It’s back to work today for Janey and I after a wonderful little ski trip to Big Bear Lake down here in So Cal. I’ve been skiing as long as I can remember but this is my first time skiing in CA. To be quite honest, I didn’t know there was anyplace to ski in the southern half of the state until I moved here. Come to find out there are a few great little skiing spots. I wouldn’t say that I’ve heard of any that rival some of my favorites back home (like Snow Basin, or Alta) but they are fun little spots to strap on the ‘ol sticks and slide down a hill.

Janey learned to ski last year during a trip to visit my family. She picked it up amazingly fast and seemed to really have a good time. Although she’s come out of it with some good sized bruises… I think I can safely say that she enjoys it quite a bit.

The plans for this trip all started when my family let me know they were going to take a little trip to Mesquite, NV and would like us to drive up and meet them. I new it was going to be tough to get any time off work since we’re ramping up for some very large events but I checked it out anyway. To make a long story short… no time off work for me. SO Janey and I decided that if we can’t take a real vacation this summer, we’re going to make our weekends count. And thus begins our Big Bear story.

Rather then bore you with long stories and such, I will give you some highlights of our trip.

This is a sad tree we saw at the top of the first lift.

The view from the top of this ski area was pretty incredible.

It’s like she was born to ski.

There were a few good spills that I just had to get on camera. Schadenfreude.

But really she did great all day.

It was warm enough that I never wore gloves. By some amazing stroke of luck I didn’t fall all day… so my hands stayed dry and warm.

Getting a little tired… so we took a lunch.

She’s great on skis, but not so hot with the camera. I’m there at the very bottom… jumping.

After a full day of skiing we headed to the Black Forest Lodge where I lit a fire hotter then the blazes of hell! I burnt my thumbs trying to move logs around to cool it off, and finally resorted to pouring some water on it. I didn’t take into account just how much steam and various other gasious emissions the fireplace was going to produce when I made this decision. The room quickly filled with a thick haze and that wonderful pungent aroma of stirred charcoal causing Janey to have some sort of allergic reation. Her nose sealed off and she was religated to mouth breathing. SO when I finished playing with the water we rushed to Rite Aid for some NyQuil. All in all… it was kind of fun… but I’m never lighting another indoor fire again.

And finally I last have to mention about the day after our skiing adventure. We knew we were in a little bit of trouble when we hit the lodge… and a few hours later it was blindingly obvious that we were idiots. It seems mr. sun was out to get us this trip and we didn’t so much as dream about a bottle of sunscreen. So today we both look like we slept with our heads in a toaster oven. But wait.. it gets better. I was wearing my hat (ball cap) backwards most of the day, while janey was wearing a beinie and sun-glasses. So I have a white line across my forehead while my thinning hair reveals a crecent shaped sunburn in my hairline and the rest of my face is beat red. And Janey has a wonderful line just under her eyes running all the way across her face separateing the red from white.

So.. we had fun.. and learned a lot for next time.