Happy Christmas 2007!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Bean & I had a quiet Christmas, just the two of us. We slept in, opened our gifts, watched "A Christmas Story" and had our traditional Roast Beast and Mash-Your-Own potatoes with gravy for dinner. We really missed Hubby a lot. He called while we were still opening gifts and got treated to the squeals of delight while Bean opened her Wii. I hope his hearing will recover soon. :o)

Pictures from Austria

Geared up for cross-country skiing.

I think she's getting the hang of it!

Austrian Alps = Breathtakingly Beautiful!!

Bean & Tiger at the end of the Rodelbahn!

We survived!!

An answer to the ages-old question: How many swimmers on a train can you fit around one DVD player?

Austria

We are home from swim/ski camp in Austria!! For the most part, we had a great time. One of the swimmers from our team caused quite a bit of trouble, but it wasn't Bean or either of her best friends. The kids had a pretty intense schedule of swimming and learning how to cross-country ski. I think they all learned a lot and had a fun time doing it.

The food was amazing!! Every night, they would serve us a different soup with dinner. Those of you who know me well know about my entire lack of fondness for peas. I actually ate Split-pea soup (yes, Mom, I have MANY witnesses!!). I didn't actually eat the peas, though. I lined them up around the rim of my bowl. LOL But, the soup was amazing. My favorite soup of the week was a Cream of Wild Mushroom soup.

The village we were in was having their AdventMarkt while we were there. That was a lot of fun. I had the most amazing potato soup there (if you are getting the idea that I LOVE soup, you are right!).

The best day was our last full day in Austria. After the kids got out of swim camp, a bunch of us took a bus to the world's longest natural rodelbahn (sled trail): from top to bottom is 14 kilometers! The first few sections were a little steep and a bit scary, but once we got onto the main part of the trail (and IMMonster's mom explained how to stop and steer), it was a BLAST!! Of course, when we got to the bottom, we had hot chocolate with whipped cream on top.

I didn't bring my camera up with me, so I will have to post pictures later.

TTFN~

Another Home Meet (whew!)

We survived another home meet!! Yay!! There were relays this time, so we were back to herding the cats around, but it actually went pretty well. In fact, it went so well that the head official came up to me at the end of the meet and congratulated me on how well it went! LOL

Bean had another awesome meet. She is so on fire for swimming this year. I love seeing her realize that all the effort she puts in at dryland and practice is paying off for her. I've had several parents tell me, at different times, how hard she works at practice. I love to hear that!!

Anyway, here are her results (this was a regular meet, so only 3 individual events):

In the 50 Free, she dropped another 0.28 seconds.
In the 50 Back, she dropped 0.09 seconds to get an A time for the first time (woohoo!)
In the 100 Free, she dropped 1.41 seconds.

She had a blast at the meet, both the swimming and hanging out with her friends. Tiger dropped 0.5 seconds off her 50 Free to get under 30 seconds for the first time -- way to go, Tiger!!

The weather has been super yucky here. Cold, gray and rainy. Ugh! On the plus side, though, it's great weather for having chili, so guess what I had for dinner. :o)

TTFN~