NZ reunion in CO

Amy and Sarah with the Gore Range

 As you might remember, my friend Sarah from Michigan came to visit Thomas and I in Connecticut back in June when we first arrived back from our USA road trip. Sarah and I met in New Zealand when we were both studying abroad, and she was my best friend while I was there, and she is the reason why Thomas and I met and are together still! She's currently finishing up grad school, and decided that she wanted to spend a week out here in Colorado with us to keep her sane. She booked a week with us, and arrived just last Monday. 

We made sure we had plenty to do while she was here, and unlike my family who only stayed for 3 days, she had a ton of time to check out the area. We decided to spend her first day here checking out the village in Breckenridge. This ski resort is nearly an hour away, and although we've been snowboarding there, we've never been to the village, which is famous for being used as Aspen in the movie Dumb and Dumber. We arrived, walked around, shopped and went into their famous pizza place Eric's for lunch. When we came out from the basement restaurant, the whole town was covered in snow, and huge flakes were coming down! It was absolutely perfect...

...until we started driving back to Avon, and learned that the Vail Pass had been closed due to the snow and we couldn't pass! We were in the tiny town of Frisco, and decided of course to hit up their local brewery and wait it out. Finally, a few hours later we were allowed to continue home. 

 On Wednesday, Thomas got Sarah some rentals, and we convinced Matt to teach Sarah how to snowboard, considering that he trained as a snowboard instructor and that they're both single!!! Before Sarah even arrived, we told Matt all about her, and even showed him her pictures on Facebook, I even told Sarah I was going to set her up with someone, but we didn't think that they would actually totally hit it off.  After spending the entire day snowboarding together, they definitely bonded, to say the least. Matt even took her on a date! 

Vail Village

A few more days of snowboarding, and a lot of Epic Mix photos came next. 

After I got out of work from Ski School on Friday, Sarah and I took the bus into Vail. We walked down the cobblestone streets until I ran into the old dessert chef from the restaurant I work at. He opened his own restaurant and convinced us to come inside, where he bought us a round of drinks. Perfect start to the night, as we bar hopped a bit, and bought matching shirts for us, Thomas and Matt!

Vail Village

Amy Skiing!!! 

On Sarah's last day, I decided to try to ski for the first time since I was 3 years old. I taught my sister how to ski very basically when she was visiting, and I knew that I couldn't live at a Ski Resort, and help teach small children how to ski without sking once myself. So as Sarah was continuing to learn to snowboard, I tried to teach myself how to ski. We went to the very top of the mountain to the easiest runs, and I was able to make my pizza stop easily enough, but had no idea how to do anything else. I made it up, and started even making turns! Sarah and I made it our goal to go down the intermediate runs, and we finished the day with two of them! We were very proud of ourselves!! 

It was one fantastic week, and we've even planned to meet Sarah in Chicago and Michigan on our drive there with Matt in one weeks time!!! Can't wait for another NZ reunion!!!