In early March my sister Elise was telling me that she was in the middle of planning Hope's first birthday party. She said that she wished I could be there, since first birthdays are also for celebrating the people who helped you get through the first year, and I've been instrumental to her in surviving the whole "baby in a pandemic" thing. I thought that was so incredibly sweet and I was telling Neil how touched I was by what Elise said and he was like...so why don't you go? Be there?
We did some really fast calculations, counted up days since vaccines (somehow we lucked out that Ruth, Jordan, Elise, Paxton, and I all got early vaccines!), and booked a flight that night, and just a few short days later I was in Utah with Elise, Ruth, and their families!
Elise picked me up from the airport (after a mega delay!!) at midnight on Thursday and handed me a Sodalicious drink and cookie--WELCOME TO UTAH!! I was pretty slap-happy after an excruciatingly long day (my layover ended up being six hours, ugh) and I felt pretty giddy seeing Elise!
On Friday morning we went over to Ruth's house and spent the morning there hanging out with her & her kids. Then when it was time to take Pierce to preschool we went back to Elise's, I fell into a coma-like sleep for twenty minutes, and then we spent the afternoon prepping food for Hope's party before going over to Ruth's for dinner. We ordered Bombay House and then Jordan, who was visiting his dad in hospice, called to say that he would be staying there. We quickly packed up dinner for Jordan & Ruth, Caleb, and Evelyn went over to the hospice center while the rest of us went back to Elise & Paxton's. We were all so glad that Jordan was able to be with his dad that night and when his dad passed away the next morning.
The next day Elise, Paxton, and I got up reaaallly early so that we could get to Solitude in time to grab parking. Turns out we did NOT actually need to get there that early, but we actually had a lot of fun hanging out waiting for the 90 minutes to pass until the lifts started spinning! It was raining and then it turned to the weirdest snow I've ever seen in my life--it basically looked like styrofoam pellets and was SUPER grippy. I hadn't been skiing in six (!!!!) years and I was feeling pretty nervous about skiing on this super weird snow (turns out I was right to be nervous). I also had brand-new boots on, which was pretty exciting because we could never afford to buy new boots in grad school, so I'd been making do with secondhand boots and had never managed to find a pair that didn't both compress the ankle injury I've been dealing with for the last 20 years and press on the tibial stress fracture site that's still tender years later. I have really vivid memories of when we were skiing in Aspen two months after that stress fracture and I was in so much pain even despite a clear MRI, so when Neil suggested getting new boots that were blown out and molded to fit me I was so excited!
Turns out there is a significant break-in period for new boots, even ones that have been blown out and molded to fit you. Neither Neil nor I knew this, but man oh man do I know it now!! Extensive internet research afterward told me that most people can only stand to ski a couple hours in brand-new boots and it takes about a week to fully break them in.
All I knew is that when I buckled up my boots in line for the first lift I was suddenly in crazy pain, it felt like I had zero blood flow, and I actually had to sit down (the lifts weren't open yet). I felt like I was going to pass out! And the snow that whole day was terrible, I was still trying to figure out how to ski again in snow that basically made it impossible to turn (I think it snowed 18 inches that day?), my goggles broke on the second run, and there was basically zero visibility.
Elise and Paxton were SUCH good sports. I kept having to stop to rest to try to flex my ankles enough to get some blood flow in my feet--my feet were almost completely numb and my calves were just on fire! It was so frustrating because I knew I was in really good shape physically and I could just not figure out what the heck was going on.
I stopped a couple times and took my boots off and massaged feeling back into my feet, but finally got to a point where I literally couldn't ski anymore and told Elise & Paxton to go up without me. They were SO nice and when they came down from that run they told me they were ready to go home for the day. I felt so so so awful (my mask was so wet with guilty tears and snot!) but they were really nice about it.
When we got back I took a crazy long epsom salts bath, read a ton about breaking in new boots, and then spent most of the night on the couch with an electric massager. It eventually got the pain down to the point where I could stand up and walk but then my hip pain started up once the edge was off the calves. Guys--it was SO bad! Seriously just crazy painful and so frustrating. Ruth and I were planning to ski Monday and I was really worried about if I would ever want to ski again ever in my life.
The next morning I had a whole bunch of church Zoom meetings, so I did those and then Ruth & Jordan picked me up and we went to brunch at Jordan's dad's country club, where his dad usually spent all day every day. Jordan talked to the staff and let them know that his dad had died the day before. They were all really sweet and it was neat to hear some of their memories of his dad; several of them mentioned that after they saw the news of Dan's death on KSL that they had looked him up and were amazed by his life and his incredible sports accomplishments.
Ruth had very kindly booked me a sports massage that afternoon, which helped a ton (the therapist told me that skiers account for most of her business!). I spent a long time that night trying to further work out the giant knot in my calf & wearing my boot liners, which the internet told me would help further break them in. By this point I was getting some pretty good bruises going.
I got up early Monday morning and spent about an hour stretching and rolling out my calves. Then I took a selfie in case it was my last ski day ever. Hah! We decided to head back to Solitude again which was kind of scary because now it felt like my nemesis resort (as opposed to the one I know best).
Thankfully things felt better--maybe 70% of normal? I was still in a lot of pain, but I could ski through it-ish. Like 3-4 runs and then stopping to take my boots off and wait for the numbness/pain to recede before I started again. And it was a BEAUTIFUL perfect day.
After a few hours (and the Sol-Bright trail getting interrupted by the annoying need to stretch out several times!) Ruth suggested that we go to the ski shop and see if they had any suggestions. Their suggestion was that boots are really painful to break in and that in a week or so it would be a lot better. Argh! So then I decided to do something that felt a little crazy but I was getting desperate for more room in my boots--I pocketed my ski socks and just put my feet directly into the boot liners.
GAME-CHANGER. This made such a huge difference!! Pain receded a lot and I actually felt like I could flex into my skis and get the responsiveness I was used to having. We went up Powderhorn and skied down Sunshine Bowl a few times and then had some really amazing runs off of Eagle Express.
I went from falling on the easy stuff on Saturday to finally getting down the blacks again on Monday. Such an incredible relief and SO good to feel that amazing ski high again when you ski something tricky enough that your adrenaline gets going and then you get down to the bottom and feel like you're the king of the world. Ruth took this pic when I finished that first black diamond and I think you can see the happiness on my face!
At this point we only had an hour left until the lifts closed so we engaged in some of my favorite math in the world--perfectly strategizing what lifts and runs you'll do in order to maximize the last hour and catch the last lift up before they stop spinning. We did a great job on this math EXCEPT I dropped my glove off the Sunrise lift, so we asked the guys at the Summit lift to radio down (they did not) and Ruth ended up running through hip-deep snow to grab my glove before we did one final run off Apex. Superwoman!! She was halfway there before I even realized what was happening.
Such a good day and we had so much fun!!
We had ourselves a little photoshoot before our last run--we were basically the only ones left in sight.
On Wednesday we met Elise at Sundance for our much-anticipated sisters ski day!!!
It was seriously such a great day. We were pretty worried that the snow wouldn't be great (and it wasn't great on the front mountain) but the back mountain was so good.
I've forgotten how much I like Sundance--we mostly skied there after Abigail was born when we could convince someone to watch her for the day (Mary Beth!) so we would be close to Provo. It's such a fun little resort.
Also I forgot how much I loooove Bishop's Bowl and haaaaate the cat track coming out of it. I've never liked cat tracks and man this one is a doozy, especially in late spring with rocks everywhere, and then it curves around the mountain and is no longer a cat track but basically just a place where skis have cut a slight track through the shoulder of the mountain and woe betide anyone who veers out of the two-inch-wide ski tracks. I was shaking in my boots--literally. Ruth and I skied it twice and the first time I fell over when I was going on rollers and was so scared I was going to fall off the cliff side and the second time I lost my pole and Ruth caught it for me. Oh man! It was a good terror though, as evidenced by the fact that I did it again when I knew very well what was in store.
I've never been skiing with my sisters before this trip and I loved loved loved being on the slopes with them so much! They've both been taking ski lessons this year and it was awesome to be able to ski with them and just rejoice in something I love so much with people I love so much. We didn't ski as kids/teenagers so this was never on my radar as something we could do together; I'm so glad we've all been learning to ski as adults!
It was such a fantastic morning of skiing! (Which is good because the afternoon was pretty crappy and involved an inattentive lift operator, a trip to urgent care for Ruth, and a golf-ball-sized hematoma on my forearm that took 3 weeks to go away).
Interspersed with the ski days were some really lovely normal-life days where I got to have a peek into my sister's daily schedules. I got to see everyone's schools, be there for drop-offs and pick-ups, see Hope take her first steps (!!!) and celebrate her first birthday.
Sooooo cute!
Hope's candle--I captured this right at a great moment for Iris, haha.
Ruth and I spent a really long time trying to create something cool out of strawberries but I don't think we ever landed on what Elise had envisioned!
Lunch at the park--this is deceptively peaceful. (I'm imagining so many laughing emojis here.)
Ruth and Hope--I was commenting to my sisters that this is my first Utah visit that isn't at a weather extreme and it was soooo nice to just enjoy being outside!
Chilling with Hope after a Zoom meeting
Evelyn, Hope, and Iris. So fun to see these cousins together again--Iris really missed Evelyn when they were living in NYC! Can't wait to add my kids to the mix when we visit this summer.
Elise working on cupcakes--Ruth and I 'bout to work some strawberry magic on those puppies!
Evelyn and I had lots of repeated discussions that went like this: "So, do you think I'm taller than Nathan?" "Oh definitely, Ev. Maybe taller than Luke!" Haha! She is so tall for her age--watch out, Juliet!
And to take us out, Iris. I asked if I could take her picture and she said, "Yes, but don't look under my hands." Claaaaassic Iris (she was hiding a purloined stash of Necco hearts under her hands, but she forgot about the box...).
So fun and writing this up makes me soooooo excited to see my sisters again soon! We have camping reservations in the Uintas and I can't wait!
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