Isabelle

Brady and I at the wedding

I would like to introduce my beautiful new niece Isabelle Carol Simpson.  She is the second child for my older brother Blair and his wife Erin.  Belle is now 6 weeks old and is the younger sister to Brady who will be 2 in January.  My brother said that they feel like a real family now that they are 4.  They are doing great.  Congratulations! 

ps they said she looks like me when I was a baby!

This past weekend I competed in the National Trials in order to qualify for the World Cups this fall.  I had a disappointing 1000m, but I qualified for the 500m without a hitch.  I will be leaving at the end of the month for Europe.  Nov. 7-9 is the first World Cup in Berlin, Germany.  The second one is in Heerenveen, Netherlands on Nov. 14-16.  I will then return home for a couple weeks and then take off for Asia.  I am especially excited for this trip because the World Cup in China will be held at a venue I have never skated at.  We usually skate in Harbin, but this time we will compete in Changchun on Dec. 6-7.  The final fall World Cup will be in Nagano, Japan on Dec. 13-14. 

I am really looking forward to challenging myself in these competitions.  My usual pattern is to improve as the year progresses, therefore I will be building through the fall and pushing myself more and more with each race.  Wish me luck and keep checking in for updates on all these competitions!

It’s already Thanksgiving.  Wow, that came up quick!  In the spring when Arne and I moved into our new home we really wanted my parents to come check it out.  Arne’s parents live here in Calgary, so they got a chance to see it when we were still in negotiations.  My parents were doing renovations all summer on the yard of our cabin at Crooked Lake, SK, so they didn’t get a chance to come all summer.  I remember them saying, “Maybe we’ll come at Thanksgiving.”  Back then I was disappointed and thought that it was a really far time off, but here it is and they came!  They only had nice things to say about our place, of course.  They helped us clean all the windows and get the yard ready for winter.  Since my parents are from a small town, Melville, SK, they wanted to go to Costco to pick up a few things.  It was a major zoo!  So busy, but still fun.  Sunday we all went over the Arne’s parents’ house for a big Thanksgiving dinner.  We brought over the usual Ukrainian fare - cabbage rolls, perogies and beetnix.  Arne’s parents had a golden brown turkey and a special Dutch dessert called bavarois.  It is so great that our families get along so well.  We are really lucky and definitely it was something to be thankful for.  

Family time during the holidays is something I don’t get much of, so when I do it is something special.  I hope you all had a special Thankgiving with family and friends!

I have recently been exposed to the joys of hiking by my husband Arne, an avid mountaineer.  When I first moved to Calgary, I was exposed to hiking, but there was no joy in it.  I actually hated doing it.  Everytime I went, it was with my training group and it would be a race to the top.  Along with my fear of heights,  I was unable to enjoy the views because I was trying to avoid a heart attack!  So, on my first hike with Arne, I was pretty nervous.  Turns out, it is way more fun when I went with someone I love to spend time with and it is not a race.  We also incorporated something I have loved since childhood - camping.  Since that first hike, we have enjoyed several, sometimes alone and sometimes with company.  This weekend, we went with Arne’s brother Maarten and a couple of our friends Mark and Andrea Jesney.  We left in the early afternoon on Saturday after our training races.  We hiked up the first ridge and decided to spend the night on a flat section.  It didn’t seem windy at the time…  We got dinner ready in a makeshift kitchen in between some protruding rock.  The Jesneys are gourmet cooks, so we had orzo pasta with marinara sauce and sausage. Yummm!  Somehow great food tastes even better when you are hiking.  When the light was gone we got into our tents for bed.  Turns out the ridge was the windiest spot I’ve ever been!  I’m talking the height of Winnipeg windy.  Needless to say, our sleep was intermittent at best.  When we got out of the tents in the morning, we were revitalized by the mountain air and spectacular views.  We left our camp and set off for our destination - hot springs.  It took about 1.5 hrs of ridge walking and contouring, but when we got there it was awesome.  We all got our bathing suits on and got in.  The water wasn’t hot, but just warm enough to be comfortable.  We soaked for a while and then had some lunch. Maarten also baked some amazing cookies for a little boost for the hike back.   We hiked back down the rest of the day and headed back in to Calgary.  Now that is some fun cross training!

*pictures to come…