Weekend at the HV

So I’ve been meaning to post this for over a week but never finished the post because of the sickness…

Last weekend we went to Holiday Valley for a ski vaca with our friends:

So much fun.

We left Friday afternoon and only stayed through Sunday but plenty of skiing happened in that short amount of time. Also? Our first stop when getting into Ellicottville was at the wine store.

Flawless.

Sat. morning the 4 of us who were experienced skiers got up at the butt crack of dawn and got on the slopes as soon as they opened. Yeah we’re that guy. But seriously the best skiing happens early – and it was worth it because conditions were about perfect.


Fresh powder and 28 degrees.

After about noon it cleared up and the rest of the weekend was all “sunscreen skiing”.

The early morning skiers – not quite sure why my brother and I didn’t take off our goggles… we look ridiculous!

Later on we met up with most of the rest of the crew and did a few runs together:

That night was all about the hot tub and games:

The next day about half of the group went out for another day on the slopes.

Matt rocking the moguls

Andy rocking the moguls

And Andy even tried the halfpipe:

Looking good going into the wall…


FAIL

Don't worry - he made it out ok.

Funtimes were had by all. I love skiing and it was nice to get to go two days in a row. Sadly we don’t have any big ski trips planned for this year but hopefully we’ll get at least one more day in locally before spring.

Glass and Snow

So this weekend we took a little mini-vaca to our rival to the east to visit my husband’s brother. Don’t get me wrong – I like Pittsburgh. I even supported Matt’s team and wore black and gold when they were in the superbowl. But I’m still a Cleveland girl and they are still our rival.

One of the main reasons for this trip was to see the Chihuly exhibit at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens. I’ve wanted to go for months now. He is one of my absolute favorite artists and not just because I have a thing for the Bellagio. I also happen to have a thing for Venice.

We decided to go Friday night so that we could see Chihuly Nights (same exhibit, different lighting).

It was so interesting


And beautiful


And surprising


And so very worth every second of the 2 and a half hour drive.

I love how the sculptures fit with the plantings and mimic the shapes around them:


And become a part of them as well:


The free standing pieces were spectacular:



As well as the full room instillations.


Each area has a completely different feel:

From the glowing tumbleweeds – which are visible from pretty far outside of the conservatory:


To the glass spheres and boat:


To the floating chandiliers:


I think my favorite pieces, though were these:

They are outside in the Japanese tea garden and appear to be jumping out of the icy koi pond:

Simply breathtaking.

After we took a few goofy pictures


And a posed picture:

I had a little time to play with my 50mm lens:



Experimenting with framing, and depth of field.

If you are anywhere within driving distance of this exhibit I highly recommend going – and going soon. It only runs through Feb. 24th. But if you can’t see it in person there are even more pictures (believe it or not) here on my flickr site.

From there we went to Redbeard's Mountain Resort & Yacht Club – a little dive type bar up on Mount Washington – for dinner and a few drinks before calling it a night. And yes, I did make the bartender switch the TV to the X-games. Heh.

The next morning we left bright and early for Seven Springs to get our ski on.

The mountain is divided into a front face and a north face – the front being closest to the lodge… Yeah. It was super-crowded. Everyone must be taking advantage of all of this snow! So we hung out mainly on the North Face which has some nice views:

Joel and Ellen were experimenting with the whole snowboard thing (Joel is a skier, Ellen is new to both) so we only stayed with them for a couple of runs…

Matt “helped” Joel get down the hill faster.

Heh.

By the time the front faced closed and the lights were coming on for the night ski we were all pretty tired. So we headed back to Joel’s place where he made us a tasty taco dinner

And we spent the rest of the evening playing Guitar Hero III

The guys were really into it. Ellen and I both liked to play but weren’t nearly competitive about it. We figured out that “pride and joy” is the funnest thing to play ever and just rocked that like 3 times in a row – and one time this happened:

Our scores are one point apart. I don’t think we could do that if we tried.

And since I don’t think I’ve ever had a cat on the blog here’s a picture of Apollo:

She liked me because I talked to her. A lot.

All in all it was a very fun weekend!!!

Wintery Weekend

So this past weekend we finally made it out skiing! We went to Peek ‘n Peak NY – which is only about 2 hours away. Not the biggest/baddest hill in the world but still pretty nice for being close enough to ski and come home in one day.

Matt jumping:

Andy jumping:

Me jumping:

Yeah right. That was Matt again. I don’t do jumps.

Then Sunday I spent all day recovering from the skiing by figuring out the neckline for Matt’s sweater. Crazy-making I tell you. See the Durrow sweater as written apparently has a very wide neckline. Plus it’s sortof a raglan/saddle shoulder combo which I’m not such a fan of. So I used my handy dandy Book of Sweater Patterns, a calculator, some graph paper, and one of his favorite sweaters and I think I have it all worked out. I’m making it have a set in sleeve with a wider saddle and a crew neck. I may be headed for disaster with all of this math and modifications but whatever. I’m not in any hurry with this. Hopefully I’ll have the back done tonight!

I also watched an embarrassing amount of the Winter X games. I love the X games. Love them. And the coverage was just so positive. It seemed like during the Olympics all Bob Costas wanted to talk about was the people who "lost the gold". It was all about building up impossible expectations for a few US athletes and then focusing on their defeat. I mean seriously how much did we hear about Lindsey Jacobellis or Bodie Miller (who deserved no media attention)? And how much did we hear at all about less mainstream sports or about athletes who weren’t American? It was annoying. Well the X games are just the opposite. I mean sure they take it seriously but last night when Sean White – the superstar - didn’t win the SuperPipe there wasn’t some big montage of his failure… instead they focused on how amazing Steve Fisher (the winner)’s run was. It was very refreshing.

So… how much does it have to snow to have a snow day from work? We’re talking like national emergency snow, right? I think I’d be fine with that.