January is almost over… Which makes me so sad, not only because my birthday month is over, but because it means we’re already 4 weeks in to the new year!

This year, I did my birthday a little differently! Thomas surprised me with a birthday ski trip to Ruidoso , New Mexico! I use the term surprise loosely because he had to tell me we were going somewhere cold so I could prepare my wardrobe accordingly! I didn’t find out we were going to New Mexico until just a couple days before! Thomas planed the entire trip, from start to finish without including me on one detail!

Ruidoso, New Mexico is a small town South East of Albequerque. The population there is just shy of 8,000, it’s definitely a tourist town! From the minute we drove past the “Entering Ruidoso City Limits” sign, Thomas and I were both in love!

We arrived on Thursday January 9th, to our cabin. We stayed at Shadow Mountain Lodge, the #1 lodge in Ruidoso! It was nothing short of #1! From the minute we arrived everything was perfect.

Our first day out on the slopes was… quite the adventure. Our morning started off great, and we were on the slopes in no time! As the day went on, Thomas and I became more and more adventurous. Finally, as the day was coming to a close, we decided we’d take the life up to the top of the mountain and ski down a blue slope. Well, much to our dismay, once we reached the top, we realized the slopes weren’t labeled all that great. Thomas and I each attempted to follow the signs, but somehow we ended up separated, lost, and on black slopes, and if you didn’t know, black is more for experience skiers, which we were certainly not! Both Thomas and I tumbled down the mountain quite a few hundred feet in powder-like snow. Thomas was lucky enough to take his biggest fall under where one of the lifts were, so he was spotted by some snowboarders, while I was not so lucky. I ended up losing both of my skis, and poles, and was in pretty much the middle of the mountain, where no one else seemed to be! I had to slide down the rest of the mountain, about another 1,000 feet and wait for Thomas to arrive. I waited, and waited, and waited. It was a good hour and a half before he arrived at the bottom… On a stretcher. Thankfully, he was okay, maybe over exaggerating a little was what allowed him to be brought down on the stretcher? No… Not Thomas, He would never do that 🙂 All in all, our first day on the slopes together was quite an adventure!

Although the elevation seemed to have no effect on Thomas and I, our bag of chips looked like it was about to burst!

 For my birthday dinner, I decided on Pizza. Although Ruidoso had a good variety of places to eat at, nothing other than mexican sounded that great! But this Italian restaurant was perfect!