Today feels like a Monday to me. I just returned from a nice, long, travel weekend-end-end.

I am writing from my sunny room in sunny Boulder, CO., hanging out with my cats, who are happy to see me (did you know cats can be happy to see you?!) & sipping my dark roast and eating a cran-orange, gluten-free, flaxseed muffin, I am in reflection and gratitude for the wonderful week of travel I just returned from. Half of my week away spent in Texas, half spent in Brighton, Utah.

We will skip the Texas bit, because I was visiting family and getting caught up on yoga certification (I ended up skipping class this month). Plus, there just aren’t any mountains in Texas.  ;)

So, why did I go to Utah (again)? To SKI!

I was picked by  Discrete Clothing during their  Protect Our Winters campaign and pledge contest, via Instagram (yes, I went skiing for free, partly because of Instagram. Welcome to 2014. Don’t ever make fun of #hashtagging again. ;)). Included in my prize was not only the trip, thanks to  SkiUtah and  Brighton, but also a pair of  Icelantic skis, a pair of  DaleBoots (and holy crap these boots are AMAZING),  Discrete gear,  Spyder gear, a  GoPro Hero3+, & a super fun time skiing with  Julian Carr! I also got take one of my oldest friends,  Tori Lesikar, with me.

Meeting Julian was great – we learned his future rapper name and met his adorable pup, Lexi, in addition to spending some time shredding with him.

I do want to talk about POW* for a second, because I love learning and support organizations that are doing something good and impacting others.  Protect Our Winters is an organization started by snowboarder Jeremy Jones, who saw a problem when places he used to ride weren’t ridable any longer, due to lack of snow.

Having just moved to Colorado in March, I see the importance of climate change awareness. The big picture isn’t about a politics either – it’s about minimizing your impact, regardless of what side of the fence you are on in the climate change debate. How are your actions affecting yourself and those who will be here after us? Think about it.

Protect Our Winters mission is “to engage and mobilize the winter sports community to lead the fight against climate change.  [Their] focus is on educational initiatives, advocacy and the support of community-based projects.”

*Get Involved with POW by taking the pledge:http://protectourwinters.org/get-involved

So, rather than go on about how much fun we had skiing at Brighton, which I think is a given, I’ll just load up this post with pictures! Enjoy!

Photo credit:  Julian Carr.