Midgets!

It seems like all the news these days is about skiing, but I guess it is that time of the year.  This weekend was the BC Midget Championships at Sovereign Lake near Vernon.  This weekend is just for the 9-12 year olds, so just Katy and Max were there this year.  I took up the two kids up while Darcy managed Ian and Sam in Salmon Arm.  On Saturday there were two parts to the day, the morning was an interval start Classic race of 2km, and the afternoon was a 4 person relay event with two skiers doing classic technique and two skating.  Dressing up in costumes was strongly encouraged.  After that we hit the pool in Vernon and then killed a bit of time before dropping kids at the Midgets' banquet/awards.

Day two was significantly colder, and the day was delayed for two hours due to wind chill.  Parents were holding jackets and blankets around kids whenever there was a brief delay in the starts.  It was a Kings Court style freestyle event where all the kids skied in heats, and then the heats were rejigged twice for a total of three skis for each kid.  It is fun to watch as they only do a 300m course so the start/finish is fast and there are lots of heats.  In the final heat you basically have all the kids ordered by speed and it works up to a A/B final.  Max was edged out in his second heat with Cole finishing just ahead of him.  Another skier fell so Cole ended up in the A final while Max, Jonas, Daniel and Colby ended up in the B.

Happy Valentine's Day

Darcy and I don't do a lot for Valentine's Day other than eat chocolate, but we had a few minutes in front of the fire at the end of the day.

Basketball!

Sam joined the grade 8 basketball team this year and they made it into the playoffs in third place.  They ended up losing the semi-final overall.  Sam really enjoys playing but the team seems to require quite a bit of commitment so he ended up missing quite a bit of skiing.  Unlike soccer, he is definitely not the tallest kid out on the court!