Finally arrived in Calgary!!! here's some cool pics of calgary and the rockies with some crazy clouds and sun!

 Mountains and sunshine are cool, we have been lacking those lately!

 This one is sweet.

The guys had an awesome and inspiring race today!! Cousi 8th, Brad 16th, Trevor 19th and Biggs 22nd! Congrats to all of them!

 We headed up to watch the second run of Levi!

Along the way, Eve Kissed a reindeer!!!!

 We saw some hot-tubbbers....

 Eve attempted to be local....

 Lots of stuff going on.....

 I kissed the reindeer!!! He licked my chin!! :)

 even though he was kinda creepy.....

 Britt tried to get a ride home...

 and we posed!

 Only in Finland!!! Watch out for dogsledders!!!!

 more reindeer action!

 and some cute huskies....

 Mitch, ripping second run!

 And finally packing up!!!

Now we're NAKISKA bound!

Levi

I have no pictures this blog because I overloaded my storage on picasa!!!
Should be working later, so stay tuned!!! We kissed reindeer!
Other than that, I had my first race back since surgery today and it was not amazing.
It started out ok for the first 15-20 gates, until my pole broke in half.  It was super awkward after that; cross blocking with a half pole is not fun.  I lost my balance, my confidence, and ultimately, the run!  I struggled the whole way down with my half pole, and at some point opted to do some old school skiing without cross-blocking, which was also just awkward.  So yeah, not exactly the comeback I had anticipated, but I have been feeling really great on my skis and I know that Aspen will be a whole different story.  I'm just bummed that something that I had no control over happened to me TODAY!! Levi is usually a really fun race for me and having that happen so early on was lame!  But we watched Mitch RIP second run which was really sweet, and Britt Phelan was 31st in the first run.... SO CLOSE!  Our slalom team is on it's way up, with a little bit of better luck and the next week-and-a-half of training, ASpen should be exciting!
Anyway I have a bunch of sweet FINNISH pics from the Finish! haha.
so hopefully those will be up tomorrow!! And we'll be back in the homeland where there is some sun tomorrow as well!!

Levi, moustaches and gym sessions!

Another great day of training up on Levi!  Icy just the way I like it!

I've been Rocking MP's new neck-warmer fashion line "I got SWAGG".... so, do i??  I felt pretty cool, so cool that I flipped my hair!

After the mid-day session of skiing, we hit the gym mid-afternoon and compared moves.  I vote for the pyramid!!

We played volleyball with the American girls again!  These are my volleyball moves! totally posed.

 And then the Canadian guys showed up!!! They looked INTENSE!

 MOVEMBER INTENSE!!! their moustaches are coming in nicely!

 After all the fun and moustaches at the gym, Mitch and I strolled home through the Levi village...

 And looked back upon the training hill!! Back there early tomorrow morning before free-skiing on the race hill!!! Time is flying here!!

a demain!

Finland!

After a long travel day from Montreal to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Helsinki, and Helsinki to Kittila, and then a bus ride to Levi, we finally settled into this wintery wonderland.  

We entertained ourselves on one of the layovers with some catchphrase and some Yahtzee!!!

 We had our first training session today at noon!

This is what noon looks like around here!!!  It's always kind of twilight-ish. Vampires would love it here I guess!!  (sorry I watched twilight on the plane..... there weren't many choices!)

 Smiling because we're happy to be back training!!  It was pretty sweet, super icy and super COLD!! QUebec style, like us!

Luckily we had a warm-up session with hot chocolate and coffee! Mitch, Jay and Eve are so PUMPED to be getting WARM!

Lodge art.

 Real life art.

 Make like a reindeer.

 Fly like a reindeer!

 frosty frost.

 HYDRATION!

 Anyway, these pictures are jumbled up in their order, I didn't really plan this blog out very well!! BUT it's nice to be back on snow after a sweet summery break!! We're hoping for some team volleyball this afternoon and maybe even some sauna action!!

 It's now 2:30 pm and starting to get darker! Feels like Christmas is just around the corner!! 

This was taken last night when we arrived! Kind of cool!

MOVEMBER

Every year the guys on our team grow ridiculous moustaches to raise money and awareness for Prostate Cancer in Canada!

Here is what Movember is about, quoted directly from the Movember Canada website!
AND here is where you can donate to the CANADIAN MOUSTACHE SKI TEAM
https://www.movember.com/ca/donate/your-details/team_id/127552

"The funds raised through Movember’s Canadian campaign go directly to Prostate Cancer Canada which enables them to fund vital research that will led to better screening tests and treatment options and to run support services for men surviving prostate cancer.
The other significant outcome of the Movember campaign is the awareness of prostate cancer and our men’s health messages we are collectively generating.  Men of all ages are not only listening, they are acting on this messaging and taking positive action with their own health, diet, exercise and lifestyle. We recently surveyed the Movember community and found that because of their involvement in Movember, 39% of the Mo Bros sought medical advice, whilst a further 36% encouraged someone else to seek medical advice. "

And here is what the guys look like so far!!  Thanks to Mike Janyk's facebook posting! ha.

So far so good!!

Pat Biggs, Mike Janyk, Julien Cousineau.

And here's what they looked like last year!

Julien Cousineau, Trevor White (team captain), Ryan Semple and Pat Biggs.

And I leave you with Brad's mo.... 

Donate to the CANADIAN MOUSTACHE SKI TEAM!

I am blogging to procrastinate from packing!

Ok, so I am obsessed with autumn!!  I love that there is still so much colour in the city!

I arrived back late last night after a summery trip in Truckee!! All week it was in the 20's (CELCIUS!!) and I was jogging around in shorts and a t-shirt like it was still summer!  I got in one last sweet mountain bike ride (the last EVER for my bike since my front shock is completely broken.... the whole downhill portion of the bike ride all I could hear was sickening metal-to-metal banging as the shock had completely compressed into itself...  :(  A sad day for one of my favourite toys!!!!)  But luckily totally replaceable... next spring!

But I think it was pretty cool that I was on the lake, mountain biking, jogging in the sunshine, and now SKIING in a few days; all in one week!

 This is my "nature in the city" picture.

Le path avec les feuilles! 

Also, I just received the newest red mittens in the mail from the Canadian Olympic Committee! Pretty cool! Can't wait to be rocking these all winter!

And finally.... my real task for this weekend is to arrange my life into bags.

This is one of my biggest challenges!! no joke!

It's hard to try and decide what  I will need over the next few months, and what can be left behind...

I wanna have nice clothes on the road, but not tooooo stylish since I live in sweatpants mostly, and I want to be warm but not overheated, I don't want my bags to be overweight, and I don't want to wear the same hoodie for three weeks like I did in Solden.  It's hard to justify bringing a nice pair of boots and a nice outfit when I might only use it once one twice, whereas I can use three pairs of sweatpants and a few hoodies for months on end!!!!

so much to do, so little time!! hahaha.

Here is what my living room looks like.  My parents will be happy when I have finished this serious bag-packing task and cleaned up the house.  When I pack and unpack, a bomb of clothing explodes wherever I am.  Just ask any of my teammates, my parents, or marco! haha. 

p.s. all that stuff about clothes is mostly a joke.... mostly....

Anyway I am seriously excited to get on the road again!!!!!! Finland is a sweet race to start the season with since its not too crazy and I have always enjoyed it! I'm just really happy to be getting back into another race season!

Halloween Day on Lake Tahoe!

Today we decided to take advantage of a beautiful California day and went out on Cramer's boat on Lake Tahoe.  EVen though Marco missed out on our SWEET astronaut costumes and 80's rocking, he made it back for an AMAZING day on the lake.

 Cramer has a super sweet orange boat and he took us around the lake to check out the beauty of the shoreline!

 :)

 THERE WERE EVEN RAINBOWS!!! epicness.

 Marco swam in Lake Tahoe on Halloween day.  Aggressive and impressive!

 While marco was swimming, we checked out the teahouse in Emerald bay!  Pretty cool looking old building!

 Looking back on Emerald bay and all the cool mountains jutting straight up from the shore.

 We stopped at a restaurant somewhere along the shoreline and Shona celebrated her birthday with a nice little Sundae on a Sunday. ha.

 By the time we were heading back (slightly rushing to catch the GIANTS GAME) it was twilight and there were some sweet clouds.

 Hula girl guided us.

 It was so beautiful with the alpenglow on the lake.

 The far peak had one last bright pink moment before the sun set.

 pretty amazing sunset on the lake.

 So amazing that I decided to pose.

 on a chairlift!

 There's a bit of snow on the peaks here and winter is fast approaching!!! That was a perfect end-of -summer day in Tahoe.  Couldn't have asked for a better weekend!

 Great friends make for great times!