Here's a quick clip of Dan at his gymnastics class yesterday, he loves it..
Tuesday, 19 April 2016
Tuesday, 12 April 2016
Lara's first skiing award
Lara had her final race of the season on Saturday, it's only an "internal" race, but it's still all done properly, with gates and timing. Parents are allowed to race in this one too, but Lara opted not to challenge me, though it'll be interesting if the club publish the skiers' times, to see how we compare. In her age group - the 2007 females - she came sixth, just edging out her best skiing pal, Lillian, into seventh. Lara was absolutely delighted to finally have her name called out, and to get a ribbon from Brady Leman, the Canadian SkiCross champion.
It was a lovely end to the season, and came at just the right time to encourage her for next season, as she was becoming a little dispirited with not getting any reward for her other races this season, even though she has been performing better and better each time. Her coach, Sergey, has recommended that she move up to the next ability level for next season, which will be a jump up in commitment for us all - last year she had 18 days on snow, this season has been 33 days, and next season will be 56 days! It's an earlier start in the season, a later finish, and plenty of midweek evening skiing at Calgary Olympic Park too.
The skiers got to dress up for this race, and Lara's group chose a Big Cat theme, with Olga spending many hours in the week before the race making Lara's cheetah suit from scratch. Sergey was a very convincing lion, too...
Sunday, 13 March 2016
Happy 4th Birthday, Danil
Dan turned 4 today, and he celebrated with some skiing in the morning, then a trip a play centre in the afternoon, before cake and presents at home.
Lovely fresh snow made it soft to fall on, not that Dan falls very much, he tends to just sit down when his legs get tired..
Lara conquered the climbing wall, behind Mama, Dan's still a year too young for that.
It was strangely quiet on the pistes for a relatively warm Sunday morning with fresh snow around
Thursday, 18 February 2016
Mexico holiday
We're back safe and sound from our 5-night trip to Mexico, and very nice it was too. Very warm, a lovely resort, nice pools for the kids to play in, lovely food (and drink).
I'll put together a little slide show of the best photos and videos soon enough, I hope, but in the meantime here is one that tickled us - each night there was entertainment in the evening, and one night was a Mexican-themed evening. The staff started by inviting kids aged 4 and over up onto stage to bash a pinata - Lara snuck Danny up there and coached him on how to behave, and here is the result - make sure you have your sound up!
Two other spectacular things to share quickly would be Lara's hair - she had it braided by a vendor on the beach (actually 2 ladies, it took them 30 minutes!)
And later Lara and I went whale watching, and saw 4 humpbacks in less than 2 hours, including this mother and baby:
More to follow...
I'll put together a little slide show of the best photos and videos soon enough, I hope, but in the meantime here is one that tickled us - each night there was entertainment in the evening, and one night was a Mexican-themed evening. The staff started by inviting kids aged 4 and over up onto stage to bash a pinata - Lara snuck Danny up there and coached him on how to behave, and here is the result - make sure you have your sound up!
Two other spectacular things to share quickly would be Lara's hair - she had it braided by a vendor on the beach (actually 2 ladies, it took them 30 minutes!)
And later Lara and I went whale watching, and saw 4 humpbacks in less than 2 hours, including this mother and baby:
More to follow...
Sunday, 31 January 2016
Sunshine Village Race Weekend
Lara just completed another race weekend, again near Banff, but at Sunshine Village ski area, which sounds tranquil and small, but was in fact a huge skiing area, reached by a 15 minute gondola trip from a parking lot, which itself was 7km from the main road, so it was quite remote.
The weather was great, not too cold, and some fresh snow falling, so the problem was more with too much snow (can make skiing harder) rather than the too-little snow that we're used to at Nakiska, where icy patches are common.
On Saturday Lara had two runs on a "Kiddie Kombo" course, which is a shorter course, mixing slalom (small poles stuck in the snow, fairly closely spaced) with grand slalom (more traditional "gates", spread further apart), then on Sunday she had two runs down a longer Grand Slalom course, which even some coaches were saying was very long for kids, with 25 gates to negotiate.
Lara did really well, not missing any gates, on any of her four runs, and whilst her times meant she was some way off getting any awards, that's not the point at the moment, these races are about teaching her to get down in one piece, without missing gates, and to enjoy all the fuss that goes with racing. The faster times will come in the future.
Dan didn't do any skiing this weekend, he was happy to play in the fluffy snow or watch his tablet, and I am happy to stick with skiing with him at Nakiska where I'm familiar with the pistes, and we'll not go somewhere by mistake that might be a bit too hard for him. Or me.
Without knowing it, I did venture out of Alberta and into British Columbia at one point - one of the chairlifts I took on Saturday to the top of the mountain crossed the border, so for a few hundred metres and 10 minutes or so, I finally made it to wild BC, until I skied all the way back into comfy, homely Alberta.
One more treat at this resort is a heated chairlift! The seats are heated, and once you've sat down on it, you pull an orange, perspex cover down over the chair and ride up to the top station in relative warmth and comfort.
To make life a bit easier this weekend, we stayed at a hotel in Banff, so the kids were very excited to go and try out the hotel pool. It wasn't the biggest or best hotel pool we've stayed at, but Lara was happy, and her best ski-buddy Lillian was also staying there with her family, so that worked out well.
Here are a couple of short videos, the first one is the Kiddie Kombo, with very vocal support from her teammates, and the second is the end of one of her Grand Slalom runs:
The weather was great, not too cold, and some fresh snow falling, so the problem was more with too much snow (can make skiing harder) rather than the too-little snow that we're used to at Nakiska, where icy patches are common.
On Saturday Lara had two runs on a "Kiddie Kombo" course, which is a shorter course, mixing slalom (small poles stuck in the snow, fairly closely spaced) with grand slalom (more traditional "gates", spread further apart), then on Sunday she had two runs down a longer Grand Slalom course, which even some coaches were saying was very long for kids, with 25 gates to negotiate.
Lara did really well, not missing any gates, on any of her four runs, and whilst her times meant she was some way off getting any awards, that's not the point at the moment, these races are about teaching her to get down in one piece, without missing gates, and to enjoy all the fuss that goes with racing. The faster times will come in the future.
Dan didn't do any skiing this weekend, he was happy to play in the fluffy snow or watch his tablet, and I am happy to stick with skiing with him at Nakiska where I'm familiar with the pistes, and we'll not go somewhere by mistake that might be a bit too hard for him. Or me.
Without knowing it, I did venture out of Alberta and into British Columbia at one point - one of the chairlifts I took on Saturday to the top of the mountain crossed the border, so for a few hundred metres and 10 minutes or so, I finally made it to wild BC, until I skied all the way back into comfy, homely Alberta.
One more treat at this resort is a heated chairlift! The seats are heated, and once you've sat down on it, you pull an orange, perspex cover down over the chair and ride up to the top station in relative warmth and comfort.
To make life a bit easier this weekend, we stayed at a hotel in Banff, so the kids were very excited to go and try out the hotel pool. It wasn't the biggest or best hotel pool we've stayed at, but Lara was happy, and her best ski-buddy Lillian was also staying there with her family, so that worked out well.
Here are a couple of short videos, the first one is the Kiddie Kombo, with very vocal support from her teammates, and the second is the end of one of her Grand Slalom runs:
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