Ok, so it wasn’t really any of our birthdays…yet, but we knew the snow would be suspect at this time of year and figured that adding a birthday celebration into the mix would definitely keep our 3-day weekend interesting. It did:

Throw an awesome 5 bedroom house, multiple cases of beer, and some luchidor masks in the mix, and you have the recipe for a great weekend!

Lewis, Eric, and I (with Burton) were the first to arrive on Thursday to check in and open the place up. Drew and Theresa (with Ceasar) arrived well after we’d returned from our usual stop at Foxfire Grill, but we kept the party going until about 4:00 am. I actually woke up Friday morning with my worst headache of the weekend, but I blame the blonde ales I was drinking with dinner.

Lewis and I had a hard time getting motivated to ride on Friday, but finally made it out for several runs down the quickly melting trails. Then it was back to the house for hot tubbing, cocktails, and to meet up with Dharma. Along with Ben and Steph (with Bailey) arriving early Friday afternoon, 8 of us were now there. The other 3 – Tom and Amy and Laura – would arrive later Friday evening; missing out on the lasagna dinner, the initial rounds of beer pong, and Drew’s hip-hop iPod mix (uh-ohhhhhhhhhh!).

On Saturday, we were all excited to get out on the snow with the exception of Laura, who had some school work to do, and Theresa, who hung out with Ceasar. Lewis took Amy under her wing with some snowboard instruction while I helped Dharma. Team Mummert made some laps by us and would stop to throw snowballs and generally harass the pupils and teachers. Tom actually took off on his own and made great progress in his first day on a snowboard. Amy and Dharma both took to it quickly as well, but soreness prevented them from riding the next day; even after a marathon hot tub session (literally like 3 hours). We never did see Ben and Steph out on the snow, but rejoined them back at the house for the requisite cocktails and hot tubbing. While Laura, Lewis, and Amy continued to enjoy the tub for the aforementioned marathon, the rest of us chilled on the sweet leather sofas watching DVDs (primarily “Triumph: The Insult Comic Dog”) and enjoying our beers.

Saturday night, after our awesome ham dinner, was the night the luchidor masks came out that Eric discovered on the Wrestle Warehouse website. We played some flip cup and then more beer pong to keep the fun factor high and shuffled back and forth between iPod playlists. We laughed a lot, quoted Will Ferrell movies ad nauseum (we had already watched “Blades of Glory” earlier that morning), and Lewis managed to keep her clothes on.

We woke up Sunday to a light dusting of snow on the ground, but only Lewis and Tom made it out on the slopes while the rest of us started cleaning up with “Anchorman” playing in the background. It’s always a bummer having to part ways after such a great weekend, but Theresa had to get back to Buffalo (via Ohio) and the rest of us had our 4-hour drive back to Virginia to contend with.

In the end, the weekend brought Lewis’ and my final day count for the season to 24.

A rather routine weekend at Snowshoe became hilarious when Rich failed to get on the lift properly and ended up dragging himself and Carla into a slushy puddle. Eric and I could only laugh.

A huge crew descended on Snowshoe, and we piled into two different Shamrock units for a long weekend.

Day Count: 9

Having season passes is nice. They’re paid for well in advance (so we only have lodging, gas, and entertainment expenses to worry about), we don’t have to wait in ticket lines, and we can strut around like we own the place flashing our “credentials” to anyone glancing our way. “We’re kind of a big deal, ” we say.

Our second outing of the season was with the always hilarious Mummert duo, along with Ben and Steph and their dog, Bailey. Over the course of the weekend we managed to stay up until 4:00 am Saturday morning, Stephanie vomited, the dogs fought and humped, and we completely contaminated our little hotel room. With six people and two dogs, we really didn’t expect any less.

The snowboarding was mostly standard fare, with Lewis still suffering from her surgical procedure and the rest of us nursing minor hangovers on Saturday, but we still had a great time. Drew and Lewis ended their day early and hit The Junction for happy hour, with Ben and Steph joining them shortly thereafter. Eric and I grabbed a few extra runs, but also hit the bar a little earlier than expected. After some drinks though, we were all energized for a few night runs at Silvercreek.

While we thought Saturday night would be fraught with revelry, we instead ate at Brandi’s, Eric and I played a quick round of pool, and we all ended up flopped on our respective beds watching “The Matrix Revolutions” by 10:00. Not very rock star of us.

On Sunday, Lewis and I made it out for a couple hours over on the Soaring Eagle Express’ expert runs. Conditions were much improved from Saturday, and we were sad that we actually had to leave to meet the Mummerts for lunch at Foxfire and begin the longish drive home. Ben and Steph had headed out earlier, so Eric and Drew killed some time at Starbucks and Full Tilt before meeting us to eat. After recounting the weekend’s adventures over Southern-style sandwiches and salads, it was time to shuttle back to our cars, say goodbye to Drew as he headed back to Ohio, and hit the road for VA. Burton was glad to see us…

Day Count: 4

So what, exactly, constitutes a “day” of snowboarding? Lewis and I decided on our own answer to that question this weekend; a weekend when she was plagued by a terrible sinus infection and I managed to pull a groin muscle after my second run of the season. And that answer was 3 runs. As insubstantial as that sounds, it would have been very easy for us to not head up the mountain on Sunday after waking up with no power in our room and a steady rain coming down, but we really didn’t want to just pack it in and head home. We had only managed to get about 2 hours in Saturday before I dragged us off to The Junction to watch VT play BC in the ACC Championship Game, so we knew we had to make an effort.

Lewis had actually woken at 6:00 am with a bad sinus headache (and I mean, BAD) and noticed the lack of power. When we finally got up around 9:00, the power was still out and the rain had begun. As bad as I knew she had to feel, she didn’t even consider not going up the mountain; but, we determined that we had to set a goal in order to consider our efforts a “day.” We really didn’t want to push things and risk exacerbating either of our conditions, so we set a pretty modest goal. But with that goal in mind, we trekked up the hill, put on our boots in the rain, and completed our three runs.

Despite the fact that our actual snowboarding was limited this weekend, and that Rachel felt like crap for most of it, we really had a very good time. We arrived late, of course, on Friday night, so we turned in pretty quickly after watching some RSN TV (Glenn Plake has the best job ever) and a couple Yuenglings (for me). We slept in a little late Saturday morning and then headed up to the service desk to pick up our season passes. Once on the slopes, we were ecstatic to find the conditions to be 108% better than the last time we came up in early December. Eight trails were open, the sky was sunny, and the temperature was cool. I even managed to get in some 50-50s and a boardslide in the rail garden, so the the season was off to a good start.

When we walked into The Junction for the game, we tried to determine which TVs might have the game on them; and, then noticed a VT sweatshirt in the back corner of the bar. The girl wearing it actually motioned to us (I was wearing my VT hat) and said that the game was going to be turned on back in that section. We settled in, and were later joined by a couple who were cheering for BC. After the Hokies won and the bar cleared out, we hung out for a minute to talk to the BC couple (Matt went to BC and Lauren actually went to Notre Dame). We mentioned that we’d be at Foxfire watching the WVU game later that night and recommend they try it for dinner. They had never been to Snowshoe, but Lauren had a won a weekend trip there in a running race. We had a lot in common with them, enjoyed talking to them, and hoped we’d run into them later.

Before dinner, we headed back to the Inn, hit the hot tub, and showered. We decided to leave Burton in our room in his crate and then drove back up to the village to eat and watch some more football. The nice thing about Snowshoe in the early season is how uncrowded it is, so we were seated immediately at Foxfire Grill right by a TV that was showing the game. The couple behind us were fun and talkative, so we made our second set of friends for the weekend. Then, halfway through dinner, two beers arrived at our table that the waitress said were from our Boston College friends. Cool gesture. We have Matt’s business card and will make an effort to hook up with them again at some point (they’re currently living in Adams Morgan).

So that all brings us to Sunday, and our rainy three runs down the mountain. No, it wasn’t our greatest day of snowboarding ever, but we were glad we made the effort. And our count is officially at 2 days.