K2 Westerns

To kick off Spring Break a little early, Sarah and I drove up to Jasper so she could compete in the K2 Western Championships. She was pretty excited about missing a couple of days of school as well as the race!


Jasper was lovely and springlike and the hill the kids raced on was very different from what they are usually racing on, which made for an exciting four days of racing. Most of the team was there, except for Emily, who went to K2 Nationals in Collingwood, and Carson, who went with his family to Hawaii.


It was a big weekend for Sarah's friend, Alex, who won a gold and silver medal. Sarah had three front page finishes and crashed in the first slalom run on the fourth day. Smart girl, however, volunteered to forerun for the afternoon races and pulled off the 2nd fastest time in the ladies' course and 12th on the mens. Not bad!

Flag Bearer

This is Alison carrying the flag at the Doug Meyers Race.

(She's the one in the yellow t-shirt! Just kidding! She's in the middle, holding back the crowd until the parade starts with her mighty, mighty pizza stance.)

I'm so glad other people had the chance to take pictures!

Mook-tastic

Alison has been a busy little ski racer over the past couple of weekends. She had some fun and had a few good runs. One run in particular inspired her buddies to create a whole series of Mookie-modified adjectives. My favourites included:

Mooktastic
Mooktacular
Mookariffic
Mookalicious

I didn't take any photos but another parent did. I have one of her with pink hair, just because.

Rustle tried to cheer her on.

Not exactly about skiing...

I have some photos to share of us at ski hills, but not skiing stories. Just trying to balance my life, a little.

We had a free ski weekend at Revelstoke in February, the only time all season the four of us have skied together. We also had some time with Rustle, who can, apparently, pull children down hill at the speed of fun.

Alison and her pal Erin took time to play in the snow on the deck.


This was the sign at the base of the lift at Castle Mountain. -50 with wind chill was no exaggeration.

Alien Mook

It was opposite day at school today. Since Alison is 100% convinced that she is human, she designed this costume to wear at school today.

What a girl!

Winter Insanity

I realize that it has been a long time between posts. Mostly it's been because we have been very busy with skiing. Tonight, however, training is canceled due to extreme cold, so I've found a few minutes to share.


Sarah has had a pretty good year. She did tweak her knee over Christmas camp and found a fantastic physiotherapist (through her fantastic coach) who helped her a lot. She was a bit tentative in her first race, but had some solid finishes in races since. She's really going for it and it's working for her!




Alison has had a good year, too. Her new shinnies from Gramma mean she's banging into those gates. She seems to like slalom a lot - maybe it's because she wears shinnies for slalom!



Rustle is still enjoying the amazing amounts of snow he gets to play in. Life is good for Rustle if there's snow.



Parents have had a couple of chances to ski together this winter. Just a couple, though.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was very exciting.



I love how thoughtful the girls were. They purchased gifts for each other - earrings for Alison from Sarah's trip to Colorado, and the "I am a skier" t-shirt Alison searched for to get for her sister. Even the note for Santa was thoughtful. I wonder how often he is told he's doing a good job by the children?



And they made the pie. Yummy!


It wasn't as much fun for Rustle since he is banished from the living room and couldn't be with his people. He took his bones to a place where he could guarantee to be in our way as soon as we were done!

Training Camp

Since our days around the holidays are filled with skiing, I thought I'd show the other side of things - life in the after-hours, as it were.

The girls get together with the other skiers in the club and do Christmas-y things, like dancing with Bendy Santa,

(this is our friend Cleodie. She's lots of fun.)

or dressing up in war paint to dig tunnels in the snowbanks,

or playing a rousing game of Pee Spoons (if you lose, you have to drink a glass of water. First person to pee, loses. The coach thought this was a great way to get the kids hydrated after a day of training....)

or invite more kids for a Pee Spoon Tournament. On the floor, of course.


I also like to explore some of the non-ski related activities. I took Alison snowshoeing on the Bow River Loop, but she thought it was boring. And she was hungry. And miserable.

But Rustle loved it.

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Sarah is now 13. A teenager. Nearly as tall as me. Yikes.


We celebrated at home, since ski season prevents a lot of opportunities to have parties. We figure that a half birthday party in June will do nicely, since skiing should be over by then.

Some photos of our girl:

Love the Glee wear!

Apparently, a birthday montage is incomplete without the new birthday ski photo.

World Cup

The Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup Alpine Ski Races were held over the past couple of weekends. Alison and the Lake Louise KD team were flagbearers for the opening ceremonies.


And Sarah, in a very exciting happenstance, was invited to a Fast and Female event on the day of the Ladies Downhill race. She got to meet Karen Lee Gartner and see the gold medal, listen to Kelly Vander Beek, hang out in the VIP area, and meet Lindsey Vonn.



Alison met Lindsey Vonn, too.