hitting the slopes.

sorry about the delay in posts.  we sadly saw my parents off on saturday after spending 2 weeks with them here in australia!!  we absolutely loved having them visit.  i will tell you all about it in many upcoming posts, but first i need to share our trip to melbourne with you all!

jim and i went to melbourne after receiving an invite from our colleague {jess} to go skiing with her and her friends.  we jumped at the chance, knowing how much i love skiing and how well we get along with jess.  that being said, jim has never been skiing so we didn't know how it was going to go;  especially considering we only had 2 days on the slopes.  for those of you who don't know, that is not nearly enough time to learn.  but we took a chance.  after all, maybe he was a natural?!

on a friday afternoon we flew into melbourne and took the 3 hour drive to a house we rented in mount buller.  we woke up bright and early to hit the slopes first thing.  against my better judgement we decided to save the extra $100 to get jim a ski lesson and decided that i could probably just teach him the basics.  we went into it with the mentality that if he wasn't getting it then we could get him a lesson later.

so, off we go.  we started off like this (yes, that is my boyfriend in his duck camo pants on the slopes.  it's..... cuuuute, right?):

see how happy?  see how gung ho??  <-- SIDE NOTE:  have you ever had to type/write out gung ho?  strange expression.

i tried to teach him the basics... you know:  pie, turn by putting your weight on the outer ski, knees bent over the front of boots, etc.  i thought pie was going to be the easiest thing to learn but apparently his long legs just don't bend that way.  he spent most of the day like this:

BUT he was doing REALLY GOOD.  you know how it is when you think you are just going to get something and you don't?  all confidence just went out the window.  but i have proof as to how good he was doing in the video below (i apologize in advance for my bad videography skills and hope i don't make you sick):

anyway.... our relationship actually handled the battery rather well, but jim's body did not.  he was really sore and dreading going back the next day.  

but, low and behold, he did!  and what do you know... he, all of a sudden, overnight in his sleep, learned how to pie!!!  and he barely fell AT ALL!

this visibility, however, was not in our favor.  there were moments where you couldn't even see 5 feet in front of yourself.  jim did way better than me in these conditions.  i took a spill and who came to my rescue but my student - jim!  he basically had to pull me up by my jacket.  

the pictures above sort of paint the picture, but here is one from the day before to compare the difference.

overall, we had a great time and, even more importantly, jim wants to do it again!  mission complete.

oh, and a special thanks to jess and all of her lovely friends for inviting us.  we had a great time with each and every one of them.  it was a great weekend with great people.