Weekend Update

We had a BUSY weekend. I'm glad I have Mondays off to recover now that it's ski season :)

We've made some new gear purchases lately so we wanted to spend the weekend testing them out. I'm still waiting on my new bindings, but I'll do a gear post when they finally come in. I know you're excited.

On Saturday, we skied for a few hours at Bolton Valley (where we have season passes) so that Matt could try out his new skis. Lucky for the rest of us, he loved them.

I finally purchased a camera bag so I can take the new camera out hiking. I ended up with a sling pack - the Tamrac 5x. I didn't want something as big as a backpack or as awkward as a shoulder bag because I want to carry it hiking easily and be able to stow it in another backpack when we start touring.




After skiing we came home to get the Nug and took her to hike here (with my camera and new pack!).







Matt and Will waited patiently while I played with my new camera...





Little did we know that Mt. Philo is the perfect place for sledding in the winter. We passed LOTS of sledders on our hike.



It was a SNOWY day....





And Willow thoroughly enjoyed herself hiking. We made her pose for a picture...



But she was way more interested in doing this...



She also spent lots of time waiting for us to make our way up the slippery slope...slowly because we weren't wearing snowshoes or yaktrax.



The view at the top was a little cloudy but still beautiful.









Up top, Matt threw Willow some snowballs. It turned into a photo session for me as I tried to figure out all the action settings on my new camera.





I'm going to post a bunch because I just can't pick my favorite - scroll on down if you don't care to see Will in action :)















Who could resist this? I'm biased because she's our baby. I mean come on - she's just so pretty :)



Do you see hew new skiing winter collar? (Thank you Santa!)



OK enough pics of Willow. I also played around with the TV (Time Value) setting on my camera. I had Matt shake some branches to see if I could catch the snow falling. I think it's pretty cool for my first try!



Some of these were really dark, but I tried to lighten them when editing.



I even let Matt have a try once I set it all up :)



On Sunday, we went skiing with some friends. I didn't take many pictures because it was SUPER windy and pretty cold for a lot of the day.

I did pull my iphone out to snap a few after lunch...

We skied at Mt. Ellen (one of the bases at Sugarbush) because we all had 2 for 1 passes (that we received from buying a wrap at the City Market co-op last week). It's pretty easy to find discount passes around here - come visit us to ski Vermont and I'll show you!



Matt found some hidden spots where we could shred the gnar so we all followed him on an adventure through the woods....

Sorry guys...those are all the pics I have. You'll just have to trust me that it was fun :)

All afternoon and most of the way home it was dumping snow. Matt checked the ski report this morning to find that Sugarbush received 15 inches of fresh snow yesterday and last night. AH - I'm surprised he managed to work all day.

Excuse the water streaks on the windshield, but I wanted to show you how pretty the sky was once we were almost back to Burlington.



Hope you're having a good week!