Shoop, Shoop, Shoop

This past week Justin finally had some time off! On Tuesday he just had a short meeting in the morning so we went bowling in the afternoon. The bowling center on base has free bowling on Tuesdays so we were able to bowl three free games. It was fun even though Justin doesn't like bowling. I really enjoy bowling so he said he'd go with me every time he has a free day on Tuesday. On Thursday we went out and ran some errands. I picked up my new contacts so now I have a year's supply. We also got some cold weather clothes. Since spring is supposedly on its way, everything for winter was on sale. We got warm gloves, snow pants, and hats. Then yesterday we went skiing for the first time ever! It was so much fun. We went to Showdown to ski since its the closest place to Great Falls.

It took a little over an hour to get there. It was snowing on the way there and we had to drive through mountains but we just went slow and it was fine. Once we got there, we signed up for lessons and rented our equipment. The lesson we took was for beginners who have no experience. The class was full of kids but there were a couple other adults so we didn't feel too awkward. We learned how to put the skis on and how to glide and stop. This is the beginner area where our class was.

There's a conveyor belt called the Magic Carpet that takes you up the small hill so you can practice going down. We got the hang of it pretty quickly and decided we didn't need to keep going down the small hill. So we headed over to the beginner lift.

The lift didn't go all the way to the top of the mountain which was good, but it still went pretty high. I could feel the difference in oxygen when we got to the top. After a short lesson, Justin and I successfully made it down the mountain. Overall, I think I only fell maybe twice while actually skiing. I mostly fell trying to walk in my skis or while standing still, sadly. Falling on the snow doesn't hurt at all. I did get a giant bruise on my leg from landing on top of one of my skis. But other than that, no injuries to report.

We went down the different beginner areas a bunch of times. Justin kept trying to go down this more difficult part near the bottom. Every time I went by from the easy area I would see Justin laying in the snow with one ski off, or I would see him side stepping up the hill to retrieve his poles that were 20 yards up the mountain from where he was. But after a few times, he finally made it down without falling haha.

The weather for skiing was good, from what we heard. It was snowing all day but the sun was poking through the overcast sky. One of the people who worked in the rental shop said it has been snowing for two weeks straight. That explains all the nice fluffy powder. Here's Justin in the 5 or 6 inches of powder.

And here's me. You can't even see our skis. I'm really glad we got cold weather gear. I was warm the entire day until maybe 45 minutes before we left. Even though it was only 15 degrees or so and snowing, we managed to stay quite toasty.

We had a blast skiing and now have something to look forward to for winter time in Montana. At some point we want to try snowboarding, although I have a feeling that will be much more difficult to pick up.

Snow, Alerts, More Snow, More Alerts

Not too much new or interesting has been happening lately. Justin has been working quite a bit. He had 5 alerts in a row at the end of January and then a couple more in a row at the beginning of February so he has been gone a lot. His schedule lightens up next week and he's supposed to have a few days in a row completely free so hopefully that will remain unchanged so we can get out of Great Falls for a bit.

For my birthday, we got a new television for our bedroom. The one we had was really old and the speakers made a weird vibrating noise if you turned the volume up past a certain level. It was really annoying so we got a new one. It's a flat screen and the picture is really nice. A big upgrade from what we had in there.


The weather has been up and down the last month or so. We had lots of snow and then a week of 45 - 50 degree weather and most of the snow melted. But then it snowed again. The kitties like to watch the snow out the front window.


Here's the view out the front door. It's snowing and this is after we already shoveled 8-10 inches off the driveway. It ended up snowing another 7 inches or so. Montana doesn't understand the concept of light snow. The weather forecast one day said "no significant accumulation overnight." Well overnight we ended up getting about 5 inches of snow. So you can see what Montanans consider "light snow" haha.

Also, when it snows, a lot of times there are spiked crystals on everything. Here's Justin's car after coming home from alert last week.



It's kinda pretty to see the trees with this sort of snow on them.

Yesterday, someone rang the doorbell and delivered these for me from Justin!


One of the guys in Justin's squadron did this for a fundraiser for the squadron. His wife made all the arrangements and they delivered them to people who live on base. I was completely surprised. Of course, the cats were immediately interested in the flowers and were trying to eat them. I told Justin to make sure it was okay before I left them on the counter. Justin looked it up online and sure enough, baby's breath is poisonous to cats, along with about 400 other types of flowers. So I had to put them up on top of the bookshelves to make sure the cats couldn't get to them. Last thing I need is for them to get poisoned by my flowers.

Justin and I went out yesterday and ran some errands. I got new glasses finally and ordered some new contacts so I should be able to see better now. Justin also got new running shoes since he's been going to the gym more recently.

The inspectors are on base last week and this week. They keep doing exercises and shutting down buildings and stuff. Justin got stuck inside the gym yesterday for like 3 hours because of the exercise. Also, he was supposed to have a trainer ride this morning and he just called and said the building is shut down and he can't get in so his trainer ride is going to be rescheduled. I guess the vice-commander of the entire group is really mad that they keep messing up the scheduling for the missileers. Anyway, that's about all that's new here. Hope everyone is well :)