Friday, February 27, 2009

Ski Utah!


Me and Ryan (in our cheesy PWC hats)

shot from the lift (from my cell phone camera)

me stopping down the intermediate slope (yes that's a drop off to the right)


bad pic (but you get the idea)

I was so grateful to get to go to Utah for a day and ski ! Thanks to all of you that helped (or offered to help) get me there!
It's not often that I get a day away and it always seems weird when I am gone for a day. I think it takes about half the day for me to relax.
It was the perfect day to ski. The sun was out and some people were just skiing in their hoodies and hats. I was all bundled up (as I will show you in our 1 picture, thanks to Marcie in Utah)
I really enjoyed the lift rides up and taking in all of the surreal beauty around me. Most of you know that the mountains are just enormous (if you're from anywhere else that's how they seem) I had forgotten how grand they were, but I knew when we left them 3 years ago that I would miss them. I really grew to love the way they just hugged around me all of the time.
Anyway, I am not a black diamond skier or anything (like Ryan) I just did the beginner slope 1st and then Ryan immediately graduated me to intermediate (he was bored). It took me a few times to actually go down without being extremely slow and then after a few more I was going much faster, but still had that rush of fear inside.
I found myself praying for a life lesson that paralled what I was going through skiing. I thought about how the more fear I had and the more I tried to control the situation the harder it was to get down the mountain. If I just let go, focusing ahead and trusting that I could get down I would do it without stopping to think that I couldn't. In life fear can disable us and keep us from progressing. When we try to control our lives too much, we don't let Heavenly Father help us and we make the journey ahead a lot tougher on ourselves! When we don't let go and give ourselves and lives to God we also make it very hard to move forward. We spend so much time thinking about how to do everything that we forget to trust in God and His ability to help us. I think if we just keep going forward with faith (just like skiing down that mountain) we will quickly find ourselves where we want to be. Letting go of the fear and just doing it can be scary, but it feels so good to look back up at the large mountain that we just overcame. In my opinion we can either do it slowly (inching down the mountain, going back and forth side to side across the mountain (these are the things I was doing at first , but only made it no fun and sore muscles too) or we can just go down, trusting in what we know. relax our legs, look at where we want to go and then we will swiftly (and much less painfully) end up at our destination.
I am thankful for the lesson I received! Now the hard part will be trying to remember this everyday and apply it to my life!

10 comments:

Crystal said...

What an awesome lesson to learn! Thanks for sharing.

Cody and Utahna said...

Well, first of all, you know I'm super jealous of your mommy day off! What fun! And then for it to be in Utah pulls at my heart strings even more. But I'm so glad you got to do it. You definitely deserve it. You are always so deep, learning from every experience. I'm sure you've attained perfection by now. :)

paulak said...

Great life lesson. I am so glad you got to go...sorry I couldn't make it work to see you. love you.

Real Life Roberts said...

Such a great life lesson!

Melanie and Chauncey West said...

very cool! I am so glad you got a babysitter!

angie said...

christina, your blog is just killing me right now... it is so great and cute and you are such an adorable mom of 4!

that's it-- its final, holly and i are coming to see you next week... unless that would be a bad thing and you would rather not? we could meet at a park? how crazy is your life? :-)

we love living down here in lake ridge! you should come down sometime and we could take a walk past your old house that you lived in when you met Ryan!

maybe we could invite ya'll over for dinner on a sunday? or at least dessert? when is your church?

well, anyhow, i need your goodness to rub off on me right now, so lets get together!

angie

Jess said...

Hey lady!!!!! I miss you!
I can't believe you know the Archibalds! Tell them that Jessica from Sports Camps says hi :)
Love you girl! Wish you were here to hold our new little guy!

Cody and Utahna said...

Okay, you and I are proably the only two still posting for February, but I just got caught up to March, so I'm beating you!!! Time to post again, sista!

Holly said...

Christina, I added you to my blog. Your blog is nicely put together. Thanks for your friendship while I was here for a short time.

Jess said...

Check out Lukas trying to eat Jared on our blog!