Travel Day

We started at 3:45AM MT time, rustling around and getting ready to head out. The road back was great, 39 – 41 degrees so no ice and no animals. We forgot to mention someone hit an elk yesterday and had to have their car towed. The funny thing is this lady on the way to Bozeman had me all concerned about how bad this “Canyon” road was, in the end it was no worse than I40 in the mountains between Newport and Asheville. Compared with the road up Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah this thing was a joke.

Anyhow, we got to Thrifty and dropped the car off. The dude working there looked like he was a 19 year old ranch hand, but that’s what you see a lot of in Montana. We got out easy and on time. Right now we are in Atlanta waiting on our flight home at 5PM.

Traveling is always such an interesting time. You see so many different people, hear all kinds of languages and a wide variety of interesting clothing and styles. Regardless, it’s an opportunity to observe more of God’s creation and recognize both His kindness in creation and the effect of the fall and sin in the world.

I thought I’d wrap this up with some suggestions on books to read:

• Surprised by Joy, CS Lewis
• Worldliness, Mahaney
• The Cross Centered Life, Mahaney
• What Jesus Demands of the World, Piper
• Wild at Heart and Captivating, Eldridge
• Sex, Love and Romance to the Glory of God
• Next Generation Leader

Enjoy and until next year. Thanks for watching…….movies to come.

It is Finished

When Jesus said this He had just completed His work on the cross, His saving work for all mankind. How awesome!

For us, we just finished our trip. Today was a great day as well, but it really only ended up being a half-day. When we got to the area we found out that there were 30 to 80 mph winds at the top therefore only one lift was open, swifty. So, we headed up to Swifty and begin to seek powder in the trees – this was our mission today. We succeeded in finding plenty of Pow in the trees and had  a blast all morning. We actually got a ton of video footage today, but with this new HD camera it takes some work to download and configure the movies. I will be working on it next week. We also took a lot of pictures of the area in general – it was a much clearer day.

Eventually the winds were so high they had to close the entire area, all lifts, so we did some shopping and waited. They never opened the big lifts up, so we toyed around on the kids lift but it ended up being really lame. All in all it was a great day though. We found a lot of powder, enjoyed the trees, found a lot of ledges to jump off of into the powder and just had a lot of fun.

One of the great things about this trip is the opportunity to observe God’s creation. The mountain was socked in most of the time we were here, so seeing the big peaks today was a treat. It is amazing to see the wonder of God’s work in these big mountains and then observe the intricacy of a snowflake. We are so blessed to spend time in the wonder of God’s work. It is critical that we take time to see the work God has done, observe it, be in it and feel nature. We forget that God is not only set on redeeming us, but redeeming His entire creation. What a concept, what a thought, what an awesome truth to meditate on.

When we got home we cleaned up and went back to the Coral to eat a big steak – which we did. We each had a Buffalo Ribeye, which was excellent. I dropped a Blueberry Pie with Huckleberry Ice cream, Jay just had Ice Cream. We both got stuffed, miserable stuffed. When we got back we wrapped up packing and jumped into the final two chapters of Wordlines. Tonight was about modesty in wardrobe and finally how do we live in the world but not be of this world. We had  a great discussion on the topic of glorifying God in our lives, in the simple things like work, or mowing the lawn or whatever we do. We wrapped up with the discussion of sharing the Gospel with others. Always a tough topic even though it shouldn’t be. We were both challenged to consider how we can grow in this area that each of us profess to be weak.

Well, it is finished. We are done, the trip is over. We head out tomorrow AM at 6:45 from Bozeman and get home later that night. Thanks to everyone for following along, keeping up with us, sending us notes of encouragement – and jealousy!!! We are thankful to go, we are blessed to have the opportunity and we are looking forward to being home.

Goodnight.

My bad Bowl’a

It has been pointed out that the link to the Albino Bowler site was incorrect earlier.  The correct link is http://thealbinobowler.com.  Check it out!

Snow, Snow, Snow and Music

Well today was all about powder. It snowed several inches the night before and today was pretty amazing. We had our usual breakfast at the lodge and then headed up the mountain. We spent most of the day on the left side of the mountain searching for powder, trees and steeps. We found plenty!!! The hard part about only having two people is it’s hard to get many pictures – so we have pictures of the area, but hardly any of each other. I did get the video camera out and took some footage, but it will take me some time to post that – so you’ll just have to wait.

About the snow…..amazing. It reminds us a lot of Utah – very light and fluffy, like cotton. There were stashes where the snow was waist deep. We started the day playing in the park filming, then we hit the side trees that funnel back out until the lift. These trees were amazing, good spread and lots of fresh powder hidden and stashed inside these areas – pretty well untracked. Eventually we made our way to Andesite mountain area, where we found a ton of new fresh powder stashed in trees and steep cliffs. There were a ton of natural kickers, rocks and drop offs to hit. Anyhow, we had an incredible day!!!!

We immediately hit the hot tub after we got back. We ended up spending too much time in there, I felt like passing out. We met some college kids from Minnesota and enjoyed talking to them. We also met a local who filled us in a bit more on the area and also the Yellowstone club, where he works. If you want to check it out go here: http://www.theyellowstoneclub.com/ - all you need is 300K down, 16K a month and build a million dollar home.

After the hot tub we had dinner at the Half Moon restaurant, we split some ribs, and came back to the room to jump into our study. Tonight was about Music and Stuff – the stuff we have, want, etc. While each of these seem pretty simple we were both challenged to consider what we are inputting, forcing in between our ears as we listen to music. It’s challenging because we both love music, all genres, but it has made us consider both what we are listening to and also what affect it can have on us. Does it draw us closer to Jesus, or  does it diminish or desensitize us to the things of the world? What a great challenge to consider.

The next topic was stuff, or the desire for stuff – sometimes called covetousness. This section again challenged us, specifically to consider our motivations when it comes to buying versus giving. I know I am personally challenged to consider what it looks like to be more sacrificial in giving – giving up something I may want or desire to bless someone else. I am not sure what that looks like at this point, but it is an area where God has been tapping on my shoulder for some time now. I know we are all richly blessed, some more than others, and it begs us to consider what do we NOT give up to have what we want when we could give up something that really has no eternal value to bless someone else.

So, it’s been great. We are stoked about tomorrow. It has been snowing all day and there is a winter storm advisory until 12N tomorrow – so we are hoping and praying for a ton of new snow. It could truly be an epic day on Wednesday. We leave out  Thursday AM, so tomorrow is the last day on the mountain. We are excited.

I have attached some photos from today below. Don’t forget to check out the Albino Bowler page too: http://thealbinobowler.com

Low Visibility – Awesome snow

Tree Skiing is Great Here

Looking down into the Valley from the Hill

Snow was coming down hard

It is a Winter Wonderland up here

Food, Ptex, Wax and Worldliness

Interesting title huh?

The food is that Jay and I went down to the Corral for dinner tonight. Actually a great little place on 191 about 3 miles from where we are staying. We decided to go low budget tonight so we had Buffalo burgers – lean stuff, very tasty. We got the low down on the town from the waiter. Apparently Bill and Melinda Gates own a home in the prestigious Yellowstone Club which borders Big Sky ski area. We saw a bunch of these homes today and wondered what and who’s they were. They are very large and the club is apparently very exclusive. Anyhow, dinner was good and we watched a little of the OU and UT (Texas) game too.

The ptex is this wax that goes on the boards to to fill in cracks, marks, etc. There are quite  a few exposed rocks here and just rocks all over the place so the boards got banged up pretty bad. I have a picture uploaded below of the gash in my board – I like to do things well. Anyhow, Jay is kindly putting ptex on my board and his as well. We had to buy a stick of ptex from the board shop and the waiter at the Corral gave us a razor blade to cut and scrape the ptex off.  We have to use a lighter to melt the ptex, and it does cause some smoke – hopefully we wont set off the smoke detector and get thrown out.

The Wax is the next job, Jay will wax our boards. We both noticed our boards seemed “slow” today, so we want to get a fresh coat of wax on them before tomorrow. The wax is actually put in with an iron that is designed for the task. After that Jay is widening my bindings to get a lower and more stable stance. He’s been riding that way for two years now and swears by it, so I’ll be giving it a whirl tomorrow.

The Worldliness is the book that we are studying during this trip. It’s a book done by the crew at Sovereign Grace and edited by CJ Mahaney (http://www.crossway.org/product/9781433502804). It’s small, less than 150 pages but packed with some hard hitting and challenging topics about Worldliness. Read 1 John 2:15 to get some context, but here are the chapters

1. Is this verse in your Bible?
2. Go, My Heart and Media
3. God, My Heart and Music
4. God, My Heart and Stuff
5. God, My Heart and Clothes
6. How to Love the World

We are taking two chapters a night starting with tonight and really just using some of the questions from the book as a guide to begin to peel back some layers and ask some tough questions on these topics. God will certainly challenge us as we work through the material. I am excited we chose it as reading and preparing for it has caused me to really inspect my life in these areas that are pointed out. Walking this balance, being in the world but not of it – NOT loving the things of the world, but loving the things of God, is a very difficult and delicate part of our Christian walk. This book is helping us to see, by God’s grace, how we can be more in tune with the dynamics of this day to day.

Thanks for reading, thanks for the comments – we LOVE them. Keep watching this blog, and of course check out the Albino Bowler. We have really had some fun with him today. Tomorrow’s updates should be cool as we plan to take the HD video camera and the SLR camera to get some high quality photos and videos. We’ll also be hitting the terrain park more to capture some good footage and including the bowler in some jumps. Stay tuned…….

Night Picture outside of our Lodge at Bucks T4

Deep Gash in the base of my Board

Day one of Boarding is Done

Well, day one is done with no injurys and a ton of fun. This mountain is sick – huge – crazy steep. We had a great time and spent most of the day simply exploring the 4000 acres and getting our bearings straight. We pretty much found a diverse terrain – steeps (very steep), rocks, powder (awesome powder), great tree skiing, huge groomers for just flying, back country bowls  and kickers. This place has a little bit of everything for everybody.

I’ll be doing a full update later tonight, but in the mean time I’ll post a few pictures.

Thanks for watching.

Dropping off the World

Terrain Kicker, Jay Norris

This Place is Steep

Steep….leaning lifts

Shipping Off Tomorrow

We leave Sunday @ 2:45 from TYS. We are very excited to get moving but it will be a long day. It requires flying to ATL, SLC and then to Bozeman. Between air travel, bags, rental car and hotel check in we probably won’t be in bed until 1AM our time.

We have a 20 minute ride to Big Sky in the AM but we’ll be seeking first tracks.

We are also excited to have the Albino Bowler traveling with us. We’ll be keeping his blog, this blog and Facebook up to date daily with pictures and hopefully some video.

You can find the bowler at http://thealbinobowler.com and of course you can friend him on Facebook.

Here we go……..

Two Days and Counting

Well, two days to go. Not much to say except let’s go big. Pay attention here and facebook on Sunday to Thursday as we’ll have all the updates, pictures and videos.

6 Days

Six days until we take off. Snow predicted every day except one through Sunday. Big Sky is 98% open, or roughly 3600 skiable acres – insane.

I’m 3/4 way through Worldliness, our study for this trip, and whew – it is intense. Be ready to be challenged. I can’t wait for Jay and I to engage in some meaningful and challenging conversation surrounding the content. I’m certain we will be edified and further sanctified through this study.

8 Days until we leave

Well only 8 days until we leave for Montana. I checked the weather, highs no more than 30 and snow every day until then, what a shame!!!!

This year Jay and I are diving into a new book, Worldliness by CJ Mahaney. I’ve read roughly half of it so far and she’s, tough but good stuff. This is not designed for the weak of heart or anyone who wants watered down truth so get ready.

Anyhow, we are so stoked to go. Big Sky is 95% open so this trip will be ridiculous.