Yearly Archives: 2010

Tuesday night – homeward bound

Greetings from Dulles Airport.. Gabe and I are most of the way home from our trip to the USASAfinals in Copper Co. It was an interesting experience. I loved hanging out with Gabe and his friends.. though the whole ski area scene is just not for me.  . I’m so proud of Gabe getting to this level in the sport.. he’s come along way this past year with his MMSC coaches.  It’ll be fun to keep watching him progress.
    Despite the vacation.. a looming work deadline has me putting

in long hours.. and will for the next two weeks. THe same work thing

has been keeping me form sleeping. I’ just beat ..

Right now.. all I can think of is getting home..   I havent seen Diane in about 20 days !!!!  I can’t wait to see pictures and get stories from her trip. Gabe and I have had a good time .  on our own.. At the same time  I can’t believe how much I’v missed her .. Ah.. one thing I can post here is the birthday pres that Gabe, Max and I made for Diane.. I couldn’t talk about it last week because I Diane might have seen us doing it.
   The boys and I decided to start making Diane a word garden like the one our good friend Chris C. has made. He’s a stone guy.. and can sandblast words into anything .. In fact .. he made our first SamStones..     Gabe, Max and I picked soem words.. then Gabe and I went out and collected rocks from the rivershore and from along the Huntington


We took them to Chris’s.. he had a ton more rocks..

He and Kim cut our words out of vinyl stencil material and then glued them on to the rocks

Gabe and I went over to help him once..

Here’s gabe working on ‘family’

Chris also let us pick some preworded rocks out of his wonderful poetry garden.


We took the home and left them on the table for Diane when she came back on Sunday.. It made me happy to have that waiting for her.. becaus we wern’t there to be see her !

OK.. we’re boarding to Burlington.. That’s it for tonight.. GOtta run.
Nite all.. Nite sam
-me

Monday night – slopestyle

Gabe’s slopestyle competition started at 8:30 this morning. To get there, he had to be in the lift line at 7:30.. a good hour before the other two guys had to wake up. I was up at 5 with wrok-think.. so I got gabe up at 6:30 and we were out of the house by 7. It sure was easier getting one kid out of here than getting all three of the guys.

THe guys took the lift up to the terrain park..

While I got a lift in one of the snowcats.. (they wouldn’t let me walk up.. but they couldn’t stop me from walking down 🙂

I’d never been in a snowcat.. is was a really fun ride.. and avalanche resistant- no less !

The terrain park was huge.. scary huge looking to me.. I walked up to near the top and got set to watch Gabe.. and the nearly 70 other kids competitng in hte 14-15 slope style competition.

I added a sam stone for decoration.. one thing I do on every mountain I visit.

Gabe got two runs.. I was so excited and nervous with him. He looked so cool up there at the top !.. 

His runs weren’t too good.. but then again.. many folks had that trouble today..   I ended  up walking down the mountain in the woods which was really nice.  

A little later Gabe came back to the apartment .. he was a little down.. so we just sat for a bit..   A little later in comes Dylan.. his competition had gone really well.. he fell on his first run. but his 2nd run put him in 1st place !  He was so pumped.. gabe poured him a red bull toast.

Around 4 we all headed back to the awards ceremony.. On the way there I stopped back at the Donor Dudes tent to meet Chirs Klug. the founder of the org.  Chirs is a three time olypic snowboard racer.. he competed in his first olympics on the  transplant list of a liver.. he competed in his last two olympics after his transplant. He goes around raising awareness of organ donation and raising money for donor awareness.

When I stopped by to meet Chi, there was another guy there named Ben (I think).. he was also an organ recipient. He received a kidney.  It was so nice talking to both of these guys I told them all about Sam and our path.. and samstones. I gave them each a samstone.. and left one for another family that’s coming up tomorrow.. Their son Jake was also an organ donor..

It was a brief but powerful interaction with those folks

On the way tot the awards I ran into Kaitlin and Forest again.. “hey Forrest”

THey were giving out awards for at least 10 different events and age groups. I was impressed how many adaptive snowboarders there were.. they had guys wit artificial legs, and others in wheelchairs.

The main event for us was watching Dylan get 1st prize. He was just beaming with happiness. it brightened all of our days.

The coaches were stoked Too ! (Sam. Mike, Kaitlen)  They had every right to be.. it had been a good showing for the team today. In dylan’s group, Charlie got 4th, Garret got 5th.. and Dylan W. won some sort of skiing thing.

One of the kids pointed out an interesting thing about couach mike’s last name: ‘slaughter’

we all went out to sushi afterwards.. which was  good fun..

THen the kids all got ready to head home,,,

Gabe took some time this evening to work on his homework . He had to melt snow and map it’s temperature against time.. it was fun to watch him do !.

OK.. that’s it for the day.. tomorrow we head home
I am really lookign forward to seeing Diane !!!!
nite all, nite sam
-me

Sunday night – Easter half pipe

Happy easter folks.  Gabe and I are still at Copper mountain.   Last night there were fireworks once it got dark. it added to the party atmosphere of all these riders in one place.

Everyone was in a pretty good mood.. including our friend Matt.. which is kinda creepy.. Actually he’s a really funny kid.

We had a pretty big gaggle of kids over for dinner. Sure made a huge pot of spagetti then the kids all went and sat in the hot tub..

We had to start really early this morning. I went out for coffee and tea around 7.. it was quiet and beautiful out..

The guys had to be ready to go around 7L30 for their halfpipe comeptition. Here tey are putting their game faces on .

Including coach mike !

Here’s the pip.. it was huge compared to anything Gabe has ever ridden.. it was icy too. I thought he looked good on his runs !  I’m so porud of him competing .

Freinds Kaitlin and Forest came by to watch Gabe  too !

As did a big group of folks.. ok . they wern;t there to watch Gabe.. there were more than 45 competitors..in each of 2 groups..  I think

After the competition, the boys, Kaitlin and Forest came bye for lunch.. I made a pillow pile for Forest to jump into 

Sue came home late with a nice surprise for me.. She’d met these folks from a group called ‘Donor Dudes’. This guy Chris Klug is an Olympic snowboad  guy.. He competed in his first olympics while awaiting a liver transplant.. and he’s been in two Olympics since with his ndew tranplanted liver. He has a foundation that raises money to get folks to sign up to be donors. Chris comes in tomorrow.. I’ll get to meet him.  There’s also another family coming on Wed whose son was a donor.. They have a foundation like ours for Sam. I wont get to meet them.. but I’m going to leave them a letter and a samstone. 

Later in the afternoon we went to watch the awards for the day. We ran into Jerimiah who was one of Sam’s old snowboarding coaches.. He now lives in Oregon and works at Windels. 

It was good that we went to the awards.. they actually read down to 10th place.. Dylan came in 5th !!!!   and Charlie came in 8th. It was pretty cool that MMSC had two folks in the top 10 !   was proud of them !

Ah.. the kids are back.. I’m going to go with Gabe to get a movie.. More later..

Oh .. Diane is back enroute to Vermont !!! She called me from Houston and NY.. She’ll be in VT any minute..   Oh.. I can’t wait to see that girl !

OK.. Gotta run..
Nite all, Nite Sam
-me

Saturday night – Parade

Better day here at Copper.

The day began with a cake we’d made last night.. For some reason.. the boys felt like making a cake..  Kinda out of the easter spirit.. but we desperately needed the sugar.

Here are the little darlings.. I think they’re feeling a little rebellious

The boys were able to get out and ride the mountain on their own. Gabe

really liked the big spaces here. I spent the morning working.. then

went on a 4 mile run.. not that far.. but with the altitude it felt like it. Actually.. I feel pretty well acclimated.

The guys had a few hours to try out the courses.. they were big and tough.. but I guess it was fun .

This afternoon was the opening cermony for the USASA finals.. more than 1500 kids.. each tema had created a uniform of some sort.. it was really cool

Here’s our motley crewe

At 5:30 they started the parade. took an hour to get them through.. very cute though .

Here are our guys.. looking good  and backwoodsey !

Afterwords we came home to rest up.. The boys pointed out these fall lines on an adjacent moutnain.. The snow  spells out ‘SKY”.    Can you see it ?

Just about to dive into some nachos.. with the kids..

Oh.. we heard from Diane.. This morning she left Liberia .. and now she’s in a hotel in Liberia awaiting her early morning plane .. She’s basking in the AC right now.   Here’s what she said !

Hi Everyone…

I am sitting here at the airport Hilton in AC and it feels good.  The hotel is stranded on in no man’s land near the airport….a bit isolated.  I have sat briefly by the pool…took a short boring hot walk and ate popcorn in my room channel surfing.  I have to get up at 4:00 AM or a 5:00 shuttle to the airport so it is best to be here for the night.  I get into Vermont about 10:30 at night.  Long travel day.

Yesterday was wonderful.  We had great sessions to tie up any loose ends.  Last night was graduation and it was perfect.  I have some pictures.  I am not as handy getting them off the camera like John however I will share some.  For graduation we give each other the diplomas and then there is love passed all around.  Nice…very nice.

We ended the night with our usual watermelon talk session…in yoga it’s called satsung.  Yesterday Sister Cecelia, Lori and I make a dessert replica of a scorpion to thank Gary and Sho for being the scorpion removers.  It was fun and they so appreciated it.  We must have gone to bed after midnight.

Oh…in addition to all the sweet things John did for my birthday he also got someone to pick me a bouquet and made a card.  I think he is nicer than I am.

This morning we went to the last 6-8 yoga class.  I was perfect to start my travels with.  Then I had to be at the end of a trail for Danielle (from LA) to give me a ride to the hotel as she made her way to the airport.  Her family built a house about 7 years ago in Nosara.  Her husband enjoys surfing and they both love the beach.  They also wanted to give their kids exposure to a different culture.  They live in LA and make their way here for summers (really it is a nice time to be here…green) and holidays.  Nice…huh?

Anyways we have all been alerted about potential crimes with the influx of Easter week vacationers.  They put everything in her room because it is the safest…however it was broken in while we were at graduation.  Her guests lost most….ipods…iphones…cameras.  The computers were in a safe and that was tampered with yet not opened.  Bummer.  She didn’t care about that stuff only the cute necklaces she had picked out for her girls.  Those things mattered…the rest was just stuff.  A pain none the less.

We were suppose to meet a driver in Nosara however he was delayed due to the holiday weekend traffic.  So we pushed on and got here in plenty of time.  It was good to talk since I didn’t get to know her very well at the training.  It also was fun to see all the sites in the daylight.

I must say this hotel makes me think about the end of the Colony.  I will have hot water for a bath tonight.  And I will get room service and watch junky TV.  I know all this will help with my re-entry into the real world.  I have left the jungle!

Love to all.  I am looking forward to Vermont and hugging my boys and doggies.  love…diane           

OK.. time to pass out. more tomorrow..
Nite everyone.. nite sam
-me