OUR TRIP TO SNOWSHOE, WV

I'm sitting here about to watch the premiere of The Biggest Loser {thank heavens Jillian is back..the show was hurting when she left-who's with me?} and am in somewhat denial that there's a full week of work ahead of me. There won't even be a 5 day weekend attached at the end...it's just so shocking.

Leave it to Sunday nights after a trip and the holidays to give me a big ole reality check! However, I'm actually happy about it. Not that I haven't fully enjoyed sleeping in, going on a trip, drinking hot chocolate with bailey's, spending time with family, 5 day weekends back to back, and so on {if you wouldn't-we can't be friends ;)}, but this girl is in serious need of an actual routine! One that actually involves work and staying on a schedule.

That's not to say Snowshoe wasn't a blast in a beer glass because it was. Literally. 

It was our first time to Snowshoe, WV but we had heard really great things about it and since Billy's family loves to ski, we were all about giving it a go! Billy's brother and Dad were originally supposed to come with us, but unfortunately couldn't make it at the last minute {another blood clot in the family-yikes!} so our Aunt JoAnne came with us, along with Billy's mom, twin sister {you knew Billy was a twin, right?}, and best friend Cory. We LOVED Snowshoe...it's like a big, gorgeous village with incredible views! We couldn't believe how huge it was and all of the restaurants and places to stay were so nice. We stayed at a part called Seneca that is really centrally located on the mountain and we had a balcony that you literally could walk off of and you were right at the top of the slopes to start skiing. It was awesome.
 
 {view right by our room}

the Village area....





{Seneca-where we stayed!}

{front view of it from the street}

{our balcony}

Here's some things I learned from our trip {lists are the most fun anyways}:

-I wanted to take a picture of every little thing covered in snow. Didn't matter what it was. Turns out the snowy mountains, the village, the trees, and the slopes are beautiful scenery. It was so white and snowy everywhere...our surroundings were absolutely gorgeous and a bit fake looking. Take a look...

-BIG fan of snowmobiling. In fact, I like it more than skiing. I kinda love it. Our first night in Snowshoe, Billy and I randomly booked a 1 hr snowmobile tour and it turned out to be one of our favorite parts of the trip. Something about being able to go 60 mph up the slopes, in the dark, and through the woods gives me a rush. Highly recommend snowmobiling friends. Fun times.

-The sunsets were some of the best I've ever seen.

-You haven't experienced cold weather unless you experienced Snowshoe mountain this past Friday. I thought I've been freezing cold before, but no, I was WRONG. It was 10 degrees and extremely windy...let me explain that to you: you couldn't walk outside without all body parts fully covered or you would freeze, burn, then turn into an ice-sickle in 45 seconds. I tried taking my gloves off outside to get a picture at one point {an innocent task I thought} and within a minute my fingers felt like they were being cut off. HOWEVER, I also learned you can still have fun skiing outside in this weather-you just have to wear 3,952 layers if you want to survive. It was funny because the other days it got up to 30-40 degrees and it felt like a HEAT wave. 

-Slopes with bars at the bottom are heavenly! Especially ones that served drinks in mason jars. ALL of the bars/restaurants at Snowshoe served their beer in mason jars, which obviously made the trip 3x better. You ski for a bit..get to the bottom of the hill..and bam-there's a BAR! Genius. Everyday our routine was to wake up, ski for a couple hours, get some beers/wine, ski some more, sit in the hot tub until we turned to prunes, and go out to dinner. It was perfecto {even in the cold temps}.

{this drink should be called heaven: hot chocolate, bailey's, peppermint.}

{his and hers winter socks and some tea by the fireplace}

 {also spent some time at night in the amazing, cozy lobby drinking wine while watching things such as Full House...}

{Billy and his best friend Cory}

-Skiing is a serious work out. Some of the slopes at Snowshoe are 3/4 a mile - 1.5 miles long and your legs definitely feel the BURN after many runs. Muscles I didn't even know I had are still hurting me....

-Having hardly any service the whole trip = a good thing! As much as I love my instagram {@katiewkrysh-find me!}, twitter, fb, texting, etc. a break is equally as lovely. There was only one area where we were staying that got service, so I made sure to only update on our down time. On the other hand, you really have to make sure you stick together as a group at Snowshoe because there's no way to call anyone if you get split up! 

-Hot tubs and sauna's on ski trips? Mandatory.
So are really awesome outfits on the way there.
Billy was my picture victim for this because mine was even more ridiculous.
Think: maxi skirt, snow boots, and a sweatshirt. Fashion at it's finest! 

the end!

*highly recommend heading to Snowshoe if you love to ski/snowboard! Thank you to those who recommended snowmobiling there :) Would love to make it back there again!

Back to the Biggest Loser thing....
I know a lot of people aren't big fans of the show {like my husband}, but you can get so much motivation for your workouts from watching it. Watch it for that reason alone! Some of my favorite exercises are ones that I've seen the trainers do on the show where I wrote them down so I could do them at the gym myself. They also give tips before and during commercials to help your diet. As you can tell, I'm a big fan of the show, but just wanted to go into a little bit more about why I am. It's incredibly motivating and reminds me to get my booty to the gym!

On a "I have better things to be doing besides watching tv but I'm going to watch tv anyways" note...
WHO is excited for the Bachelor tonight with Sean?

Yeahhhh! Report back tomorrow with your thoughts.

-Linked up with lovely Sami today for her weekend update blog hop-

xo.

Snowshoe on Dwellable