House Guest

We now are a family of 5. On January 10th we now have a teaching assistant from the girls school living in our home. Her name is Lorenie (Spelling?) and she is 27 years old and is from Guatemala. I unfortunately do not know very much about her since she is either at one of her 3 family members home who live in the area, tutoring, at English class or out with friends. Also, her English is not very good, so Hannah usually has to interpret my questions to her and then her response back to me. When she is home she is very helpful around the house, she often helps out with the girls with homework and helps with the dishes after we eat.

We have been busy skiing as much as possible this winter. Both of the girls are involved in the Minnesota Youth Ski League (MYSL) and enjoy skiing with their friends on Sunday afternoon. Hannah also skis with the advanced kids on Thursday nights working on her classical technique. Both of the girls truly seem to love skiing which is great since it is something that we can all enjoy together. The girls are signed up for a couple of events over the coming weeks, next weekend is the City of Lakes Loppet, the Mora Vasaloppet and then the Birkebeiner. All of these events have organized kids races. Kim and I both enjoy cheering our girls on.

Kim and I have raced a few times this year. Last weekend we skied the Pepsi Challenge 24k Classic and the previous weekend we raced the Boulder lake Freestyle event. All of the events we are racing this year are a part of the Minnesota Skinnyski Series, where the Male and female overall champions receive a grand prize trip to Iceland to ski in the Fossavatn Ski Marathon on May 2nd. Kim is currently in third place and has a chance to win the overall, I am currently in 11th place and would need a miracle to win the mens event.

Next weekend is the City of Lakes Loppet and normally this time of year I am sharpening my scoop shovel and organizing large groups of volunteers to shovel large portions of the ski course. As of today it looks like we will only need to touch up a few thin spots on the course. Overall we will have the best conditions ever unless the long range forecast is totally inaccurate and there is a large meltdown over the next week.