Sabbatical

Sorry, no blog posts for a week or two. The blog staff needed to go to the desert to do research.

This is where the blog staff is doing research.

This is what the blog staff uses to do research.

The Man From North Island

It was Magnus' birthday today!  We wanted to do something special for Magnus, since he's probably never been so far away from home on his birthday before.  We wondered what we could do for him so that he'd be happy and comfortable on his birthday. Was there some kind of activity that we could do with him to celebrate his special day?  Something that would be familiar and fun?  It wasn't long before we got a great idea - we could take Magnus skiing!  We know he loves to ski, and we know a place just an hour away from UAA where there's plenty of snow.  And before you could say "gratulerer med da'n" we were all piling into the team van and headed for Hatcher Pass!

Marine and one of the Everetts

Here's Michaela. To me, she looked strong today.

Jenna

Tuva and Helen

Marine, putting the warm clothes back on after the day's coaching was done.

Skiing is fun and all, but today's real surprise came after skiing.  Helen's mom, Sarah, had somehow gotten word that it was Magnus' birthday and she invited us all over for après-ski at the Wilson House in Eagle River on the way home, where she'd prepared a smorgasbord of birthday lunch treats for us! Austin and Hannah baked a special pumpkin birthday CAKE for Magnus. (Helen baked a cake for Magnus, too, but she forgot to bring it from home, so she's probably enjoying it now as I slave over this blog post.)

Here's Helen, presenting Austin and Hannah's CAKE to Magnus.

This is probably the best photo I've ever taken. I encourage you to enlarge this one so you can check out the look on Everett's face.  (We will be running a contest later to see who can come up with the best caption for this photo.)

Somehow, Magnus reminds me of some kind of Norwegian mob boss. And the Everetts are his henchmen. "Pug Life" for sure.

The birthday scene.

But the biggest surprise was saved for last!  Everett got this cat for Magnus for his birthday! Her name is Mr. Pickles and she loves to wear UAA baseball caps and Oakley glasses.  I think Mr. Pickles has truly found her place with our UAA Ski Team, and Marine announced this afternoon that Mr. Pickles is going to come along on all our road trips this winter!

 Here's the day's magic moment, captured on video:

Why Not Ski?

Rollerskiing's fine if there's no snow around to ski on.  Earlier this week, there wasn't any snow nearby, so we rollerskied.  Conditions were superb.

Tuva, Natalie, Michaela and Hannah (in that order)

Maggi

Austin & Espen

JC and Magnum

By the end of the week, though, we couldn't think of any more excuses not to go skiing, so off we went.  There was nothing wrong with the trail conditions.

Quail in her native habitat

You should probably send this picture to your parents, Tuva. They'd appreciate it.

JC

Helen

Trond and Marine. Comparing notes and sharing ideas.

Adam, Espen, Magnus and Tom

Tom and JC

This is the part of the blog post where I should mention the extraordinary work of the Mat-Su Ski Club, Ed and Mark Strabel, Jeff Case, and others who are involved in making these groomed trails available for us to use, and for making the skiing conditions so fantastic.  These are people who have regular "day jobs", but who also stay up late - like 3am late - and volunteer to run a bunch of machinery around in the dark, during snowstorms, so that we all have this truly world-class venue to enjoy this sport and get some exercise.  So thank you to the Mat-Su Ski Club!  I should also mention here that the Mat-Su Ski Club does gladly accept donations to defray the expenses of grooming these trails. 

Sprint

The UAA Ski Team took me out and exercised me this week. And I really appreciated it because I was badly in need of exercise after sitting on a boat most of last week.  This week was all about the skate rollerskis.

Instructions from Trond

Tuva

Sprints: Hannah, Tuva, Helen

JC

Espen and Toomas

Toomas, .44 Magnum and Austin

A little sprint racing action for us this morning at Kincaid Park

Espen

Everett

Quail and Helen

Afternoon strength training for the boys: JC, Maggi and Austin

Tuva

This was one of those times when I wish my little cheapo camera was equipped with video so I could have filmed and shown you what Austin and .44 were actually doing here. Because it was graceful and  beautiful. It was scintillating and magical. It brought tears to my eyes and it took my breath away. It was JUST LIKE THIS.

Helen