Back Home and Back At It!

After one jump session on snow last week I took a quick trip home to see the family.  It was kind of sad leaving after just getting back to winter jumping and getting back to no-snow Wisconsin.  As it turned out, I didn't miss any jumping and we got just enough snow to get a bit of skiing in at home.  Besides, it was a lot of fun and a worthwhile time home regardless.

As an early 50th birthday present to my dad the rest of my family kept my coming home a secret from him.  It worked out just perfect surprising him.  I got into town right when my dad was helping coach the local club cross country ski group.   My mom dropped me off outside the park that they were at and as a I rollerskied into the parking lot they were in a group getting ready to head out.  Needless to say, Dad was pretty surprised to see me.  "What the hell are you doing here?" was all he could say at first. 

While I was home, along with celebrating my dad's birthday, we had an early Thanksgiving as a family.  My grandparents and one of my neighbors came over for the feast on Saturday.  We had ten main course dishes and two pies!

The next morning we got an inch of snow and decided to take out some old skis and ski on the grass at the soccer park.  I've never skied on this little snow but it was actually doable and I ended up getting a solid two hours in.  I certainly hadn't planned to ski on the fields for that long but one of my Dad's friends came over and we worked on technique and discussed skiing for a while.  I'm going to be start giving ski lessons this winter so it was good to get a bit of experience of experience being the coach rather than the athlete for once. 

It was fun to be back and see the family, but after three and a half short days at home I hopped back into the car, onto a plane, into my car, and got right back to training with the team.  

Ben and I... going much slower than it looks here.