution would be for me to switch skiers with Karen. The SFL board is nervous to have Maureen ski at the event at all because she is the only deaf and blind skier at SFL. They fear that she is a high risk skier because she is guided differently than the rest of the pack. In fact, it has typically been the policy that Maureen must bring her own guide. In some ways I have tried to fight hard and stand up for Maureen because I think it would go against our mission to turn down a skier because they are deaf and blind. Since I have guided Maureen in the past I know without a doubt that I can guide her in a safe (atypical, but safe none the less) manner. I put my neck on the line again by switching skiers and had every organizer looking closely at Maureen's and I skiing. As I predicted Maureen and I had a WONDERFUL week! Of course we could not have done this without our third party member Carol who helped keep me organized and focused on my responsibilities (I get a little ADD during the week because there is a constant chance to socialize with 200 plus interesting people). I almost cried at the end of the week when Maureen said, "this was my best 5k rally I have ever had!" It was magical.

Serendipity and living in the moment - I took a different angle this week and did not plan anything. I let the magic and the natural flow of SFL take over and everything worked out so perfectly and beautifully. A good reminder of how I want to live everyday.

Staying off site - I chose not to stay at the hotel to save $700 and boy did it challenge my ability to use resources and logistic skills! I took a shower and stayed in a different bed nearly every night. I hauled my bags around in true gypsy form. While it proved to be a challenge and slightly stressful, it added a different variety to my experience. I am hoping next year to scrounge up enough money to avoid the added stress it caused me. I did have a wonderful couchsurfing host, Austin, (he lives in Provo) who let Lucy and I come and go freely and he really was crucial in making our week a success by not staying in the hotel.

Post wedding

I would like to apologize for the silence, it seems the blog spot was giving me some technical difficulties.

Here is a post from more than a week ago:

Chad's wedding in Houston was amazing! I am so happy to have a new sister. Although I had fun officiating the wedding and I felt I did a pretty good job, I realized the next day I forgot one of the biggest jobs - signing the documents (oops - hehe). We did take care of it though so they are officially married and as Angee always says they are "nonrefundable."

After a late night of celebrating their wedding I had to wake up very early with a fairly significant hangover. Aji was kind enough to take me to the airport bright and early and I landed in Denver by 11:00am. I made it just in time to make it to Andrea's baby shower in Ft. Collins. I spent some quality time with my BFF's Andrea and Nicole before I had to take off the next morning for Provo, Utah.