Mid Feb

So far, February feels like spring is ready to go. All our snow is "old snow". We get falling snow occasionally, but it does not accumulate. Very little shoveling, especially in light of the Christmas accumulation.
I have missed out on two opportunities to take pictures of the kids sledding. They were interesting to watch, as well as frustrating to me. On Saturday, the twins and I started sledding on the mounds of snow in the parking lot of the condos from the plow. From there we moved to the hills near the sand traps on the 15th hole. I sat in the Blvd. to oversee this sledding area. Rileigh went home then, and Ethan and I moved to the parking lot of the golf course club house. The back corner of the parking lot has a large water retention basin, and the plows had added to the hill into the basin by pushing all the snow from the parking lot there. Ethan and I went to the club house parking lot again on Monday, with also a tour of the other large "plow mounds".
I could never tell when one was going to benefit from the other's dragging the sled back up the hill. It was not an equal share concept, but they traded out dragging the sled up duties. Neither seemed slighted by the other not pulling their weight. And they are learning how to walk in the snow, and the delicate art of grasping the string to the sled with mittens.
The frustrating part is centered around me being relatively stuck to the base of the hill. I could only watch them lose traction, and slip as they climbed. I could not show them. I tried explaining, but that only goes so far. Add to that me trying to put into words what I know how to do, and you may see my frustration. Not to mention that who does not want to go sledding? I have to encourage activity with words -another strong suit.
In the end, Ethan is more impressed with sledding than Rileigh. He stuck with it the longest, and was most enthusiastic about starting in the first place.
It was a little scary to watch as Ethan chose the steepest drop offs to "slide" down. Especially since most of the hills are basically a pile of ice boulders. So, the run out is not always smooth. So, I am learning not to cringe too much, that they are resilient, and that injuries happen. The funny thing was that Ethan chose to wear his helmet on Monday -with no encouragement from me. If there is one thing that I hope he learned from this venture, is that wet feet are bad. He chose to hop in every puddle he saw. No amount of "don't step in the puddles!" would help.

just got in the door. trip complete

On my way home. Started Yesterday at 2pm. Stay overnight in Stockholm, and now we head to Frankfurt then on to Denver. Can't wait to get to Denver -I feel more comfortable there.....even though there is a big bag drag in store for me when I get there (customs).

Svenska

It is real fun signing into blogger in another language. Finnish was near impossible, and Swedish is just fun. Of course, the things I have to fill in are the same, so if I would only remember what and where the spots I needed to fill in were, I could get by much easier. Then there is peice of mind when all the prompts are in english again once signed in. whew.
I willl just have to add a little for myself here. On one of the plane trips I saw an add for a device that records your cassette tapes into the digital medium. The add has a pile of tapes next to the machine, and then the happy product of a cd, or mp3 player on the other side of the photo. Interestingly, one of the tapes was none other than White Lion. Apparently a commercially viable product. VIN-DI-CA-TION! Thanks.
We started out with some sunny days here in Sweden, which was in direct contrast to Finland. That, and the temps did not dramatically drop with lack of clouds. Finalnd was extremely cold the day the sun came out. The sunny days in Sweden gave us a good view of the valley and the good view from the dinning room here in the hotel. The skiing was also more pleasant in unfiltered light. We don't have as easy access to as many trails here as there were in Finland. These trails are a little more challenging, especially for a sit skier. After our introduction to "all the sun", the last two days it has snowed. For how hard it appears to be snowing, I would expect us to be under four feet of snow. Somehow, all this snowing adds up to 2cm of snow. There is a big difference in Scandinavian snow and what I am more accustomed to. So far, the races have been biathlon, and some alpine: Slalom and Giant Slalom. I'm no expert on Alpine racing, so don't take my word for it. Right now the lobby is packed with alpiners. We, as nordic skiers, do our fair share of sitting around. But once the race starts, there is no sitting around. Alpine appears to have a lot more sitting around, even while the races are going. They deffinately do a lot more smoking, and drinking. It leads for interesting times when we are co-located.
Vuokatti did a fine job with feeding us. I did have to expand my definition of meals, but the variety was good, and the effort they put forth was commendable. So far we have enjoyed the change of pace the Swedes have provided. It is good food. Also the Finns don't seem to need pepper. We are glad to finally get pepper again. Still, I think the variety of food is not here, and we will be glad we are gone in two days. Both in Finland and here, the dinning rooms provided a nice leisurely meal with large windows displaying the countryside. The added bonus here, is that the dinning room is mid-slope, so we get to see some of the alpine events. This place also seems to be more of a hotel. Vuokatti was more of a sport facility -dorm style rooms, "chow hall", etc.
So far it does not seem that paralympicsport.tv will be broadcasting these events. I am quite impressed with the coverage we recieved from Vuokatti.
This link may help you;
http://www.handikappidrott.se/paralympicwinterworldcup/t2.aspx?p=1422094

Fargernas Land Solleftea

The Russians are not here. The Ukrainians are not here. But we do have the Belarussians. Also, as an added bonus, we have international alpine teams. Not ours though. There seem to be a lot more alpiners than nordic. and there is a lot more standing around in that sport. We know, because we can look out the window, as we are eating breakfast, or lunch, and we can see them standing around on the hill, or at the starting gate, or at the bottom. The trails we are skiing on are impressive. There is major downhill, and some serious climbs. We are going to be doing some serious speed. If one were to fall over in the trail, there is good potential for carnage.