Merry Christmas!!!

It is the time of the year that I want to spend with my family and loved ones. 

I am in Italy at my family's home. It is a really nice time of the year to be in this town. The only thing missing to make Christmas perfect is my girlfriend, Julie. 

The past few days we have been spending our days decorating the tree and house. My mom and my sisters have also baked lots of cookies every day. I did not really help baking any this year, but I will help with the eating!! 

Tomorrow the whole family will go skiing on our home mountain Speikboden. After that I will have to finish wrapping my last presents and then I can not wait to open my presents.

My sister Isabelle and Vincent baking Christmas cookies.

My sister Tiffy proudly presenting some of the cookies.

My stocking, Rudolf... Still empty, I hope Santa will fill it.

My Dad was not in the house when the Christmas star had to be placed on the top of the tree... So I was the man of the house for those few min. 

We made a whole bunch of different Christmas tree decorations a long time ago. This specific one was made when I was a young boy.

More Christmas decorations.

Mmmmmmmhh... A bunch of different homemade cookies.

I wish you guys all a merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. 

All the best.

Jeff

A tough day at the office!!

Today I raced at the World Cup race in Alta Badia! Wow, it was the iciest hill I have ever skied on. After a really good training yesterday on icy and tough conditions, I was looking forward to today's race. 

I started off quite well, had some really good turns, but after a big mistake and almost not making the next gate, I kept fighting to the finish... I was pretty far out, but it was still a very good experience and I learned a lot. 

A few days ago I talked to Didier Cuche ( one of the best skiers out there ) and he said that in ski racing  there are many more tough and difficult times rather than good days. I thought about it and realized that he really is right. Often you ski well and do your best, but sometimes at the end of the race it is not enough. It turns out to be a tough and sometimes a frustrating day even though you were so close to having a good day. That is how fast it can go in ski racing. You only have about one to two minutes time, where everything has to work right and you have to go all out and put it on the line....

Tomorrow I will have a recovery day at my family's home in Sand in Taufers, and then on Tuesday and Wednesday two more F.I.S. GS where I will try to have one of those good days, where everything will come together.

The last few gates of the GS in Alta Badia.

My biggest fan and strongest believer. MY DAD!!

Me in the finish, after fighting down the icy hill.

My Dad, my sister Isabelle and me after the race.

Isabelle and her boyfriend Michael posing with my skis.

I will talk to you soon... All the best.

Jeff

Life on the road.

After packing up everything in Val d'Isere and an 8 hour drive through parts of France and Italy, I arrived late last night at my family's home in Sand in Taufers, Italy. 

It is really nice to spend some time here and see my family and friends.

Tomorrow I will be racing a Europa Cup GS in San Vigilio which is really close to my parent's home. That is the actual reason why I can be at my family's home for a day. 

I am looking forward to racing the Europa Cup tomorrow, although I will be starting further back because I have no E.C. points. 

After this race I am not sure yet where I will be going to next.

But I will keep you guys up to date. 

My mom and Julie will probably not be to happy about the pictures that I will be posting....

This is all the stuff that I always travel with all year round. The skis are missing though.

Dustin Cook, ( my usual roomy ) presenting his side of the room.

This is when most of my stuff is unpacked. 

You know it is really hard to keep everything in order if you have to pack and unpack almost every other day!!

Maybe I should be traveling with some of these....

So it would look more like this.....

I don't think that will happen.... It was just a thought. :-)

Later.

Jeff

Val d'Isere..

Well I got my first World cup under my belt since my surgery.... Although it is a great hill and a beautiful ski area, it really was not an easy one to have my comeback race on.

I did not ski well. I was a bit too tense and not solid enough on my skis.  But this race is over now.  I have to look forward to the next one and give it my best there.

The race hill in the morning.

Jon Olsson raced his first World cup today, he did not finish though. 

Another shot of the race hill... Yea it really is steep!!

Leif Kristian Haugen and Brad Spence joking around.

The beautiful town of Val d'Isere and the race hill under the gondola.

Talk to you soon guys.

Jeff 

A few nice days in Montreal!

After racing and training in Colorado I flew back to Canada, to be exact, to Montreal. I love that city... and I now consider Montreal to be my new home away from home :-). There is always something happening in the city, especially now so close to Christmas, all the beautiful decorations and lights. And to top it off we also had a crazy snow storm, I find the city looks good in white. 

Because I will not be in Montreal for Christmas Julie had a nice Christmas surprise for me. She light up parts of her apartment with Christmas lights and had nice gifts for me. 

We also went to Mont-Tremblant to ski for a day with our buddy Chris Spear. It was a really cold and windy day but we still had lots of fun out there carving some turns.

After my short stay in Montreal I hoped on a plane and flew over to Europe where I spent one night with my family in Italy. 

Today I traveled for 8 hours by car to Val d'Isère France, where I will be racing the world cup GS on Saturday. I am really looking forward for that race, I really like Val d'Isere. It is not an easy hill to make my come back in world cup. But I am up for the challenge and can not wait for Saturday morning. 

Julie and myself.

The christmas lights and my lovely presents. 

Me staring at my big christmas stocking which was full of goodies. 

Julie walking through winter wonderland with a big smile on her face!!

On the way to Tremblant.

Chris and I after skiing.

I will keep you posted about Val d'Isere!!

Jeff

Aspen

Last week I spent in Aspen, Colorado. I had my first races since my knee surgery. I raced two Nor - Am Cup races.

First things first....

I arrived in Aspen last Saturday afternoon, Warner Nickerson and his friend Annette picked me up at the airport and I was able to join them at a family friends' place for the time that I was staying in Aspen. As we drove through the town of Aspen and up a hill where the houses got nicer and nicer, I could not believe the driveway which we pulled up into. From the outside you could already see that it was a beautiful home and as soon as I stepped inside, I could not believe my eyes. 

The view was stunning, and so was everything else about the place. You could overlook the whole town of Aspen and see right over to the race hill.

Warner posing with our sweet KIA ride and showing off his gnarly moustache. 

We were so lucky to stay in such a beautiful house. 

After I "checked into" my beautiful room, we went into town where there was an open-air concert with a band called BLIND MELON. It was their first concert back in two years and we really enjoyed it.

There were quite a few people at the open air concert!!

Warner, his moustache and lovely Annette enjoying the concert.

On Monday morning I started with bib nr. 30. which is quite high for a Nor - Am race. The reason for my high bib nr. was because I only raced in one  Nor - Am races last year, so I do not have any points any more. There were also quite a few really good world cup skiers racing just a head of me. 

I have got to say, the first day racing on monday I was quite nervous in the start because I had not competed in over nine months. That day I skied a few really good turns but I did not make it to the finish. 

At inspection... Overlooking the beautiful town of Aspen. I love racing there.

From the chair lift you could see that you would carry quite some speed in the last section. 

On the way up to the start, listening to music and focusing on what I need to do to ski fast!

The next day I found my race mode again and I stepped it up a notch and I skied a lot better. Although I made some mistakes in both runs, I was still happy with my overall performance. I finished 16th. 

Once a friend told me: "you should try to finish every race better than your start nr. is and slowly you will move up!! " I will never forget that, Daniel.... thanks.

Cheers Jeff