Monday 13th February was a special day for me, for those of you completely out of ‘the know’, it’s my birthday.  Last year was cupcakes and Mexican (blog post here) courtesy of my gal Magz, this year, was a cabin in the snow, again, thanks to Magz!

I got up (really early as we’d both had a hot and unable-to-breathe kind of night), to a very festive kitchen, Magz had strung up a banner, set the table, laid out my presents (yes, she’d brought presents from Houston up the mountain with us, from both her and my friend Frances) and Sam had vowed (or was volunteered) to make pancakes.

Tracy and her dad Rod came over from the Bunker House and we indulged in a huge stack of Sam-cakes with bacon and maple syrup (or bananas if you were so inclined!)

Col and I had booked two ski lessons through the Angel Fire resort, one at 10am and the other at 2pm.  We were about 10 minutes late for our first lesson, and I was about 10 times more terrified than I thought I’d be, but I went.

The first 40 minutes hurt, my muscles yelled at me, complained at me making them do something they were a) not expecting and b) not conditioned to do.  They protested.  In fact, they protested a lot.

Poor Col’s boots weren’t right, he started the day in pain and over the course of our two hour lesson, they got progressively more sore.  By lessons end, he couldn’t walk.  We had to go back to the ski shop and get them to play with his boots a bit so he could face another lesson, or, in fact, ever ski again.

It’s safe to say, that by the end of our lesson, we were both feeling pretty banged up and exhausted.  Back at the cabin for lunch, Sam made our lunch break all the more enjoyable by shaking up a bottle of balsamic vinegar all over himself, once the shock wore off and all the giggles started, of course.

We considered moving our 2pm lesson, but, instead, with Cols new boots, some ibuprofen and full tummies, we felt better, and figured it we didn’t ‘finish the job’ then and there, we’d probably never take our second lesson.

Out of the ten or so people in our morning lesson, only four of us returned for the afternoon slot, that number alone made me feel better, like I’d overcome the first hurdle or something.

We lasted until 3.30pm – not quite til the 4pm close, but, given it was our first day, I don’t think we did so badly.

I fell twice, the first fall was on my second trip on the ski lift.  The first and third trips on the ski lift, I was accompanied by one of our instructors, he gripped on to my hand and helped me off when the time came.  On the second trip, the *other* instructor took me up on the lift, and Bam!  I fell flat on my back, it was momentarily embarrassing, but I popped off my skis, got myself up and dusted myself off – with two guys standing over me, watching, not helping (how chivalrous eh?)

The other fall, well, it was so epic, that I wish someone on-hand had taken a video or something.  A guy had fallen directly in my path, I tried to circumnavigate him, got my skis tangled in a wire fence and went monumentally flat on my face.  It happened in slow motion and all I could do was laugh hysterically, mostly cause it was absolutely hilarious!

When we were done, my hero went back to the car to ditch the skis and pick up everyone’s shoes, while I waited at the foot of the mountain for Soph and Sam to finish up their day of skiing.

Back at home, I chilled out, read all my birthday messages online, while Sophie and Magz made somewhat experimental brownies (they threw together the contents of both our kitchen and Tracy’s kitchen) apparently, if you bake at a high altitude, your baking won’t rise unless you counter the altitude with extra baking soda (or powder, I can’t remember which) so they opted for brownies, which, thankfully left a yummy smudge in the pot for me to slurp up when they were done!

For dinner, Magz and Sam prepared fajitas, Sophie and Sam threw together some snow-garitas (margaritas made with snow) which, we decided were a little too gritty for our tastes, so, round two was just ‘plain ole’ margaritas.  Ruth, Phil, Tracy and Rod came over for hot molten brownies with ice cream for dessert and we were all in bed by 11.

As birthdays go, it was, without a doubt, the most dare devil and adventurous birthday I’ve ever celebrated.  It was outdoors, it was active, it was challenging and, surprisingly, it was fun.

The food was great, the friends were, as always, fantastic and the memories made, were priceless!