Gobel Gobel (Updated w/ Photos)

Another fine day of skiing. Amazingly, the snow held up through last night's rain and the absurdly warm temps that won't go away. We were reserved for 2 hours, but we were able to do a good solid 3+ hours of skiing since no one showed up for the afternoon. The endless loop has ceased to be exciting, but we're skiing in November and that's enough for now. I'm actually really liking the mini-loop format, because it gives me lots of opportunities to see the athletes and work with them on technique. Also, since we have no variation whatsoever the athletes are eager for drills and cues to give focus to the workout, so they're absorbing the technique work more readily than ever. I feel like we've made a lot of progress in just the last two days - very encouraging. Nice to have a very positive result arising from an otherwise challenging situation.

The rest of the day was very pleasant. The team put forth a heroic effort to pull off a nice Thanksgiving dinner - I was impressed by how well everyone worked together. I have to note Jeff's contributions once again. He's basically the Michael Jordan of Thanksgiving dinner preparation - you can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him. He took charge of cooking both turkeys, led the gravy-making crew, and put together a phenomenal key lime pie (random) in his spare time. With his cooking, language skills, and occasional driving contributions, he's pretty much a lock for Skier of the Week (an award that didn't exist until a couple hours ago). Overall, a wonderful meal and a nice chance for the team to come together - we all have a lot of reasons to be thankful.

Emma and Maren were clutch - they rescued the meal with a late-game effort to triple the gravy volume.


Scary to see this crowd wielding large knives.

A fine spread.


Tim tried to keep up with Polasky and got dropped. Picture me in a fight with Dangerous Dana Rosenblatt. That's what happened to Tim at dinner. Here he is struggling through the last of the green bean casserole. Speaking of Polasky, we had no leftovers in large part due to his insatiable appetite. The man is a freak.