Non-Skiing Ski Trip

As some of you may know, my church has an annual church-wide ski trip that happened this past weekend. I was all excited to go and take lots of pretty pictures of the snow and our church family and the lodge and the fire I played with all Saturday afternoon and then share them with y'all, and then the memory card in my camera somehow magically corrupted itself as it sat on my bedside table overnight in my camera in my camera case. Literally, it worked one night, was put away safely and normally, and did not work the next morning. So this will be a use-your-imagination blog post!

Jeff and I rode with two friends of ours up through the mountains into nowhere, Pennsylvania, also known as Rockwood. We managed to do this without dying or even getting our car stuck, though I was fairly certain at several points that we would do one or both of those things.

[insert dark picture of mushy, thick snow trying to eat our car]

Between people having to work on Friday and the pretty gross weather for driving through the mountains, people were straggling in until almost midnight. Those of us who got there earlier sat around and watched The Social Network and tried not to hate Mark Zuckerberg. And by us, I mean everyone else watched and I sat a few feet off, halfheartedly attempting to read a commentary on Romans while listening in on the movie and trying to figure out what important developments I'd missed that made everyone else hate Mark Zuckerberg.

[insert picture of me sadly holding my Romans commentary with Mark Zuckerberg 

being a jerk in the background]

The next day just about everyone else went off to ski except for Jeff, my pastor, me, and a couple of other stragglers who went to Walmart instead of the slopes. Jeff, my pastor and I hitched a ride to the resort to try to find a pretty place to sit and do work while watching everyone else fall down the mountain, but alas, the only empty room was on the back of the resort lodge and was full of long lunch tables reminiscent of cheap campsites. So I slogged through commentary denser than Paul's own writing and Jeff bemoaned the sad state of affairs of the writing of college undergraduates in a room only slightly more cheerful than your average time-out corner. But soon we were joined by the skiers and even the Walmarters and we all laughed and talked our way through the artery-clogging ski lodge food.

[insert group picture with everyone smiling and still slightly snowy 

from falling down the mountain]

Those of us who didn't head back out to ski weren't particularly keen on staying in that room any longer, so we headed back to our own lodge and played in the fireplace. Also did work and played games, but most importantly I got to tend the fire for three hours.

[insert picture of me, slightly wild-eyed, throwing another log onto my pretty fire]

That night after the potluck dinner, the youth and most of the young adults retreated upstairs away from the singalong that spontaneously broke out (no joke) as we tried to do homework. This might sound boring, but really I bonded with my youth over work. They talked about the Industrial Revolution and cell biology, I tried to figure out what the heck Paul was trying to say. And I passed the fire-tending off to a friend.

[insert picture of me, Jeff, our two friends and my two youth 

sitting happily next to a fire and actually being productive]

Sunday was pretty much a get up, pack up, and drive off kind of day, but I got to keep working in the car (yay!) so I still felt like I deserved the nap I took when I got home. 

This might sound like the most boring ski trip ever, but it was pretty great actually. I'm not much of a skier anyway (my skis have a tendency to get tangled, fall off, and go down the mountain without me) and I really did have a good time sitting around with my youth complaining about our schoolwork. Also I got to play with fire. If the camera had been working I probably would've spent some time wandering outside taking pretty pictures, but it worked out anyway. So, just because I felt like there hasn't been much "this is what's going on in my life lately" for folks back home, there is my sad, picture-less blog post about what was really a nice, relaxing, productive weekend.

In other news, congrats to The Social Network on its three Academy Awards. I hear Mark Zuckerberg isn't really a jerk, either.