There are a few things worth knowing about “Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond. She's a great cook. She's a terrific guest on TODAY. And she does not want to ski with her husband.
We mention this because she recently posted a picture of herself and her husband of 25 years, Ladd, along with a caption that includes her three key secrets to staying happily married. And one of them might surprise you, depending on whether or not you know about Drummond's feelings for the snowy outdoors.
"Never mind my crooked sunglasses, I just wanted to share a photo with Ladd from last summer and also use this opportunity to share three of my secrets to a happy marriage," she wrote in the Instagram photo caption. "1. Listen to each other. 2. Touch feet in bed right before you go to sleep, even if you’re mad. 3. Never, ever ski together. ❤️ Well, it’s a start, anyway!"
What inspired the third item on that list? We may be able to trace it back to a story she told on her blog in 2013 about the time the family went skiing together in Vail, Colorado. Drummond, who's basically a novice, tired out early while Ladd was rarin' to go. He egged her on.
"We kept going," she wrote. "Then I stopped again. I felt like I was going to die. My hips and thighs were on fire, and I felt like I couldn’t control my uphill leg at all. I needed a Saint Bernard to come save me. A Saint Bernard with Gatorade tied around his neck. A Saint Bernard named Claus."
Then in 2018, they went to Vail again, but as she wrote in her blog then, "We don’t ski together because I want to stay married, but we do walk around Vail Village, look at houses we will never buy, and go to the candy store and pick up a piece of chocolate here and there. And here. And there."
Drummond marked the couple's 25th anniversary last September by reflecting on their "wild adventure" in an Instagram post.
"We’ve experienced the joys, pains, ups, downs, triumphs, sadnesses, and unexpected twists and turns. (And kids! 🤓),” she wrote at the time.
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