We always have to explain to people who don’t live in the southwest that since we live in the desert, the snow never comes to us.

We have to go TO the snow.

Which, up until a few weekends ago, we’d never done together. In over twelve years of our relationship, we’ve never been in snow!

The more we thought about this, the more ridiculous it seemed. Because…

1. Just two hours north from where we live, the elevation is 7,000 feet higher… and it snows… all. winter. long. Seriously. We can drive to the snow in a snap.

2. We’ve been within a few latitudinal degrees of THE ARCTIC CIRCLE together — and it didn’t even snow when we were there. In fact, we were in bathing suits. Twice. It’s like we were taunting the snow. Here we are! Near the North Pole. Half naked. Come and get us! 

So, a few weekends ago, we finally decided to go TO the snow for the first time in over a decade!

The first few hours REALLY didn’t go as planned. In a lot of ways, it couldn’t have been worse. At the same time, it couldn’t have made for better memories. The good news? We recorded it. All of it. Not knowing how it would end up.

We’d write a play-by-play recap if we thought we could do it justice. But this Snapchat video will do a much better job than we ever could.

Here are the rest of the highlights and lowlights from the trip:

Highlight: Doug. Our snow plow hero and champion.

Lowlight: We spent a few hours in our car worried he wasn’t actually going to come. That’s when things got desperate.

— Highlight: Home-cooked meals. Like we shared when we went to St. Simons Island earlier this year, whenever we travel with friends, we love eating in whenever we can. Especially when it’s cold outside. Luckily, we had our friends Rachael and Perry with us. Rachael makes a mean cream-based tomato soup, and Perry loaded up the gruyere on some deadly grilled cheeses.

Lowlight: Jordan ate enough to be mistaken for an actual snowman. Or maybe the Michelin tire man.

— Highlight: A film shoot. IN THE SNOW. One of our best friends from Phoenix, Melissa Jill (MJ), came on the trip, too, and she took our photos in the snow. Double highlight: someone made a snowman and then let us pretend WE built it.

Lowlight: Jordan doesn’t have snow boots. And, according to his toes, snow is a LOT colder (and a lot wetter!) than it looks.

— Highlight: Playing Ticket to Ride. It was our first time. We’re not saying we like it more than Settlers of Catan, but it’s a very, very close second. It requires a little bit less strategy then Settlers, so we opted for Catan in the morning and Ticket before bed.

Lowlight: On that note, Rachael learned something about Jordan: playing boardgames with him is like dealing with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Don’t bomb him… or he’ll blow up the world. Sorry, again, Rachael, for making it my mission to block every train path you started just to make sure you didn’t win since I couldn’t any more. – Comrade Jordan Stalin 

— Highlight: A cuddly baby! Rachael and Perry have six-month-old little girl named Charlie and she was such a trooper. We loved having her there! There’s almost nothing better in the world than cuddling with a sleeping baby in a warm cabin. Then giving it back when it cries.

Lowlight: Rachael and Perry didn’t sleep much because Charlie had a cold.

Highlight: Our room was upstairs, so we slept JUST fine.

Overall, our first trip to the snow together was the two things every good trip should be: an adventure, with people you love.

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