White Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

It has been a crazy month and I can't believe it is already Christmas on Friday! My sister got here a week ago and my parents got here on Sunday. It is so wonderful to have them here in Park City for Christmas this year and to be able to show them around my town and have them meet my friends. They were able to secure a condo right in town, so I have moved in with them for the week. They have been skiing while I have been working, but I finally have 3 days off so we can all ski and spend the day together. Erin attended my volunteer training last week for the Ski Center and she has volunteered on one of my lessons and is volunteering on Evan's lesson today. I'm making her work for her ski passes.

Speaking of skiing, I taught my first ski lessons this week! It was a little bit of a shock actually. As a new-hire, we have to complete 12 hours of team teaching before we can be put on the schedule. I had completed about 6 hours when I walked into work and my boss told me that I was going to have to teach in 30 minutes. Ok! My student was great. She is an 11 year old from Texas and we sang lots of songs and played in the snow in between runs. I also attended a 2-day Bi-Ski clinic last weekend. A bi-ski is a sit ski with 2 skis underneath that the instructor usually tethers from behind. It is one of the most physically demanding lessons that we have, and possibly one of the most dangerous (when something goes wrong) but definitely one of the most fun. You can put anyone in a bi-ski and go rip it up all over the mountain. In our clinic, we learned all about how to set up and adjust the equipment, how to load onto the chairlift (and unload), how to bucket the bi-ski and how to tether it on steeper terrain. We did have sand-bag students so we weren't endangering each other's lives.

In other news, I have a place to live! For those of you who didn't hear, we had a water main bust in our attic a few weeks ago. I woke up at 4 am to water dripping onto my bed and a river rushing down our stairs. Within an hour, we had water coming through every seam, overhead light and crack in our ceiling from our upstairs to our basement garage. I left to shower at a friends before work and when I returned 12 hours later, our entire place had been evacuated and gutted. My friends were wonderful and everyone offered me a place to crash as long as I needed to. Luckily, our neighbors aren't returning until after the first of the year, and they were gracious enough to let us stay there. I started looking for a place to live immediately, but the selection in mid-December in Park City is slim. Two of my friends in Americorps with me told me that they were looking to move, so the three of us will be roommates. We finally found a townhouse in a neighborhood in town, right across the street from 3 friends! It has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms, LOTS of extra beds (for visitors!) and kelly green carpet. I can't wait to move in!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful and blessed Christmas and New Years! I hope that it is a wonderful time with family and friends this holiday season for everyone. I miss you all and am looking forward to seeing some of you in just a few short weeks! Merry Christmas!

Stats Update

• Total Ski Days: 9
• Lowest Temp of the Day: -6 (Yesterday)
• Today's High Temperature: 0 (as in, ZERO degrees.)
• Hours spent outside in 0 degrees: 6
• Amount of Duct Tape insulating my gloves: Approx 1 ft.
• Number of days homeless: 3

Cashew Chicken Traditions.

Apparently, it is snowing in Baton Rouge right now. That's nice and all, but why isn't it snowing in a place that needs it? All we have are high temperatures that aren't reaching past 30 and icy ski runs. Hopefully though, it will start snowing tomorrow and will continue throughout the week like it is supposed to. If I wasn't absolutely frozen and buried under blankets, I would be doing a snow dance right now. (Though, despite the cold, my friend and I got ice cream tonight...only at the BEST ice cream place ever, called the Yellow Snow. Expect to go there when you all come to visit.)

Anyway, I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving! Things have been great in my neck of the woods. Last week I boarded a plane bound for, first Chicago, and then Springfield, Missouri. It was great to get out of town for a bit and see my family. I love Park City, but it

really is kind of like a college town for college graduates. It's small enough to only have about 2 degrees of separation between every person here between the ages of 20 and 35. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it was good to get away for a weekend. I love Thanksgiving in our family. I love the predictability of it. It is 5 days out of the whole year that have followed the same schedule for years. Wednesday night, we all get into town. We go out to Mexican Villa...which we didn't do this year

and I think it rocked my cousin Jeff's world a little. Instead, we went to get pasta. Who, you might be wondering, goes and eats a big, Mexican or Pasta dinner on the night before Turkey Day? The Smith's do. And then we run it off the next morning at the Turkey Trot. Paige and I were the champions this year! We even beat out Mitchell. Then we take family pictures, race to the cold showers and head out to the farm. We then eat ourselves into a food coma. We had 20 people at the farm this year, plus 3 dogs. Unfortunately, Shelby wasn't allowed at the farm since she would roll in every pile of cow poop there. Anyways, we eat alot, as does everyone on this day. The day after Thanksgiving, we split up into shopping groups. The brother's go to Bass Pro and take the annual tour de childhood. Aunt Kim and Maria tackle the intense sales and my mom, Paige and I venture out to an outdoors store away from the madness and then to Starbucks for momma's daily fix. Then, we got Cashew

Chicken. If you have never been to Springfield, you apparently have never experienced THE Springfield Cashew Chicken. It's like Jambalaya

is to Baton Rouge. With a Springfield native as a father, we grew up having a homemade version, which I actually prefer. But it is a necessity, to have the origonal while there. We then go to Grandpa's for pizza, pool and patio-sitting. I introduced the fam to Apples to Apples this year. It got pretty intense. Day 4 of Thanksgiving, we all go see an early movie, watch the Kansas/Mizzou game and go to Grandma & Jim's for early Christmas presents and a homecooked meal. Then day 5, we wake up before the sun and hit the road. What a wonderful 5 days of my life. I am already looking forward to next year.