I have skied [or whatever the past tense of ‘to see’ is] before. However, when I say before, I mean one day in 7th grade. Below I have listed the highlights of the weekend. Granted, some emphasis is placed on skiing. While my audience may not be large, I’m not foolish enough to think they don’t want to hear the interesting parts of the weekend...
• In case you’re a facestalker, I want to be the one to tell you, I bought and wore a scarf. Let’s just say, the scarf gene passed down quite effectively.
• In ski school, Dave, my instructor, asked me if I was left handed. I responded no, attempted to perform his next simple task, and he asked, “Are you sure you’re not left handed?”
• I enjoyed some of the greatest worship time I have had in a long time… No offense to the Sunday morning regulars at church who may be reading this.
• This little fella was riding the magic carpet behind me on the bunny slope. 15 seconds after this photo was taken, I looked down and saw 2 tiny skis between mine. The little man was tucked under me like I was a papa penguin.
• Our lodging for the weekend: a Boy Scout lodge. If you’ve ever spent much time on a church trip, you have probably experienced the joy of Podunk accommodation. This weekend was no different.
• The walls in the aforementioned Boy Scout lodge were apparently made of paper mache. Similar to what I imagine a low-security prison to be like, every door clicked at least 3 times when it slammed, echoing throughout the hall of 2-man cells.
• Dave looked at me on my last trip down the hill in ski school with a sad look that said something along the lines of, “Son, you need at least 3 more hours with me before you can look like anything above an alpine tumbleweed.”
• This weekend reminded me that a mid-20s accountant can pull a lot out of curriculum intended for 16 year-old high schoolers.
• Loveland, Ohio is basically the Hendersonville of Cincinnati. As determined by the houses, Red Robin [Yum.], boutiques, and Starbucks in the grocery store.
• In my 3 hours I spent practicing until I could turn left, my favorite moment was when a little kid, no more than 4 years old, was walking up the hill holding his snowboard, alerting everyone he passed, “You better brace yourself, fool.”
• While watching Toy Story 3 [The title for the weekend was Toys R Us, theme being how to stay tru [sic] to yourself, others and God.], I realized Ken wore rompers and still managed to get Barbie approximately 3 times.
• I’m still not sure I can turn left, but I did have the pizza and right turn to fall back on [pun] to kick inertia in the snowballs and stop my descent.
• Even as Christians, we often find ourselves “putting more weight on the backs of those who already have so much… weight that we’ve dropped more often than we’ve carried.”
• I fell more times than I had fingers, thus failing one of the personal goals for the weekend.
• Apparently, it was a good decision for me to call it a career after one year in cub scouts. Of the three showers in the guy’s bathroom, one was a handicapped stall that could have used about 4 gallons of CLR. The other two were designed with a stationary shower head, protruding 2 inches from the wall, drizzling straight down. As such, I chose the handicapped stall and waited 3 minutes each morning for hot water.
• One of the youth ministers on the trip came back from a ride on the lift and shared what he had learned from his lift buddy: It's best to tie someone up with nylon rope. It doesn't leave rope burns.
• Turns out a weekend like this one gives you that spiritual encouragement that makes fulfilling the “warrior picking up his sword and slashing demonic thugs” role a little easier to fill for a while. [Relax, elders and deacons, that wasn’t the lesson, but demonic thugs was to spiritual analogies mentioned this weekend as the Black-Eyed Peas are to modern day pop music.]
• In an interesting turn of events, I joined one of the kids in the ski lodge in singing a few a cappella songs by a local group from a cd released circa 1996. After said kid left on the first van back to the boy scout barracks, I looked over at the next table in the lodge only to see one of the youth ministers who was in the local a capella group in the mid-‘90s. He was also joining a Nashville youth group on a ski trip. The term “small world” doesn’t really cover that one.
• My previous post regarding popular youth group songs held 75% true. Only Vanilla Ice failed to arrive... Rob Van Winkle went cousin Rip on us and disappeared.
In summation, it was a great weekend for fun, spiritual growth, and humility, courtesy of a fleet of 8 year olds that are way better at skiing than I will ever be.
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