UPDATE!

Oh, its been a crazy couple of weeks, and I have VOLUMES of blogs to post, Alyssa's hilarious boot fitting epic, videos, our first MA club happened, I've been training and thinking and stressing out a bit... its been a crazy emotional roller coaster!

I'm gonna do it in a nutshell for now, because I want the blog to be an honest log of all the hiccups and hurdles and good times and stressful times and decisions on my road to the D Team tryouts.

FIRST of all, we went to Snowbird again, and skied with Rob. We took Alyssa with us, and tortured her by indoctrinating her in to the insane land of training with Kate and Shannon. It was GREAT!

When we got back, Tom was sad, the boys were angry, and things were not good. I had been gone too long, with two Salt Lake trips, and working through Christmas. We hadn't even celebrated New Years Eve, although my mom (who was visiting who I didn't see at all) had bought bubbly and special bread and fixin's for great drinks...

Tom and I had a long, cranky, hard, emotional "discussion" which basically boiled down to this, after we got past our individual temper tantrums: that was too much. It was too hard, I was gone too long, and it makes everyone hate skiing.

For the next two weeks, I dedicated myself to doing nothing but being at home and being at work. No extra clinics, no Jimmy B's (a habit I thought was going to be harder to give up, but I'd rather be at home with the boys, quite honestly...), just home from work.

Unfortunately, I also didn't do our banking and pay our bills and write my blog, because Tom was so raw about my obsession with skiing. (Is it weird that I practice Hop Turns in the living room at night with my skis on? I didn't think so...).

I didn't worry about the details, I just wanted to dedicate all my time and attention to Tom and the kids and try to right the wrong I did by being gone too much. Things have healed a bit here, and now I am beginning to dig myself out of the backlog of stuff (I owe a painting commission that's a month late, we owe design work and proposals, I need to pay bills and work on the budget, ah ah AHHHH!)

Meanwhile, I am getting the MOST lovely emails from people all OVER the place inviting me to come and train with them! And I want to accept them ALL!

The NEXT thing that happened is that I discovered (unsurprisingly) that I need to petition the division to take my 2 and my 3 in the same year. I spoke with the president of our division, and I have to write a letter, and if it is okayed, my skiing will be evaluated at the prep clinic, which is in two weeks, which is also when the written exam is.

Freak out time.

The NEXT thing that happened is that we may have lost our truly amazing nanny because our children are insane and demanding. Ethan's kindergarten teacher was in tears at our parent teacher conference. He got booted out of his ski class. Bodhi was running naked through the house like an insane savage. "But call me Batty, because I am a bat."

We got to work on parenting strategies, and the behavior, a week later, is better better better, we'll see if it continues, and if we can find a new nanny!

The NEXT thing that happened was I hear that Bonnie, my ski school director wanted to talk to me.

I have been holding my breath for weeks waiting for someone to tell me no, you cant try. I thought for sure when I went in to my meeting, Bonnie was going to tell me that it was not okay for me to petition the division, that I needed to settle down and do it right.

She did indeed have reservations, but the conversation was amazing. I can honestly say that I have never felt as valued as an employee as I did in my meeting with Bonnie today. Isn't Bridger great?

So aside from all the care and honesty and really REAL conversation that we had, which I am going to keep just for me right now, because it was so special, the discussion was had about whether it was appropriate for me to take my three this year or not. I think the answer in almost everyone's head is "no."

But she pulled out the calender and we cleared my schedule because she is okay with me trying! This is a HUGE imposition on the ski school, and I am so amazed and gratified that she and Dave are willing to wrangle everything around so that I can go to the preps and the exams if I am cleared by the division to do it.

SO: Josh, Michael and Megan have all agreed to let the division discuss this with them (WOW thanks guys) and my own ski school is helping with scheduling. All that remains is to petition the division with this letter.

I'm so excited about the HUGE changes that happen daily in my skiing (thanks for letting me chase you around Shannon, Angela, Rick, Josh, Karin...) but so tied up in knots about this...

Well, that's the nutshell (pretty big nut, huh?) I'll keep you posted!