All types of great folks

Hiya!

Alright so lets fill ya in on the last few days...Recently we had a group come that was from Africa which is crazy and super cool. My girl was from Kenya and had an awesome story. She was different from the rest of her school group in that they were living in a more civilized area however Doris actually lives in a mud and grass hut with her tribe. I honestly don't think I could do it justice if I tried to spell out her tribe name so just imagine =). Anyways Doris was the apparently the first girl from her tribe to be allowed out of the group to be educated. In her tribe they believe women are something you own. Women don't have a say and can't do anything without permission from the men. Somehow she was given permission to be out and about learning. She hopes to be a doctor someday after university. She is currently the equivalent of a high school sophomore. All of this I didn't know until later which would have been nice. She was my first lesson that I was the lead instructor and I had a volunteer with me. My volunteer was great, he had taught skiing for about 15 years before he got a virus that ended up getting his legs amputated. If you know me at all you would know that I was just chatting away to Doris telling her about gliding on one ski and two and turning stopping etc etc. She nodded and tried her best but her efforts never came out as I explained and I couldn't figure it out for the life of me. Later that morning I overheard one of the assistants to their group saying her incredible story and mentioning that she is just learning English. This would have been a LITTLE nice to know before we started the lesson. Once we figured it out she was great at follow the leader. She progressed nicely and seemed to really enjoy herself on the slopes.

On Tuesday I had a day off which was MUCH needed after 8 days of working. I spent the morning relaxing with Bethany (Adams girlfriend) watching a movie. Then I headed out to the slopes to snowboard for a few hours to expend some energy. This seemed like a great idea...until my binding broke. Now let me tell you this binding breaking sitch must have looked really cool if you were on the lift above me. My foot came out of my board and I did a rather graceful 360 down the mountain and the BOOM I blew snow everywhere. The mountain safety guy came over to see if I was alright and I was fine minus being at the TOP of the mountain with a broken board and a loooong hike down. This guy was awesome and offered me a ride down, little did I know it was from the ski patrol sled...awesome. I was pretty nervous my boss or coworkers would see me on the sled and be pissed/upset thinking I was hurt. The ride down was awesome, ski patrol was incredibly friendly and were a fun sled ride down the mountain. Hopefully this will be the last time I am on one of those sleds or need their assistance. That night we had a clinic to learn sign language which I was dreading but actually turned out to be really cool. I learned and retained a lot which surprised me. I can now say all the essentials for a lesson via sign language.

My next day was spent with a visually impaired client (VI). She was a total sweet heart and incredibly cautious almost to a fault. She was making great turns and has awesome speed control and stopping however she didn't want to go down the hill faster than walking speed. She explained that previous instructors really made her uncomfortable by pushing her to ski too fast so I tried my best to be patient and practice skiing backwards while we had a girl talk session skiing down. Even though each run took roughly 30 minutes I was more happy that she felt safe a secure on the mountain otherwise her experience with us wouldn't have been fun.

Today I was an awesome day since I got a surprise day off. I was supposed to drive to Denver to drop off clients but they ended up canceling one of the vans trips so I got the day off besides having to do the end of trip van checks. This morning I made Strawberry jam since I despise the grape jelly we have in our current collection. It came out delishhh and all over my nice newish shirt (bummer dude). After this I went out to watch the Poor Boyz productions team filming some guys being crazy and doing jumps off our ropes course on their skis. It was pretty awesome to watch them bust out these crazy moves. After that Kevin and I went down to town because he wants to find me a Christmas present but can't figure out what to get me. It wasn't very successful since pointing out presents I want is super awkward... =) After that we went and ate our lunches and people watched til we met Charley on the bus headed to the Dew Tour for some free schwag (sp?). The Dew Tour was cool with lots of bro bras and free stickers galore! I got a cool free bandana and some bright orange shoe laces. After this we went to the "adopt the interns" dinner at the Sullivans. I had no idea they made houses this big...literally the BIGGEST mansion I have ever seen in my life. They made us a delicious dinner and a ton of appetizers while we decorated their 30 ft tall tree. It was such a nice time and I really enjoyed talking to Don Sullivan about his life working for GM and traveling all over. He has lived some crazy places and has such a passion for it. After that we headed home with full tummies and a bag left overs YUM!! Tomorrow we get a tour of Keystone Mountain should be a great day!

xoxo

-L