Snowboarding for Two

One of the things that Terral has enjoyed about Unshoes is that he has gotten to know some pretty cool people through emails. One of our customers (we'll call him R) lives in Southern Utah, and he and Terral have become good friends. Well, a week or two ago, Terral got a letter from R with new tracings. The letter also contained a couple of Brian Head (he does ski patrol there) lift tickets and a note that said, "Please take a day off and take Mary snowboarding or skiing. . ." We were blown away by his kindness and generosity.

Well, Terral doesn't have school this week because it's Spring Break, and we decided it would be a good time to use them. Erin was kind enough to let me borrow her snowboard, and Natalie let me use Jaymon's goggles. We left Ethan with his grandma at about 12:30 and took off for our date! To be honest, I was a little bit scared out of my mind. I went snowboarding when I was a freshman, and although I didn't get hurt or anything, the main thing I remember is that terrifying feeling of speeding down the mountain with nothing to hold onto and rock hard snow beneath you. Naturally, that time I spent a lot of time on my behind.
This time I had someone with me who I knew would be patient with me and could teach me the ropes. He used to go snowboarding a lot. And thankfully, the sun had softened the snow enough to make me more comfortable, but not too much to make it slushy.

Here we are at the top of our first run.

I did spend some time on my rear going down the first time, but hardly any after that. At one point on our first run, I tried going straight, but I kept low to the ground. Terral convinced me that it would be easier standing up, so I gave up on that practice fairly quickly. He taught me to start out "heel side", keeping the board mostly perpendicular to my line of motion. I could gently move the board to the right or left as needed. I spent most of my time doing this, but as I got more comfortable, I could speed it up and angle the board more.

 You can see my board angled a little more as my confidence grew.

And here's one of me going straight. On my last run I actually got going fast enough to have a genuine crash. I was rather proud of myself. :)

Terral was so happy to finally have a snuggle buddy for the cold lift rides.

Goggles are not conducive to kissing. ;)

I wanted to get a picture of Terral snowboarding, so he posed for me just before he left for a couple solo runs on more difficult terrain.

It felt good to get out and do something physical. I've been much too sedentary lately. And it was really nice to have a few hours to just spend time and reconnect with my honey. We felt so blessed to have R, Erin, and Natalie so willing to help us take a little time off! Thank you! We had a really good time.