On Fire!

Badminton tonight, am feeling so good, so full of energy. Play for the usual two hours, and still feeling ready to go at the end. Think I am playing better than ever before, winning all my games. My senses were so attuned to the game, and to the other players - it is so much fun! :)

Not as many here tonight as usual, Megan and Heather and several others are away. But play with Peter and Despina and Michelle and Pierre and Madhura and several others.

Peter Bartush, the badminton instructor, has his arm in a sling at the moment. He has sutures in his shoulder somewhere, and can't move it, even has to be all tied up at night when he sleeps. He has been playing for years, and plays lots of other sports, and has had so many sports related injuries he has almost lost count. He's an excellent teacher - when not in a sling he can put the birdie anywhere on the court.

I signed up for the summer - will sweat a lot, but don't want to wait till the fall or I will have forgotten things and have to relearn them. Can't have that - this is too cool to miss!

Pierre and Madhura

Justifications

I have a confession to make. I am a bad father. Every Saturday Charlotte has a soccer game, usually at 10am nearby, but today it's at 8:30 and is a few miles away. Charlotte was in pain last night, and I had to give her ibuprofen, as she been to the doctor that afternoon, and had shots in her arm including a tetanus shot. And she also recently had a fight with some poison ivy, and I put cream on a dozen spots on her arms and legs. So she is not exactly in a good shape atm.

Maybe we'll just her her sleep in today, and pretend our alarm didn't work properly.

So the question is, are we being nice to her, or just selfish, so we can sleep in ourselves in a nice warm bed?

...

Heavy breathing at our bedroom door. After a couple of minutes I wake up, and see Charlotte standing there. She of course had an alarm clock under her pillow, and I had "forgotten" to turn it off the night before. It's Sigrid's birthday, so we let her sleep, and creep downstairs to get ready.

So here we are, huddled and freezing on this miserable day, not enough rain to actually close the fields, sitting in our fold-out chairs, trying to wrap not-big-enough blankets around us, cheering on our "Pirates", who are running for the ball, or standing shivering in defence. What fun.

We just scored a goal. Yay!



Final score: Pirates 4, the other team 3. But its just a game, nobody cares about the scores. Ok, maybe just a little bit. :)

Wipe Out!

A perfect day. Sunny, not a cloud in the sky. And in the last 48 hours it had snowed 9". Charlotte and I were at Ski Sundown, and the slopes were treating us well. We came early, and stayed late, Charlotte didn't want to leave. She even told me at one stage to leave her alone for a while so she could flirt a little with the boys, but they weren't accommodating, they were too busy skiing.

The only hitch came at the end when the main 2 lifts weren't working for a while, but they finally got them going again.

And wow, was Charlotte wiped out the next day! Did not want to go to school at all. Was a bit tired myself actually :P

And you thought I meant she fell down on the snow! Didn't you!? :)

Waterfalls, horses, alpacas, and animals of all description

On the way up to Mohawk Mountain today we saw an interesting waterfall, and had to scramble through the brush to get a good view. Then we stopped off at a farm and two horses came up and had a talk to Charlotte. Half a mile up the road was a lovely lady with 6 alpacas and a pony - Charlotte had a great time walking amongst them and having a nice chat (to them and to the lady).



Charlotte had a wonderful time on the slopes. She is really starting to get the hang of skiing, doing her turns nicely back and forth across the snow. This is the second time this year, and before that it was five years ago, so she has made fantastic progress.



We stopped for a nice hot chocolate at the half way lodge half way up the hill, and took off our skis and loosened our boots. Boy it felt good :)

Charlotte near the end of the day wanted something a little more challenging, so we tried another ostensibly easy slope, Ledges, which turned out to be more difficult than we thought. Charlotte got through the top section, but then came out further down going too fast and couldn't control it, and ended up falling head first on to the hard-packed snow. Ouch! Even with a headache though, she got back up the slopes for a final run.



On the way home, we found a guy who made metal sculptures in a unique style, animals mainly, very artistic. All in all it was a great day, and Charlotte really enjoyed herself - except for the minor concussion of course - lucky it was a no-school day the next day :P

Flying Feet

Sarah holds the pads, wrapped tightly around her hand like gloves, and positions them about chin height. I am at the gym, practicing some Tae-Kwon-Do kicks and punches. I had just met Sarah a few minutes ago, and she is being very helpful assisting me for a few minutes.

I do a few practice kicks, and then on my last one, Sarah's pad slips completely off and flies through the air! It lands way up high on the ledge near the lights, where it is stuck, until Brent gets the ladder and brings it down.

You should see the look of surprise on Sarah's face :-)

Novelty Factor

The exercise bike we ordered online arrives in a big box today, all 124 lbs of it. Struggle to get it downstairs, then spend the next 3 hours assembling it. Everyone has a ride on it the first day, and the kids are very enthusiastic (think "shiny new toy").

Will be interesting to see how much use it gets after a month or a year.



Update: the kids hardly ever use it now, six months later, but Sigrid is still going strong, more miles on it every month!