Winter Wonderland: Ski Weekend

This past weekend we headed north to enjoy a few days of skiing in Maine. We'd been planning this weekend since before Christmas (ski ticket gift cards for xmas worked out well!) and I was so excited it was finally here. In addition to J & I, J's brother & fiance joined us, as well as my sister.

The drive up to Rangeley, ME is long. It took us more than 5 hours to get up there from Boston Thursday night due to icy roads. But, it is just so nice to wake up and already be there. We planned to ski at Saddleback Mtn on Friday and see how we felt for Saturday.

Um, I honestly don't remember the last time I had the chance to ski on a weekday, non-holiday. It was a dream. No lines, no one on the trails. Fresh powder, light snow coming down, temps above freezing. The only downside? The visibility. Oh my word, the visibility stunk. At first, our goggles were getting covered in ice by the time we made it down a trail, but by the end of the day the heavy fog set in and even though our goggles were clear, the air was not. But we had so much fun Friday, we decided to head back to Saddleback Saturday versus driving a bit further to Sugarloaf.

Here are a few photos I snagged on Friday. At the top of the mountain, there was so much snow, we were skiing near the tops of the trees. J may have even fallen on a tree at one point....I hear it didn't feel so good.

 View from the top, looking over the edge of a trail. Pretty creepy!

This is going to sound strange, but I don't know the last time I was surrounded by so much snow while skiing. No need for the snow makers here.

 J taking down some fresh powder, moguls, and a few baby trees hidden beneath the snow.

A view from the chairlift Friday. The mountain was all ours.

 J got me these new goggles for Christmas this year. First time I think I've ever had reflective lenses. Isn't he darling with that face?...

 Reflective lenses lead to some pretty awesome photos. This is all J's work. And I love it.

All weekend I kept telling myself to snag a group photo and what do ya know, it never happened. Bummer. But I couldn't have asked for a better group to ski with. We were all close enough in skill level to ski the same trails, and even push ourselves to try more challenging ones. Needless to say, I need to do a few more squats before ski season next year, my quads were burning by the end of each day! It was such a great weekend. Looking forward to planning another trip next year!

Blizzard Nemo

I know many of you are in the same position we're in over here, shoveling ourselves out from this snow storm. Um, where the heck do we put all this snow?!

First things first, who chose the name Nemo? I don't know when they decided to start naming blizzards but using sweet Disney characters just seems to strange!

We got about 2 feet here in Boston and spent a few hours Saturday clearing the sidewalk off, as well as J's car. My car was another story...and we had no energy left Saturday for it. Sunday we headed out at noon to clear my car and didn't get back inside until 2. I was exhausted.

Here's a recap of Nemo through pictures:

Friday night the emergency light outside our place was aglow. We kind of forget about this light since it's rarely on.

By Saturday morning, the snow on our deck was up to my waist. Tuck wouldn't go near it.

Opened the front door and holy smokes there is a lot of snow! That would be my car buried under that snow mound...

 Tucker was pretty hesitant to go out there. 

 A view down our street. The left side of the street (our side) seemed to get hit by all of the snow drifts.

 The plows decided to use our corner to push snow/store snow. Gee thanks, now we have 6 feet of snow to move. The sidewalk in front of our place is our responsibility and we take it seriously. We don't want anyone slipping and sliding on our property. That would not be good!

 Love living in a corner unit for all of the extra windows....downside? A lot more sidewalk to shovel! Good thing J is a machine when it comes to shoveling.

 Ugh, snow hanging over our roof. This makes me really nervous!

 During snow emergencies, you cannot park on the main street. And from Friday at 4pm to Saturday at 4pm, the state had mandated a travel ban. So strange to see the streets empty!

 Even stranger than seeing no cars, seeing everyone walking in the road to get around!

Tucker supervised from here...

Finally digging my car out. 2 feet of snow piled up. Somebody get me a garage stat.

The weather Sunday was gorgeous. Blue skies and fairly warm. Hopefully the weather stays warm this week to help get rid of this snow! For those of you still without power I really hope it comes back soon. Positive thinking.