Valentine's and Snowshoes

Whew, what a busy weekend! Since both Nathan and I worked on Thursday (Valentine's Day) we had decided to celebrate on Friday instead. However, Nathan still did manage to surprise me with breakfast and a hyacinth plant, which smelled SOOOOO good all day while I was working. That night, we exchanged gifts...Nathan managed to track down some pearl earrings that match perfectly with the pearl necklace he got me for a wedding present. Yes, my husband spoils me and I'm not afraid to admit it!

Nathan took Friday off and the plan had been to spend the day skiing up at Anthony and then stay the night at our friend's cabin up there. Unfortunately, when we got up there in the morning, we found the driveway plowed and approximately 4 ft worth of snow between the driveway and the cabin front door. Strike one. While Nathan set to work shoveling a path to the front door, I took a quick trip around the back of the cabin to find the outhouse we would be using, since the pipes in the cabin had frozen. I found it...approximately 100 feet behind the cabin, half buried, with no path between the two. Strike two. After that, I venture inside the very cold cabin to build a fire. I got a good start but then both Nathan and I noticed that there was an unreasonable amount of smoke collecting in the cabin. Nathan discovered the source...smoke was pouring out of the chimney about halfway between the stove and the ceiling. Strike three.

Oh, and have I mentioned that one of the dogs threw up in one of Nathan's snow boots on the way up the mountain. Somehow the dog, which ever one it was, managed to not get any of the mess ANYWHERE except in the boot. Needless to say, that boot was ruined and Nathan was without snowboots. Not good when we're tramping through over 4 ft of snow. So we gave up and headed back down the mountain. Nathan remembered that there was one of his coworkers who was said to have extra snowshoes that people could borrow. So we called them and borrowed two sets from them. But instead of going back out, we ended up taking a nap all afternoon and then making a lovely fondue dinner, drinking some great wine, and watching the Jeff Dunham dvd I got Nathan for Valentine's Day. If you've never heard of Jeff Dunham, look him up on YoutTube, he's hilarious.

On Saturday, we slept in, lazed around, and then finally got our butts in gear to head back up to Anthony Lakes to try out the snowshoes. After we schlepped around the pond below our friend's cabin for a while, we then went back to the ski lodge to hang out with our friend Dana and listen to the live band they had that night. The band was incredibly good and we got to see a lot of friends. When we got home, some friends came over, stayed until around midnight, and then it was finally bed time.

Today, we woke up and went to a new church called the Harvest Church. It was...interesting. Don't get me wrong, we actually like it and there seemed to be a lot of couples around our age, which is great! Today there was a "prophetic singer" instead of a message from the regular pastor, so we're wanting to go back to hear the pastor speak in two weeks (I have to work next weekend). After church, we did more lazing around, watched a couple of movies, Nathan took a nap, and now I'm watching Becoming Jane and writing this.

And now...some pictures from our snowshoeing trip.

The pond we snowshoed around.

Shadows.

Nathan with his snowshoe gear.

Me being a goober.

Ok, fine. I'll be good. Wow, these make my legs look so SHORT!

Our tracks.

Our friend Dana in the ski lodge bar.

From the ski lodge parking lot at sunset.

The Eagle Caps at sunset. Sorry they're so blurry, it was getting fairly dark.