Happy New Year from the Rudd family!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

We had a wonderful time with our friends Diana and John Munger at their cabin in Hayward. The girls had so much fun playing with their friends Ellie and Lauren in the cabin and out playing in the snow. John and Craig built this amazing sledding luge run through various pine trees down a steep hill in their back yard. Fun was had for days as both adults and children had many fast runs down the track. My last ride was a bit painful since I hit a large root under my bottom while having Leah on top of me! We also had fun skiing on the beautiful Birkie trails.

It was a good start to the new year this past weekend as our family competed the Twin Cities Championship pursuit race ( Saturday was a 10 km classic race at Battle Creek Ski area and Sunday was the 16 km skate race at Theodore Wirth Park) Both races were very cold, but we managed to stay warm through most of it. Both of us have not competed in a back to back race since College and we could definitely feel our older age ( despite the woman handing out bib numbers who asked me if I was in the high school race - what a nice compliment ). The girls raced on Saturday and it is such a joy to seem them so excited and have the same passion for skiing as their parents. See Hannah's blog for her race write up!

This morning at church there was a message about viewing each day as if you had one month to live. I need to ponder on this thought more - what would be my priorities? What would I want to do before I die? Who would I want to talk to and what would my last words be ? So many times I get caught up in the details of life that do not really matter. My challenge this week is to keep God as the focal point so He can direct my every step, because in reality tomorrow could very well be any one of our last days on this earth. What would you do if you had one month to live?

Happy New year everyone!

See below for video of luge run!

Kim Rudd

The first race of the year

I ( Hannah), woke up on a Saturday morning exited to do my first ski race of the year! It was bitter cold out and -17 degrees. Although it was cold outside; we bundled up with long underwear and heavy duty wind pants. We arrived at Battle creek ski area and waited for our parents to finish their race, then we would have are shot at a victory!

Because of the cold weather, not many kids showed up, but we just slathered ourselves with Vaseline right before the race. Finally, it was our turn. We lined up with twenty other contestants(including small kids). Soon the horn blew and we were off on our 1.6 k'm race. I started out in third place, but within a minute I made my way to the front of the pack. It was a difficult race in the the first place ,but it got harder, due to the ice on the down hills. I was very thankful not to crash! I was coming in to the finish line while going up the last hill, everybody was cheering. I came across the finish line at first place! I was very exited, but in pain at the same time. This was a great start for the MYSL ski series!

Hannah in the middle of the race

That is my sister Leah after her wipe out