Yesterday was a delight. I got to spend nearly the whole day with one of my best friends. Aime's one of the most remarkable people I know. I was spoiled for years with tons of time with her, but this season has brought welcomed changes. Now Mrs. Hale. ;) I had breakfast with her and Rob. Headed to the mountain for a few hours, and then hung out for a few more hours. Amazing.
You know when you have those friends who you may not see much, but no matter what you just feel comfortable around? Like total peace. That's Aime. Robert must be the luckiest man I know (well, one of a few- I know some awesome young women).


We started cracking up mid conversation as we started putting on our gear at the mountain. Stripping off our outer layers of sweats, we looked down to see both of us wearing similar mocasins, the same socks, and ridiculously similar thermal underwear. Even similar style zip-ups. Aime asked aloud, "Can you tell we've spent a lot of time together?"



Aime took me up a new lift to see the backside of the mountain. Despite the heavy clouds that had come in over the course of the morning, it was beautiful.


She got me back to doing toe-side turns- and I even was doing a little caring by the end. But despite my improvement, I almost had a couple collisions... with un-moving objects. Like a tree. And a fense.

I think Aime gives people the courage to try new things, and somehow the confidence to believe they'll be successfull.... which in turn, they typically are because of it. She's unendingly patient, or so it seems, so learning new things with her is a BLAST. As I was getting back into the habit of making toe side and heal side turns, and pushing myself to do it on a steeper incline than I usually would-- I saw a tree and decided I would try to cut around it...only I wasn't quite making enough of a turn. Eventually, I just slid onto my butt and skidded towards it- when I stopped a foot from it, I lost it laughing.

A couple hours later, Aime was sitting in the snow behind a ways, watching me practice my turning down the mountain. I was feeling pretty confident and cutting it pretty close to this orange fense. As I got closer and closer and was debating the turn, I finally realized I wouldn't have enough space to do it, so I stopped and sat down. Aime shouted after me, telling me she was thinking "OH good, she's challenging herself... oh man, she's not gonna make that- please don't try to turn that." "But what an image and memory that would have been if I'd taken that fence out- huh?!" We laughed and decided to pose the picture anyways.... not realizing that we were right below a lift. Some guy leaned over the edge and shouted down at me as I held this position, "HEY, ARE YOU OKAY?!" I replied, "Just getting a picture.." He acted awkward (I think intentionally, I think), "I was just kidding." And the lift wisked him up and away. We laughed quite a while... and continued to act like fools.