Hey Guysies! (?)

Hi Everybody! We are still in the state of NY and having a great time! Yesterday we went down-hill skiing!!! I am no Olympian, I can tell you, but I managed to go straight down an intermediate hill without falling, twice! (the third and fourth time I fell, because I was wearing glasses and they got all fogged up and I couldn't see where I was going! :D) Anyway, I (Rachel) ended up being very fashionable and "cool". Quite on accident! It worked this way, I had never been on a chair lift, and so everyone went up ahead of me, and I got on my own chair quite nicely. I just sat down and held onto one of the sides. It proceeded to swing me 40 feet into the air, and I was thinking, "Wow. Sort of risky feeling. I'm wearing slick ski pants and if I let go of the side, I'd probably slide right off!" But nothing risked, nothing accomplished, right? Then Daniel, upon my approaching the spot where I had to jump off quickly, yelled to me, "Raise your bar!!!" I gave him a rather confused look. The expression of slight panic on his face was precious to behold when he saw that I hadn't used the bar provided for safety! Ha! I had ridden the whole way thinking that the chair-lift was simply a risk anyway, and, unbeknowst to me, had been "cool". That's the way all "cool" skiiers ride the lift. Hee-hee! It was alot of fun! Sarah and I made it to the intermediate hills. Aunt Heather tried to teach me "carving". That didn't work for me. I couldn't turn well at all. We were at the top of the mountain and I was following behind her, when suddenly I picked up speed and started flying down the hill. I merely called back to her, "I think I'm going!" and I am still alive to tell the story. When I fell once, my skis came right off, and I rolled wildly down part of the hill. Some guy on the chair-lift called down, "Are you okay?" and I answered overly cheerfully to assure him of the truth of the statement, "Yeah!" I can't imagine anything more embarassing than being rescued by the ski-patrol. I would have fainted from mortification. So I carefully retrieved my skis, found that it was too steep to put them back on, sat down upon them, and slid to a gentler slope, put them back on with sarah's help, we got run over by a snow-boarder, and then I continued down the hill. It was a blast. Matthew and Daniel made it to the black diamond trails. I think we all did a great job considering we'd never been down-hill skiing before! They stopped in the middle of the "freestyle" course when Matthew went off a jump and did the splits. :) It was time to leave anyway! Well, hope you all are having a great time, and we'll see most of you guys pretty soon I hope! Oh! If Maryanna is reading this, I am making you a nice round-robin like Sarah is doing for Hannah, so you can read it when I get back! (If I haven't blabbed it all to you already! -Rachel