Beito Update

I had a busy day of packing on Thursday, but was able to enjoy a lovely early Christmas dinner with my family the night before I left. I also made a quick trip to Hanover to catch the Boston Coach to the airport, so I was able to get a lot of hugs from my friends, the most important item on my todo list for my last day.

A beautiful sign made by Mary and Nat

Final goodbyes with my sister and brother

They were very nice and helped carry my bags

Early Christmas dinner with my grandma, Twinkle

Christmas cookies!

We arrived in Beitostolen on Saturday with all of our bags after an easy night of travel! Flights over to Europe are generally at night, so we try to sleep as much as possible in order to adjust to the time change. I've tried many different sleeping positions on the airplane and none of them seem to work, so I ended up sleeping an hour or two and being uncomfortably awake for the remainder of the flight. We're six hours ahead of home, so I'm still adjusting to the time change, but it's getting a little easier each day.

One of our team photos from Park City

We have about 5 kilometers of skiing in Beito and there are A LOT of Norwegians who love to ski. There were so many people over the weekend and it has quieted down a little since kids had to go back to school, but these are the opening races for the Norwegians, so the racing crowd is starting to trickle in. There isn't a ton of snow, but it's 3 more km than we were skiing on in Canmore, so I'm not complaining. One step at a time!

Kikkan, Sadie, and the sunrise on our morning walk to training

Happy to be skiing again!

We are staying in one of the few places where we have kitchens and do our own cooking. Each cooking group has made delicious dinners, highlighted by the coaches' gourmet bruschetta and pasta creation last night. To top that off, we went over to the Norweigan women's team condo to enjoy some fresh bula for dessert.

Randy's bruschetta

Astrid with her bula!

Team USA and Team Norway

Our first races of the year are this weekend. There is a classic distance race on Friday, a skate distance race on Saturday, and a skate sprint on Sunday. Most of us will be choosing two of the races to do and I will be racing the classic distance and the skate sprint.

Our run to strength yesterday afternoon

Andy dressing to match his new pink phone

Including coaches, there are 18 of us here right now. It's a big group and a lot of fun to be a part of! My other half of Sodie, Sadie, has her 24th birthday tomorrow, so we're going to have to think of a special little celebration for her. Happy Birthday Sades!

Sodie in Quebec City last year

and Happy Birthday to Annie, rocking her new pjs and magazine from Erika and me