Big news on the bowling front in the last week. On Jan. 17th, Jay bowled his first 600 series. That means you averaged 200+ points for 3 games and it is a big deal. Jay’s series that Thursday night was a 614. Then on Jan. 21st at my Monday morning league, I bowled a 208 for the second game. That was very exciting. On the way in to town that morning, Jay told me that I would bowl a 200 game that day and I scoffed! Jay was there watching my big game. When he left for his Rotary meeting, I bowled a 121 in the third game, so I think his presence influenced all of those strikes. My average is 125 in that league. Today our bowling partner and friend, Betty Lee, gave us a present. It is a bowling pin magnet, with a bowling ball that says good on one side and bad on the other. You can change the saying to reflect each day’s bowling. And on the pin, she recorded the date of Jay’s 614 series, and my 208 game. That was so sweet of her to think to do that.

Yesterday we went skiing again. The weather was perfect, the snow was perfect, I had my new ski suit on, there were no crowds and I had a private ski lesson. Jay was very happy with his skiing, saying it was the best day that he’d had. This was the best instructor that I have had. He actually got me up the baby lift 3 times and to the top of the beginner lift once. I fell at least 6 times, and he had to help me up5 times. One time I took my skis off, so I could stand, but then I fell over trying to balance to put my ski’s back on. LOL! I have some homework to help my skiing: to work on my balance and stretching, and to practice lying in the snow and getting up on a hill. But all in all, I did better, did a lot of snowplowing and actually made some half way decent turns. Not decent, but half way – it’s a start. One of my biggest problems is that my goggles fog up and I have a hard time seeing where I am going. I purchased anti-fog spray, but that didn’t help. I think if it is not blowing snow, I may just try my sunglasses and see how that works next time. I was quite sore and stiff right away and when we got home. I took some ibuprofen for the anti-inflammatory benefit, not for pain, that evening, and fortunately I was not impaired for bowling today. I am still a little creaky in the knees and thighs if I have to kneel or squat, but overall, much better than I expected to be from all those snowplows yesterday.

On our way home from the slopes, we stopped at the Westcliffe Supermarket to pick up milk. Jay took pictures of the sunset over the Sangre de Cristo mountain range which was gorgeous and unusual. Enjoy. And even better yet, come and see for yourself.

My friend, Sue, has invited me to be her friend on Facebook and on a new messaging system on Twitter.com. I signed up for both of them, but haven’t figured out what I’m supposed to do. Anyone else heard of Twitter? Anyone else on Facebook and wants to be my friend?

Monday, January 7th: The day started out clear and blue with slight chance of snow in the afternoon (at least that’s what I thought). We were waiting for a delivery of a propane back up generator, so I left for bowling at 9:15 am, Jay left for Rotary at 11:30 am, and Ted stayed home waiting for the generator. Ted called me about noon and said the truck couldn’t make it up our driveway and to call the driver who was using a neighbor’s phone. I was able to make arrangements for the delivery of the generator to the office of Wright Electric. JB Wright is on our Wed am bowling team and will do the electrical connection of the generator. After Rotary and since the generator was safely stored, Jay went home to pick up Ted and bring him back to town and met me at the bank. It started to snow about 1 pm, at first lightly, then as the day progressed, thick flakes. We had been invited to a friend’s house at 4 pm to watch the BCS Championship game and had already backed out twice due to weather, so we decided to go for a short time. We left Jay’s car at the bowling alley, and took the OnStar capable Tahoe to the Finleys. We met Quentin Finley coming down his road on his ATV snowplowing the road, so we would have a safe drive in. We knew we weren’t going to stay long! as we followed the snow plow to his house. There was no view, due to the heavy snow, although that was the primary purpose of the original invitation, so we could admire his mountain view. After a short tour of his house, we started back to town. By the time we got to town, daylight was gone and we could barely see the road. The ride home was slow, but uneventful. We had the GPS which showed us where we were and we tried to stay in the center of the road. There was very little traffic, so no one to follow, and this was at 5:30. I felt sorry for the people who worked in one of the nearby cities and had to drive home later. In retrospect, we should have gone straight home at 3 pm, before the snow built up and while it was daylight. We kept telling ourselves it was a Colorado adventure. But the LSU – OSU game was terrific and LSU deserved to win.

Tuesday, Jan. 8th: Jay had an early morning dental appointment in Pueblo and had no problem getting down our driveway and the county roads had been plowed and were in good shape. Upon his return he decided to snow plow driveway before he took me in for the Quilt guild meeting. The dentist had told him to take it easy for the rest of the day. I think I may have mentioned that the 1984 Bronco with the snow plow is tempermental and had a tendency to stall. Well, it stalled on his way down the hill and without power steering or brakes, it pulled itself into the ditch and there wasn’t anything Jay could do about it except walk back home. That wasn’t exactly taking it easy! Fortunately, the Bronco was on the side of the road and the Tahoe could get around it. We called White Excavating (son-in-law of Aubrey & Leah – the owners of the Bronco and our neighbors) to come plow the whole driveway up to our house and to unstuck the Bronco. And we didn’t even need to give directions, since Fred and Jonna White are so familiar with our house.. her sister built it and her parents lived in it for several years.

Wednesday, Jan. 9th: Fred plowed the driveway and moved the Bronco back up to our house while we were at bowling. Yeah! Fred’s professional snowplow is able to get much closer to the ground and has a much wider blade. It was a pleasure to drive up the plowed driveway. We were finally able to bring Jay’s car home from the bowling alley parking lot.

Thursday, Jan. 10th: Jay’s bowling league night, and upon arrival at Cliff Lanes, I was handed an envelope with my name on it by Casey, the manager and Jay’s teammate. I was amazed upon opening it to see that JB Wright and I had placed 22nd in the Scotch double’s tournament in Canon City from November. I wrote briefly about the tournament on the Nov. 13th blog. JB and I each received a check for $5.50 for our tremendous efforts. While I never thought any of us had done well enough to win any money, I was equally amazed that it took them two months to distribute the winnings. By the way, the Bronco is now at the mechanic getting a tune up, after spending an hour or more in the morning charging the battery.

Friday, Jan. 11th: Second ski lesson time! Today we rented helmets in addition to our skis, boots and poles. The sky was blue in Salida (where we pick up our ski equimpment) but there were clouds over the mountains. Monarch has been getting 10+ inches of new snow every day for the last week. It started right after we left last Thursday. By the time we got to the mountain, it was snowing heavily. There was about 3 – 4 inches of loose powder snow in the bunny hill training area. I was fortunate again to have only one other student in the 1:30 class today. When we put our skis down in the snow to learn how to put them on, they disappeared under the snow! As we tried to ski, snowplow, turn, etc, we could rarely see our skis for the powder. I told the instructor that I thought they should have groomed this area, for all of us beginners, and he said that they had and this was all new snow from early this am. I got to fall down several times this lesson, but I was doing more things, so I guess that’s good, but I never did figure out how to get up without getting out of my skis, so that’s not so good. The instructor ended up pulling me to my feet most of the time. Melissa, my co-student, was very good at getting herself up, but she was only 20 and I think her center of gravity was somewhere different than mine. However, I was able to turn better this time and we actually went up the lift one time, although we both fell as we were getting off the lift. Embarrassing! I got to see Jay ski by several times and wave from the lift as he flew by. He said at times at the top of the mountain, he had powder over his boots. It was much harder to ski today, but I did it. I think next lesson may be #2, instead of #1. I don’t need to learn to walk up hill again, but I do need more practice on the turns. On the way home, I had an inspiration to go into a resale boutique in Salida. I found all in one ski suits, kind of like coveralls, but much more stylish. So the next pictures will be a styling snowbunny. I’m told it makes my butt look good! (for a lady with gray hair!) LOL!

Jay and I have our season passes for Monarch Mountain ski resort. Yeah! We stopped at an off site ski rental store on the way to get our equipment. In addition to rented skis, boots, and poles, I purchased goggles to fit over my glasses, wool blend ski socks, and sunscreen. They will keep our equipment choices on record and we can call and reserve the “stuff” and it will be waiting for us. The first boot that the fitter put me in was for my right foot and it instantly hurt the ankle I broke falling on the ice being a mensch about 10 years ago. I was concerned. He then gave me a high performance boot, which must have had more padding or something, because it didn’t hurt at all, and he didn’t charge me the extra fee. We were good to go.

At Monarch, after getting our season passes (halfway decent pictures, by the way) I signed up for a season pass for classes. The afternoon class started at 1:30, so we had time for an excellent lunch at only slightly inflated prices. Jay left me outside the class waiting area and headed for the ski lift. He was concerned that he might have forgotten how to ski or be too out of shape, so he was glad to be on his own, so he could pace himself. Fortunately, he instantly was comfortable on the skis and ran green runs (easy) and then progressed to blues (intermediate). He took some pictures from the top of the mountain and said the view was terrific. He had a great time and was ready to go back today, but we went bowling instead.

Jay had one exciting experience exiting one of the lifts. He was riding with a mother and child on a four person lift. The son was not that experienced and they agreed that the mom would get off first, then the son, and Jay would get off last and be sure not to run over the boy. However, the child did not exit well and Jay missed the emergency cut off switch and made the turn to go back down the mountain. He was about 10 – 12+ feet above the ground. The staff running the lift asked if he thought he could jump down. Jay said “yeah”. The staff was able to get Jay’s skis off fortunately, then told him to jump. Jay said when he dropped and landed he ended up doing a backward somersault and ended up in snow up to his waist. He had some difficulty digging himself out of the snow, but was unhurt and went on his way. It makes a great story, so be sure to have him tell it to you directly. I’m glad I wasn’t there to see it, I’m sure I would have been so, so nervous.

I was lucky and there was only one other beginner waiting to take a level 1 ski lesson. So I ended up with a semi-private lesson. Now the good thing with having a season pass for lessons (I can take as many as I want), was that there was no pressure to accomplish anything particular (at least on my part.) So we learned how to put on our skis, how to walk up hill on our skis, how to glide across the slope (not downhill), how to get into a snow plow and turn around in a circle, and how to go down the gentle slope and stop with the snow plow. My partner, Maria, moved faster than I did, which was ok with me, and I encouraged the instructor to leave me on the slope toward the end of the session and take her up the beginner lift to work on her skills. I took off my skis and walked back up to our starting point, and rested. As I was trying to defog my goggles and clean my glasses, I thought I saw Jay watching me from below me. After I got my glasses cleaned, I realized that it really was him. Chicken that I am, I walked down to meet him, about the same time my instructor and Maria were coming down the slope. After they met, and Maria and the instructor left for another lift practice, I walked back to my skis and snowplowed my way down to Jay and the lodge. I had no need to push myself and even though I was still nervous with the little bit that we had accomplished, I was proud of myself for getting out there and taking the first steps. And by not pushing myself beyond my limits, I am not sore and miserable today.

I am attaching some pictures to wet your imagination and to encourage you to consider a ski trip. Since I am not recognizable all suited up, I am sharing a picture so you can see my face and my ski jacket as I enrolled in ski school. We plan on buying our own ski helmets, which many, many people have now, but to keep renting the equipment until we really know what we want and can get a great deal. It looks like we may have a regular ski date on Thursdays, with some of our buddies from the Wed am bowling league.