Happy 13th Birthday to me!
That was actually yesterday now as I write this; but the
delay with my journal update this time is due to extreme fun and lack of
opportunity to write instead of passing out in the middle of my studies and
work like last time.
My family and friends started out my best birthday
ever-so-far with an early-morning, eat on the fly breakfast while we ran around
getting ready for the day and my birthday trip guests came over or were dropped
off. Ethan and Ehlana weren’t going with
us, so they had me open their gift too; and then Uncle Adam took them over to
Naomi’s house shortly before we loaded up two minivans and headed out of town –
destination: Blue Ridge Ski Center!
Mom, Dad, Uncle Adam, and Aunt Leanne were our drivers and
chaperones; and they had eight teens to keep up with for the day. In addition to Michael, Rowen, and Tim; Mom
and Dad had invited Sally, Joshua, Gretchen, and Elliott to come snowboarding
with us. Since we had long drives both
ways; we decided to do the first half of the trip to the ski center with boys
and girls vehicles; so Mom and Aunt Leanne had Rowen, Sally, Gretchen, and I
with them until our pit stop in Crystal Springs while Dad and Uncle Adam had
the guys with them. I’ll take a wild
guess that our girl chat time was more fun than whatever the guys did during
that part of the drive – though I’m also sure they wouldn’t agree with that
assessment.
While I’m thinking about it, I should mention that Uncle
Nick and Aunt Deborah have Zack today, and while Ethan and Ehlana were dropped
off at Naomi’s; they spent the day with Aiden too and Ethan stayed overnight
with Aiden while Ehlana did her sleepover with Naomi. I would have liked to spend more time with my
brother and sister; but I’m sure they had more fun with their friends today
than they would have with us at the ski center.
Moving along, our little travel break at about the half-way
point included a second breakfast for most of the guys, a snack for the rest of
us, and a fast-food fix for Aunt Leanne before we switched up the travel groups
and continued on to Blue Ridge. Michael
and I were paired up with Sally and Joshua; and we put a movie on to watch
while also talking about everything from snowboarding and skiing to farming and
sports while Dad took over driving duties and Mom got to relax for a while.
When we got to the ski center, our first stop after buying
our lift tickets was the rental shop; where I found out that Mom wasn’t the
only adult in our group to pick skis over snowboards – and they’d all learned
to ski when they were kids or teens; mostly because snowboarding was still
catching on back then. Tim made some
jokes about that, but compared to Grandpa Grant’s ‘when I was your age’
stories; learning to ski instead of snowboarding isn’t a big deal.
Now if Tim really wanted something to tease Dad about from
childhood he should’ve gone with comparing Atari tennis to his new X-Box
One. Then again, Grandpa Grant would be
telling us that the closest thing he had as a kid to Atari tennis was an abacus
– and that back in his day they actually just went outside and actually played
the sports or games.
I have skied before, but that isn’t part of my ‘history’, so
only Rowen and Michael know that; and I prefer snowboarding anyway. The lifts had been open for a while by the
time we were ready for our first trips up the hill; and we all stayed together
for the first few runs. While Mom hasn’t
skied in a while, and it’s been a lot longer for Dad and Aunt Leanne; Uncle
Adam had been on the slopes the winter before he moved home again, so he was
only a little rusty on his skis. The
comparatively small hills weren’t challenging enough for that to be a problem
for any of them; and Michael, Rowen, Tim, and I were ready to fly right away;
but we took it easy while Sally, Joshua, Gretchen, and Elliott got used to
their snowboards since none of them had been on any slopes in one or more
years.
Our four friends aren’t at the same level we are, but they
are all athletic enough; and could keep up with us for everything except the
bigger tricks. That isn’t really a big
deal to have them either by-passing jumps or just hopping over them while we
did different aerial tricks; and they all picked up some of the easier tricks
as we went along. Mom and Dad set us
free after those first few runs and they went skiing with Uncle Adam and Aunt
Leanne while the rest of us were entertaining ourselves.
There was one thing going on today that didn’t affect the
fun level for most of us; but I do want to mention – all is not well with
Gretchen and Elliott. That wouldn’t be
news for any of the girls in our class at school, but it was more obvious today
when they were the only couple in our group not really acting much like a
couple. Gretchen was happier to hang out
with Sally, Rowen, or I; and Elliott did the same with the guys. He was also nearly as outgoing with other
kids and teens we met and chatted with while in lift lines as Tim and I are;
though he was particularly interested in some girls our age while that wasn’t
the case for the rest of us – including Gretchen. She looked a bit annoyed about that but not
particularly upset; so they’re probably getting very close to what’ll likely be
a very quiet, mutual break-up.
We stayed out on the hills until lunchtime; meeting up with
Mom, Dad, Uncle Adam, and Aunt Leanne for that munchies break. I’m not sure why it was so busy, but by then
the lift lines were long and the hills were a bit crowded. Maybe the Winter Olympics had more people
thinking about winter sports. The ski
center remained crowded until shortly before we stopped for dinner, and then
the evening session was quieter again – and more fun for us once we didn’t have
long waits between runs.
Mom and Dad had me open gifts during our dinner break, and
while I’m not going to write about all of that, I do want to mention that
Michael gave me a guitar of my own; and Mom and Dad’s big gift was the ski day
with my friends. Anyone reading this in
the future who knows me can guess that I’m fairly enthusiastic about opening
gifts; but spending the day with my parents, aunt, uncle, and friends really
was an awesome gift. So was the
thank-you time I spent with Michael after we got home and most of our friends went
to bed for the night.
There isn’t much more I can write about for the snowboarding
part of the day. Mom, Dad, Uncle Adam,
and Aunt Leanne had had enough snow fun by dinnertime, so they left the ski
center after we went back out on the slopes and did some supply shopping at the
nearest Wal-Mart before coming back to get us shortly before the ski center
closed for the night. They were in
couples again for the ride home, and Michael and I had Gretchen and Elliott
with us for the first half of the ride home before switching up again and getting
to hang out with Rowen and Tim for the Crystal Springs to home leg of the
return trip.
Uncle Adam and Aunt Leanne only stayed at our house long
enough to say goodnight before going to get Zack and go on to their place; but
we had lots of help to unload the van and put everything away. Mom and Dad went straight to bed then, and
left the rest of us to have some wind down time in the lounge. Tim got the other guys playing video games
while we had drinks and snacks; but it wasn’t long before we were all either
ready to get some sleep or have some alone time with our respective boyfriend
or girlfriend. Michael and I got to have
the lounge to ourselves because Rowen made that decision for us. She had lots of help for the minor clean-up
of dishes in the kitchen, and then she ended up in Tim’s room for a while;
Sally and Joshua said their non-verbal goodnights in the living room; and
Gretchen and Elliott each just went to bed.
With six other teens in the house, Michael and I didn’t
exactly end my day in a birthday gone wild kind of way, but we did turn the
heat up more than we’ve been able to do in a while; and I thought that it was a
perfect way to end the day – even though it also meant that we were, um, up,
way later than we should have been. I
may be writing this with some hind-sight on that; but we were sure then that we
weren’t going to regret only having enough time for a long nap when we did
finally go to bed.
The four boys were in rooms on the second floor and the
girls were on the third, but the reason I wasn’t writing this last night was
because Sally ended up having some girl chat time with Rowen and me after our
separate boyfriend time; and she crashed and napped on the sofa in the lounge
instead of going back to her room. That
was fun too, though, and it’s just as well that I didn’t try to do anything
extra last night or I’d have pretty much just needed to go straight from that
to Tai Chi and skipped any down time.
That does wrap up the birthday report, though, and I still
have another update to start next after a second long day; so let’s wrap this
up and get to that.
Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the Light!
