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Recently my car has been acting slightly weird. This is unrelated to the whole car radio fiasco (don’t get me wrong, I love my radio!) and I had chalked it up to my car starting to show it’s age. My car is only 7 years old, but it has seen it’s share of mileage - especially the year I was commuting back to Dallas every weekend…

The first issue - my headlight alarm stopped working. Matt noticed it first - I’m pretty used to turning my headlights on and off every time I get in and out of the car. This first issue led to the awareness that my battery was also going out. Matt managed to kill the battery twice by leaving the headlights on. I knew I needed a new battery but was putting off buying one. Then I finally forgot to turn the headlights off when I was at the gym Monday during lunch. After calling a coworker to rescue me and getting another one to jump the battery after work.

Next issue I had noticed was that my doors were apparently locking themselves. For those of you that don’t have a Honda - your car may not have a safety quirk that Hondas do. When you unlock the cars remotely, it gives you a certain amount of time to open any of the doors before it will re-lock them. I think it’s about 30 seconds. Anyhow, I was getting suspicious that my car was ignoring that rule and was locking the doors even after I opened them. It was very hard to be sure because each time I had the keys in my hand and theoretically could have bumped the lock button… Maybe… But I was suspicious.

Then today I was googling the headlight alarm issue. I found a few Honda forums that people had mentioned a similar problem. Then I noticed that they were also mentioning the locking problem… The suspect was a door switch going out. The little switch that alerts the car that you opened the door was failing. Interestingly enough, one post mentioned that the dome light would also not be working. Huh. I was pretty sure I had noticed once or twice that my light didn’t come on. This could be the culprit!

I couldn’t wait until quitting time to test out my theory! I get in the car and the dome light is on. Hmm. I leave the door open and stick the key in the ignition - no alarm even though there should be. Another indicator the switch is problematic. I decide that it must be the switch. It isn’t until I am driving out of the garage that I realize that of course the light would have been on as soon as I hit the unlock button. I can’t wait to test another clue - at the next stop light I crack the driver door open - no light. I lean over and open the passenger door - the light comes on!!!!

It has to be the door switch and I feel like a automotive genius! =]

Currently driving home from Dallas after picking up the girls - but don’t panic, Matt is driving. :)

Day 3 of skiing was really fun! I’ll admit to being nervous about skiing the blues, but I was rocking the greens on Day 2 so I figured I could handle it. We went down the last green on the main slope, then headed over to the other sideof the mountain to ski in the heavy blue area. The first blue we went down was a pretty hairy blue and I wasn’t too thrilled with it..

But the rest of the blues were quite fun - especially Boogie! I started to get better on controlling my speed with turning. I would run across slopes I thought were too steep, but managed to get down them safely. I did find one spot I absolutely hated, but made it down. Of course on my last run, I accidentally ended up on top of the same hill sans Matt. Second attempt was not so great because I went too far on my turn and got into the moguls. Crashed pretty quick and had to slowly sidestep my way back to the smooth slope.

Matt did the last run each day alone so he could bomb the blues or play on the blacks. My legs got pretty tired by the end of each day - I was definitely working more than he was based solely on number of turns…

We have videos from the last day, but haven’t posted them yet. I like to think you can see the improvement in my abilities on Day 3, but who knows? I got the only compliment I needed when Matt told me “You look like a skiier!” =]

Will try to post the videos and more photos soon!

After breakfast this morning - where I discovered that I like Americano’s - I headed off to my Level 2 ski lesson. My instructor, Allen, from the previous day saw me and I told him that I signed up for Level 2. He told me I was beyond Level 2 and that it would be a waste of time. He told me to ask for a more advanced lesson. So I did - explaining that I had done Level 1 and then skied a bit the rest of the day. There were 4 of us that were more advanced and they sent us up the mountain with 5 instructors. I was the least advanced of the four (I’m ok with that, it’s only Day 2), so I got my own instructor for the day. Private lessons for the price of a group lesson - sweet!

The instructor, Dutch, was great! He was giving me all kinds of tips and helpful advice. It was a bit much to remember all of it during each run, but there was definite improvement during the morning. I’m still not a professional by any means, but I was doing much better than the day before. I’m almost parallel skiing, but I still have a tendency to wedge my skis during the turns. I’m hoping it will just take more practice to do it correctly. But Dutch thinks I’ll have no problems on the blues as long as I work on turning more frequently.

The afternoon Matt and I went out and skied more of the greens. Dutch told me some trails that would be less crowded, so we skied those. They were uncrowded and it was really good practice. I still get going a bit faster than I would like on some stretches, but I managed to slow down before hitting anything that would make me fall. I still had a pretty good fall at the end that demonstrated my ability to do the splits, but it was after going down a hill that I wouldn’t have intentionally gone down if I had more of a chance to decide. There was enough time to think “oh crap!” before going over the edge. (I actually made it ok, I crashed further down.)

Matt is very excited about my progress and is gunning for some blues tomorrow. I think I can handle them, but I have got to remember to turn more!

Oh and my biggest fear happened in miniature today. Dutch and I got stuck on the ski lift for about 20 minutes on one of our journeys up the mountain. It gave us plenty of time to people watch and wasn’t as bad as I had thought - though of course it was the one lift without a safety bar or foot rest, so my legs got very tired. Apparently some little kid forgot/didn’t get off the lift so they had to stop it. I’m not entirely sure what happened, because we passed the kid on our way up after that…

 Matt’s video from today at the end of the Nirvana trail:

The hotel/condo we are staying in is on the left. Slope-side accommodations are awesome!

Matt on the Twilight ski lift. He took on of me too, but the shadow of the support pole is right in the middle of my face - not so photogenic.

View back toward the lodge from the ski lift.

First day of skiing went pretty well! I didn’t have any problem getting into a group lesson and we beat the rush for rental gear. After a wonderfully overpriced breakfast, I headed off to my lesson while Matt went off to ski on his own. As a side note - he really seemed to like going solo, he was jamming music and having a blast.

Ski lessons were nowhere near as embarrassing as I had been imagining. We even got to ride the ski lift twice and I didn’t fall at all! We practiced the wedge technique of stopping, and it worked very well for the bunny slopes.

Then after lunch with Matt, I booked a level 2 lesson for tomorrow morning and we headed up to the real slopes. I would have preferred going back to easy land, but you have to go to green sometime. No problem with the much higher and longer ski lift. Matt tried to enhance my ski knowledge with new techniques to try. That didn’t go so well and after the last spectacular fall where I whacked the heck out of my shin with my other ski, I decided that my wedge technique was good enough for the moment.

After that I managed to stay up on the skis, even on the second run down the mountain. I wasn’t terribly fast, but I made it! I really think they should offer beginning skiers a yellow safety vest or something so the other people know to give us a wide berth…

Oh and Matt took a video of me skiing near the end of the second run. He seems to think I look like a good skier, so I will share.

Matt and I are finally taking our (my) first ski trip! We have planned on going several times, but it has always fallen through. Not this time though! We’re in Durango Colorado staying at the Purgatory lodge. Matt left it up to me where we stayed, so to spoil ourselves I opted for slope side. :)

We drove up to Dallas this morning to drop off the dogs with the in-laws. Dallas just got hammered by the biggest snow storm in a century ~ 9 inches. We had some extra time before heading to DFW, so we helped Clean up the mess in their front yard - the weight of the snow broke off several large branches from the oak tree in the front yard.

Flying was uneventful, though we had a short delay getting off the ground in Dallas, so we had to hurry to catch our connection. We stopped by a grocery store on the way to the lodge to get some snacks and PB&J (hey, we’re still cheapskates at heart!) If only we had known our studio room had a stove, we would have got even more! :)

Tomorrow morning I’m going to try to get in on a group lesson, though apparently it’s a busy weekend so I’m crossing my fingers the class isn’t full. Wish me luck tomorrow!