Goin home for Christmas

Well the time has come for me to leave CA. It's kinda bittersweet. I miss my fam, but I have grown to love Cali. Something that I didn't think I would ever say. How could I love sunny california when I live for the snow? Yeah I don't know either, but I think my heard will remain here when I leave. I'm super excited to see my little cousin Grace though. That kid is amazing and I have missed her silliness. There is nothing like a 6 year old that is the life of the party! When she was first born I was a bit jealous since at the time I was the only granddaughter, but now I love that kid to death. She's a keeper!
I was finally able to see snow this week, which made my smile return. I headed up to Escalon on Wednesday night to my Aunt Karen's house so I could take my younger cousins Nicole and Philip boarding. It was so much stinkin fun! It started pouring rain while we were there and it was a bit warm so there wasn't much snow at all. Only blacks and a few blues were open since there was only snow at the top and the bottom were the smaller runs were was pretty bare. We ended up riding mostly blacks, which isnt a big deal for me but my cousins really aren't ready for that difficulty. Luckily I know what I'm doing though so I was able to keep a close eye on them and help talk them through it. They improved quite a bit over the course of the day and I am very proud of how well they did. We even did a few passes through the terrain park. Kole and I were hitting jumps and it was amazing. Kole was even able to land a few! Philip was going to hit some, but I am glad that he didn't since he is no where near ready to be catching air. I almost hit some rails, but the rain picked up on our way up the lift and it was starting to ice over so I didn't want to risk it. We also went off-terraining, which was the most fun run I have been on. The snow was loose packed, so if you fell you would since down about 10 inches. It took forever for us to make it to the bottom, but it was a blast! I was definately glad we went down it. Although it was right under the lift, so it was interesting when we would hit jumps and then biff right underneath a bunch of good boarders riding up since it was just below the terrain park and used the same access lift.
Unfortunately it has been raining back home for the past few days, so I'm not sure how much snow there will be left when I get there.

That's all I have for now. I leave Fresno at 12pm with a short layover in San Fran and another short one in Chicago. I arrive back in GR at 11pm and will be headed home to B'dale. I plan on being in GR on Monday night (for those who live in GR and want to hang out) and then will be heading back home so I can be to work at Timber Ridge on Tuesday morning.

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas. I am excited to see my MI friends again but will miss my CA friends. I'm off to start packing. Goodnight to all!
Rika