Nordic Mountain.

It was a great Friday afternoon the first time I ever went to Nordic Mountain; in fact, a better Friday than usual. I was acing all of my final exams I had not studied for whatsoever. I was totally unprepared to take any tests that day, and hadn't even read the book that was also due that afternoon. I managed to get through the day by wearing a nice dress I had picked up two nights before. Since I don’t dress up often, I had many compliments which kept me going throughout the day. Even Tom told me to, “Stop lookin’ so damn hot!” HahahaJ Since I wore a dress to school and I was snowshoeing second hour in gym, I brought some comfy sweatpants and boots to wear outside. Tom let me use his snowboarding jacket and gloves outside so I didn’t have to walk upstairs after second hour to get my own things. He told me to take a certain trail once I was outside snowshoeing to see something that he did. Amber, Zoe, and I were the first people ready to go and walked over to the trail Tom told me about. A little ways up the path I noticed writing in the snow that said, “I <3 4="4" ahead="ahead" amber="amber" and="and" as="as" by="by" cuddled="cuddled" cutest="cutest" ever="ever" girl="girl" guessed="guessed" his="his" i="i" in="in" it="it" jacket="jacket" luckiest="luckiest" of="of" on="on" other="other" p="p" part="part" people="people" that="that" the="the" them="them" thing="thing" thinking="thinking" thought="thought" through="through" trail.="trail." trampled="trampled" up="up" walked="walked" was="was" we="we" went="went" who="who" world.="world." world="world" you="you" zoe="zoe">

 I finished my book by reading through every class and skipping lunch so I could take my last two quizzes on it. I received an outstanding grade in English for the quarter. After having a nice day in choir, I walked into the band room thinking that I would have the whole hour as a study hall so I could finish my book. That idea was quickly changed once I saw an old...friend… standing on the podium waiting to direct our class. I was as unenthusiastic as possible in band that day. Yet, the fact that he was there didn’t bug me at all; I was more worried that I no longer had time to finish my book. Eventually the time came to be 3:09 and I was excited to be with Tom after school for the second night in a row. I still had to take the final quiz on my book and joined five of my other classmates after school to take it. Jake, Erik, and I may have exchanged answers somewhere in there. I was done with test taking for a couple of days though! Free!

As I walked outside again, my eyes instantly started to water being stung by the harsh coldness outside, but I didn’t even feel the cold because I knew I would be warm soon enough with Tom. I hopped in my car, turned up the music loud, and started singing to Young, Wild & Free by Wiz Khalfia and Snoop Dogg. For a day that I thought was going to be miserable beyond belief, it was absolutely great so far.

I arrived at Tom’s to be greeted by his family and taken upstairs by Tom. Since I had never been to Nordic before, Tom basically had to dress me so I wouldn’t freeze to death. I changed into my sweatpants, and we ate some pizza. As we were about to leave, I was having some slight difficulties with boots. I didn’t have any of my own so I had to borrow some of theirs. Tom had given me about 50 pairs of socks to put on beforehand so I could barely fit into a pair of boots! Once I had some on, he had to lace and tie them for me because I just gave up at that point, haha. Such a good boyfriend I haveJ Erin, Tom, and I piled into the back seat and we were off to Nordic! Of course being smushed in the back seat with Tom, we had a definite reason to be close to each other haha. ;) We jammed out to Party Rock Anthem, and they gave me a visual tour of their old house on Erin’s ipod. Once we were on the back roads that lead to Nordic, we could start to see it off in the distance. All these lights were sparkling in the sky that looked so much like stars. It was already dark out by then, and we could see the slight glow of Saxsville in the horizon. Tom’s dad pulled into the parking lot of Nordic and I got out to let Tom out because he had been sitting in the middle. He made me get back in so I wouldn’t be cold. He opened the trunk to get his stuff ready, and Erin and I watched him through the rear window.

After Tom disappeared over the trench, Erin and I left to go watch him come down at the bottom of the hill. We were easily entertained by the people who were coming down and tried to copy all of their moves saying that we were better cuz we could actually land and we didn’t even need a board or skis. ;) We decided that got boring fast and made a mini snowman instead. The snow wasn’t packy at all so we had to keep making him a head after it kept crumbling to pieces. Eventually we got him to stay in one piece and stuck some plants into the side of him that were supposed to be arms, haha. Tom came over by us to see what we were doing, and I’m sure he thought we were being so silly.

We watched him go down a couple more times before his mom and dad came over by Erin and me. We headed over to the fire which was near where were we had been sitting. His mom put down a Packer’s blanket on a log for Erin and me to sit on. We huddled next to each other trying not to die from breathing in all the smoke that was blowing directly in our faces. Then his mom sat down next to me and we all huddled next to each other trying to keep warm. Eventually she got extremely sick of breathing in smoke and moved us over to the other side of the fire after some other people left. His dad put some more wood on the fire, and Erin started to talk about wanting to go tubing. I could tell that Aaron didn’t really want to go tubing, so I said I would take Erin. So Erin and her dad walked over to the place where you get tubes and pay for hours while Suzy and I talked about our bad experiences with tubing on water, lol. I was standing on of one of the logs when Erin and her dad came back over by us and they both had their backs turned towards me and Suzy was facing me….I completely like fell off of the log and Suzy just burst out laughing and said, “Nice Laura!” Aaron was disappointed he missed it, hahaha.

 Anyway, I had to go over to the little shack and sign a paper and get a sticker for tubing. As Erin and I were getting our tubes, I looked over back at the fire and saw Tom there. I didn’t notice until I did a double take and saw that he was shirtless! Haha, I was pretty confused, yeah. Though I definitely didn’t mind seeing him shirtless besides the fact it was like 19 degrees out! Erin and I continued to walk over to the lift until all of a sudden I couldn’t move my tube anymore and I almost fell over from the sudden stop. Tom had jumped into my tube while I was pulling it, haha. He walked with us over to the lift, and Erin and I were becoming more and more frightened of going down! The lady who hooked us up to the lift thought that Erin and I were sisters and that Tom was our brother. She said to me, “Why isn’t your brother coming along too?” I just laughed and shrugged cuz it was too funny.

Somehow, I was hooked up backwards and was facing Erin as we were being dragged up the lift. We laid back, put our feet up and crossed them, put our hands behind our heads, and pretended to be cool, haha. We are cool. Once we got to the top of the hill, Erin and I decided to go down the first lane, and a nice girl named Hannah pushed us down. We went together and held on to each other’s tubes, scared but excited! Once she pushed us down, it was like I was back in Illinois again at Six Flags. I’ve been there twice and tubing definitely was not as scary as Raging Bull or American Eagle. On our way down, Erin and I crossed each other and ended up on different sides, and near the bottom I saw Tom recording us on his ipod!!!! My eyes began to water so bad from the frozen wind that whipped across our faces. All I could hear was Erin’s screaming and the tubes scraping the icy paths that led us to a big pile of snow. We didn’t stop until we went hurdling up part of the hill and then back down again. I fell off of my tube and died a little, haha. Then I hopped up and ran up the steep hill to the top and told Erin to come too. We stood at the top of the hill and held hands up like champions. We had made it to the hill; our goal.

We slid back down the hill, grabbed our tubes, and trudged back through the snow feeling very accomplished. As we neared the lift again, our faces streaming with tears, we talked to Tom and his parents again who though it was the funniest thing ever. Erin and I made our way back to the lift and experimented with something new each time we went down. I was trying to get better aerodynamics so I would go faster and farther, but Erin and I figured out that we go farther and faster when both of us went down together. As we were walking up to the lift each time, we saw Tom coming down on the terrain park next to us. Man, he looks pretttty good on that snowboard. I really do enjoy watching snowboarding. I just don’t know if I’d like doing it myself. So, I got to see him go down almost every time!

As Erin and I were standing at the top of the hill about to go down, I heard the faint ringing of ambulances and fire trucks. I easily dismissed that notion of unease because I hadn’t seen them yet and thought maybe they were going somewhere else. Erin and I stood at the top of the hill waiting for the people at the bottom to move out of the way. They would not move. We started to talk to Hannah again about pretty much everything and anything. We came up with ideas of how to tell the people at the bottom to move out of the way. Eventually Erin just yelled, “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!!!!” After 10 seconds they started to move! This time when we went down, we both stopped on the same hill and had to get up and jump back on to keep going.

When I took this pause I noticed a loud humming noise coming from above. Once I stopped, I looked up and saw this huge helicopter in the sky above us. Erin and I headed back to the lift thinking that they were just passing by. Then I noticed that the ambulances and fire trucks I had been hearing before were sitting in the parking lot now. Erin and I stopped half way back to the lift and watched the helicopter get closer and closer. It looked as if the chopper was going to land right on us. Over the deafening roar I yelled for Erin and grabbed her hand to run away from it. We ran a little farther to the lift and saw that the helicopter was going to land in the parking lot. Erin and I stood sinking in the soft snow and watched the huge helicopter rise up a good amount of snow in this swirling vortex around it. All around people began to gather at the bottoms of the hills to watch as a young kid was getting lifted into the helicopter on a stretcher. We couldn’t see much because of the large snow cloud that was still in the air which made the lights foggy and the wind blow even more cold snow in our faces. I hadn’t seen Tom come down the hill for the past few times, and I was absolutely horrified. Whether there were tears streaming down my face or just my eyes watering from the wind, I’ll never know. I looked over at Erin with the water freezing on my face, and she started to hug me. I held her while we watched everyone scramble around to try and see what was going on. She told me not to worry and that it wasn’t Tom in that helicopter. I knew deep down that it wasn’t him because I didn’t have any weird feelings. I knew that he wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t get rid of that feeling that even horrible things happen to the best of us.

After everyone began to settle down, we went back to the lift and went up for a couple more runs. The people who were working told us that they had never seen a helicopter in all the years that they had been working there. As I was going up the lift I could not help but think about what if it was Tom that had been hurt badly. I played the whole scenario in my head and how things would play out, and then I felt as though I was going to cry and never stop. Yet I couldn’t cry because of it being so cold out. Each time Erin and I walked back up to the lift we didn’t see Tom come down. We would be watching with hawk eyes, and got really excited when we would see someone with a striped jacket on. It turned out to be some kid in a blue striped jacket every time. Erin could tell how upset I was and asked if I wanted to go back to the lodge. I definitely agreed that we should, and find Tom. We ran back to the shack to put our tubes away, and ran as fast as we could over to where the trench was before the parking lot. The helicopter was still sitting there like a giant black dragon fly waiting to take off. We jumped the trench and stood in front of the car until an official told us to go back on the other side of the trench. We had to find some way to get to the lodge, so we took a different way through the trees to get there. On the way I tripped over a log or something and almost took Erin down with me. We were so close to completely falling over, but she caught me. Then we interlocked arms and finished our trip to the lodge.

 I was looking for Tom everywhere in the masses of skiers that were just standing around. I looked up and saw Suzy and Aaron looking over the rail of the deck with concerned faces. I took that as a bad sign and that they didn’t know where he was either. They didn’t see us until we were on the deck and then told us that Tom was safe. Nobody will ever know how relieved I was. It turns out that his parents were looking for us instead. They took us inside (All of this is coming alive again for me and my eyes are actually watering) and wanted to buy us something to drink and eat. I didn’t have the least bit of an appetite after that; neither did Erin. All I wanted to do at this point was see Tom. It felt like forever before I finally saw a blur of green and yellow walking in my peripheral vision. I looked up immediately and jumped up and walked over to him. He stood by his parents on the opposite side of the table and I hugged him from behind so tight. I told him that I was never going to let him go. His parents looked at us and his mom said, “Awwww, she really loves you!” You better believe I do. I was relieved into silence.

The moment when I saw him for the first time again was just unbelievable. I cannot even explain the emotion I felt seeing him alright. I’m not sure if he even knows because my reaction was so chill. Believe me; I was already relieved into a state where I no longer had any more energy just because his parents told me that he was fine. I told him that I had already known he was okay before I saw him, and he replied that that made it even sweeter that I still had a reaction like that.  I still felt extremely bad for the kid who fractured his skull and was air lifted to a hospital. None of us were hungry; all we cared about was seeing if the helicopter had taken off or not.

I grabbed Tom’s arm and stayed as close as possible to him as we walked back to the parking lot. At the bottom of the hill we saw that it had left, and ran into Jordan. The guys talked for a little bit and decided what they wanted to do. Us three headed back for the lodge. Tom was going back out on the hills, while Erin and I were going to go to the bottom and wait for him every single time he came down. As he was walking up to the top, I began to sprint towards him as quiet as possible with Erin running behind me. He turned around and saw us and stood solid to try and stop us. We tackled him to the ground and laid there for a little bit; all so happy to be together. I was just so happy to be with him. I love him so much.

Once we went our own ways, Erin and I headed into the lodge to warm up a bit. We sat in front of the fire and talked about what to do next while his parents were still sitting at their table. We decided to go watch Tom again and this time went up to the middle of the hill in the trees. We stood by a pole and watched him a while until we got bored of standing there. At the bottom of the hills again, we screwed around by the fire and tried jumping over rocks until Erin got too cold, and we headed back to the lodge again. Erin and I played Party Rock Anthem and talked about going on vacation to Yellowstone some day. J I felt very much like a part of their family that night; and that was an amazing feeling. Tom came back in then, and we were done at Nordic. We walked back down to the parking lot ahead of his parents. Erin and I tried jumping the trench again in the widest part this time. I couldn’t even make it in the widest part, haha. Erin and I made progress though. Once Tom had everything in the trunk, we headed out for home.

On the ride home, Tom, Erin, and I tried to unwrap Starburts in our mouths. We all got it, but Erin kept on doing it and got them unwrapped really fast too. Tom and I were a little skeptical about this! To make things worse, she tried to draw a whale on the frosted up windows…and she managed to make it look nothing like a whale…….Oh it was so bad. Luckily she had no idea why the Starburst thing was bad, or what she drew on the window. Tom and I were completely geeking out at this. For the rest of the trip we ended up playing truth or dare.

Once we were back at his place, we went up to his room, and changed into some nice, warm, dry clothes. We basically crawled right into bed and almost fell asleep! Haha! We were both so drained, and nothing sounded better than sleeping at that moment. He held me so close in his arms, and we both were drifting off into sleep. It was pretty amazing the way I felt. When he would kiss me, my heart felt like it was going to beat right out of my chest. I was on a high from being so close and in tune.

All in all, great day. And we shall see what the stars bring next.