Sledding with Adam and Dom

So after Christmas we ventured outside to do some sledding with Adam and Dom. Dom and I did not realize how exhausting it is not only walking back up the hill, but pulling the sled with Adam in it. Luckily the excitement of sledding only lasted for 6 trips down the hill before he was ready for the trek back home.

We chose to go sledding the day it was above freezing so we lost some of the snow and Adam was intrigued by that. Check out the video of him. He was pulling the sled on the snow and didn't know what to do when it was gone and the sled hit the pavement.

I hooked Dom up with some warmer pants...

We all had a good time and were grateful that there was snow on the ground for the peeps from Cali to see. It was a great Christmas and check back soon for those pictures.

Happy New Year to all!! Wishes for a wonderful 2009 and beyond.

Baking Cookies

I had the pleasure of baking some festive Christmas cookies with my good friends Shannon, Kate, Terri and Elizabeth. As you can imagine, it got very interesting!

Kate and Shannon were very focused...

Elizabeth really liked the frosting...

As did I!!

It was a really fun weekend and a great way to spend time around the holidays with good friends, good cookies and of course, some good wine.

Check back soon for the family Christmas pictures.

Second Annual Holiday Update

Happy Holidays everyone, or I guess I can say Merry Christmas to this crowd:)

So 2008 is almost done. Who could believe what a year it has been? I will try to sum it all up in 1 page or less, but it has been a busy year so we will see what I can do.

So this has been a busy year for me traveling. I have reached Gold Status for the first time with Northwest. I don’t feel as special as I thought I would, but oh well.
Where have I been this year?

February- Amsterdam
March- Sweden and Finland for our Annual Snow Meeting.
April- Colorado to visit Emily and Lars with Terri.
May- I actually stayed in MN for the month!!
June- California for the birth of my nephew Henry and then to Park City, Utah for a video shoot for work.
July- Cali for baptism and then off to Las Vegas for our Summer Sales Meeting.
August- In MN with the start of the swim season on August 11th.
October- Germany for a tradeshow and then the big trip of the year was in late October.
October/November- I spent one week in Australia and one week in Italy. I literally flew around the world. I would be content if I never did it again!! It was an amazing trip, but a little cold got me down and just took me a long time to adjust to my own time zone when I got back.
December-France to find housing for next year…. And that is the next story.

In April or May our general manager sat me down and asked if I had any interest in doing an overseas assignment for 6 months to a year. I think he was surprised at how enthusiastic my answer was. Of course it was YES! We started brainstorming possible locations and what the assignment would entail and now I am only about 5 weeks away from my departure to France. I will be working in Southeast France near the Italy and Switzerland borders. It is a gorgeous mountain area that has been called the Aspen of the Alps, but I think it is much better. I am looking forward to the assignment and spending time overseas developing myself and the relationships with my overseas colleagues.

Forecast for 2009- I think it is going to be a great year. I plan to work hard on my overseas assignment and think it will be amazing time for me. I will be back in the states for the girl’s swim season in August. We have a great group of young girls and I think 2009 might be our best year since I’ve been there. This will be my 5th year coaching. I am still not getting married or having kids anytime soon, but I am very happy and think that will only get better in 2009.

Please check back often in 2009. I plan to become an expert blogger and be sure to keep all of my family and friends up to speed with what is going on in my life in France. I know there will be many firsts for me while I am there and I look forward to sharing them with all of you.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to all of you!!

Love,
Beth

Chamonix, France

December 12, 2008- So as you all can see I had an amazing trip to France this week to find housing for next year. I stayed in the town of Chamonix. This is a very cute ski town nestled beneath Mont Blanc, one of the highest peaks in the Alps. It is a very active tourist town with lots to do. I will be back often I am sure next year.

Below are some pictures I took of my morning walk through town.

They run gondolas between these peaks. I will totally be doing that at some point!

For those who were wondering, I look the same in France and don't expect that to change:) Although the amazing pastry shops will pose a challenge to me, but I found an amazing trail along a river right outside of our office. So my lunch breaks will include some time there. I cannot wait!

An Advent Calendar on the side of a house... yeah, who wouldn't do that??? It was pretty cool. Although I prefer the old chocolate versions we used to get.

The local bars and restaurants were very cute and I found an amazing coffer/pastry/chocolate shop that I will be taking all of my visitors too!! I am very excited to be heading over. It is a gorgeous part of the world and I look forward to working hard and playing hard.

Thanks for checking in. Merry Christmas!

My Second Home

Here is where I will be staying from March-June. It is in the town of St. Gervais. About a 15 minute drive to the office. It has two bedrooms with room for 5 to sleep!! I have a private patio which just happens to have an amazing view. It is so amazing, my pictures do not do it justice.

The Outisde...

The Living Room...

The Dining Room...

The Tub/Shower...

The Kitchen...

And my Patio with a View!!

Words Cannot Describe....

December 9, 2008- So today was my day with Frederique, I know, how French! She was my housing consultant. She was about 50, married, 3 kids, pretty good English. We had a blast! So we started the day looking at a 300 square foot apartment in Chamonix. Great town, very small living space. I could not do it. I love Chamonix and will come back for sure, but will not be living there. From there we went to look at a place about 25 minutes away, but only 5 minutes from the office. So those of you who know how much I like traffic can imagine how I felt about that place:) We got in the car with the owner and proceeded to get on this little windy road through a forest of green trees, moss and small creeks. We wound up the side of a huge hill and came to rest on a farm site. It has the best view I had seen and the apartment was amazing!! I won't even try to describe, look below.

My View

Outside of the Apartment...

My side patio...

Living room...

Kitchen and Dining Room

This place was all tiled, two bedrooms, 3 beds. Huge open kitchen. It was all I could ask for. It is on a hillside overlooking our office and a gorgeous lake. It is close to a town but will be very quiet. I will be staying here for January and February... I will explain. This renter has many properties. I like the idea of spending some time out of a city and being on my own. She had another property closer to a main town, St. Gervais, but was not free until March. So in mid-March, I will move to that property. It is bigger and even nicer. I am going to be spoiled as will my visitors. Check out some pics of my second home in the next posting.

One final jaunt across the pond...

December 8, 2008- So in my final trek over the Atlantic this year, I started in the UK, Birmingham to be exact. I spent two sunny, yes, I said sunny days in England. It was a busy couple days attending the motorcycle show. Our booth looked great and I had some good meetings with our team from Britain. So after some fish, chips and a Carlsberg beer, I was off for Geneva and my search for housing in France.

So 6:14am, the alarm goes off. I grab my English breakfast and a cab to the airport. Of course, I am more than 2 hours early for my flight. It's just the way it is. So after 2 hours of waiting, we get the announcement that our flight is delayed. No big deal, but I only had a one hour layover in Paris between flights so I was a little worried. So we leave one hour late and after we landed 10 minutes ahead of our later scheduled time, I am thinking I can make this flight.... Until I see us parking on the runway and the bus waiting for us. So most of us have connections and unload the plane in record time, except for the mom and grandma with 1 year old daughter who are taking their sweet old time. I am calm at this point because I called our travel division and found out that if I missed my 1pm flight I had a 3pm, 4pm or 5:30pm option. So I am not freaking out. Plus those of you who know me at all know that I rarely freak out.

So we load the bus, get to the terminal and it is 12:43. I was pushing it. I got through the long security line and did the Home Alone sprint to my gate, where the woman told me I was too late. So I got to kill 2 hours in the airport and caught the 3pm flight.

This is now the deep part of the blog- So as we are flying into Switzerland, I am amazed by the beauty of the land. The dark peaks of the Alps peaking through the soft layer of clouds, the snow sticking to the forests of evergreen trees, the lake glistening in the sun. And behind all of that lied the entire mountain range, covered in snow. The rolling hills leading up to it remind me of the Sound of Music. The snow ends as the elevation gets lower and reveals green hills and cliffs overlooking a winding river. At this point I am beginning to realize how spoiled I will be for 6 months of my life in France. I love nature and the beauty of this world and what I saw today got me excited for all I will experience. End of deep part of the blog.

So after gettimg my bag (which made it on my flight!!), I get my rental car. Now someone must have told them how cool I am because I got a pretty kick butt vehicle. I'll post pictures tomorrow. But I start my supposed one hour drive to the hotel in Chamonix at 5pm. Oh wait, people get off work at 5pm. Crap. So I got to experience traffic in Geneva, while trying to follow the GPS and find the darn freeway. So after 1 hour and 45 minutes I made it safely. I wish it would have been light out, but all I could see on either side of the road were snow covered peaks. There is snow all around and the little town I am staying in a little ski resort town. The shops look gorgeous and I am excited to go venture out in the morning and check out the town. I am meeting my consultant at 11am to go look at 5 properties. I will post pictures tomorrow of the area and the apartment I choose.

I will blog more at the end of my trip.

Thanks for checking in and check back soon for the second annual Holiday Blog!

Season Recap

November 25, 2008- Who knew people read this thing!! I will try to do a better job of posting, especially next year when I am overseas.

So we just wrapped the first year of the E&B era of Wayzata swimming, that's Elizabeth and Beth for those who did not catch that:) We had a very successful first season and are in the process of downloading all of the info so we can sound knowledgeable about all the great things that happened for our banquet next week. Here are the quick highlights:

• 8-1 dual meet season


• 9-0 junior varsity dual meet season
  
• True Team Section Champs
  
• 3rd at True Team State
  
• Section 5AA Champions (we had 31 out of 32 possible swims in the top 8!)
  
• Qualified someone in every single event at the state meet
  
• 10th place at the state meet
  
• 497 season best swims throughout the season, and this does not count the first time they swam any event!!

Overall Elizabeth and I could not be prouder of the girls. We are most impressed about the level of commitment and discipline they showed all season long. They are a great bunch of young women and we are lucky to coach them. We laughed every day and hopefully made the girls laugh once or twice along the way. Hopefully we taught them something about life and swimming at some point as well.

We were very nervous about running a taper on our own, but we can say that we think we nailed it!! We raced so well at Sections and again at State. Our JV section team also dropped time and we saw many season and lifetime best swims at the end of the season.

So final thoughts. What can we say, we loved every minute of this season. There were ups and downs, but we learned a lot and hope that we can make each season better than the last. We are a young team and are certain that we will only better with age.... sounds like something else that is near and dear to my heart.....

Thanks for checking in.. check back soon for pics of the fam over the holidays!!

Ciao!!

Nov. 2, 2008- I finally made it to Italy!! Let me walk you through my day, oh wait, day and a half of travels to make it here. I arrived at the airport in Melbourne 5 hours early so I could avoid the "middle seat" fiasco that I encountered on my flight over here. Only they didn't start checking people in until 3 1/2 hours prior to the flight, so I got to sit for an hour and a half. I should have noticed the sitting theme... From there I got an aisle seat and boarded the plane for Singapore, a 7 1/2 hour flight. I slept zero hours as it was the middle of the day and I wanted to try and stay on some form of a schedule, don't ask me why!

So we get to Singapore and have a 40 minute layover while they clean and refuel the plane. So I walked around for a couple minutes, then sat some more. By this time is was about 2:30am in my world. We reboarded and headed for London, a 13 1/2 hour flight. I passed out and slept for the first 6 hours!! Which is impressive for me since I can't sleep on planes, maybe if I was 5' 2" or something, but as you all know I am not. I guess mind over matter works sometimes. We landed in London at 5:30am their time, don't even ask me what time it was in my world, I lost track after the multiple time zone changes. From there I hung out for 3 hours before boarding my final flight to Milan, a 1 hour 40 minute flight.

So in all, 35 hours later, I arrived at my hotel. Trying to be a trooper I made my self shower and go out walking to scout out the area. I found an awesome Italian joint for some good pizza and a Coke, then proceeded to walk abother 15 minutes before I could not take it anymore. I was alseep by 8pm and up at 4:30am.

Today was a great day. I walked to the Duomo Cathedral. I got there right as the lift was opening to go to the roof so I bought my ticket for the ride up.

It was early so the streets were dead and the sun was hitting the buildings beautifully. I got some amazing pictures. After a long walk this morning I found a park next to my hotel and went for a little run. It is a gorgeous park with tons of trees, a pond, fountains and more. I'll go back and take pictures before I come home.

So tomorrow I head to the EICMA show for set-up and then 2 days of press attendees. Should be a couple fun days and then heading back home on Thursday. I am very ready to be home. This has been an amazing trip and I have a ton more pictures to show everyone when I am home.

Wrapping up Australia Leg...

Day Four- October 29, 2008- We arrived in the city of Lorne last night about 6pm. It was a 3 hour ride and the last hour was along the Australian south coast, absolutely breathtaking. This morning I was up early so went for a walk on the beach right after sunrise. I got some amazing pictures and think some will definitely make it onto my walls back home.

From there we rode for an hour further up the coast before we cut through a mountain. It was by far the most technical ride I have ever done, sharp corners and a lot of them. I felt very comfortable and it was a great learning experience. I went a little faster today than yesterday on the straightaways, but I won't say how fast since mom might get mad:) But as always, I was as safe as I could be.

From there we ended up back at the office. We rode for about 3 1/2 hours and my rear end was ready to get off the bike!!

Before we headed back to Melbourne, we stopped at an animal park. We got to feed kangaroos and pet a koala bear. It was so amazing to see and pet these animals.

They were smaller than most normal kangaroos, but that we ok with me.

I learned that if you are holding the bag of food, you are an easy target!!

But we all had fun and it was amazing to see these animals up close.

Today we are going to the Melbourne Motorcycle show and an awards dinner tonight. Then one more day for me before I jump on a flight, which I just found out will take me 24 hours to get to London.... I'm a little sad about that. But I will have an extra day in Milan before I have to start setting up for the show. I will have some time to recover so all will be great.

Thanks for checking in and hope all are well stateside. Miss you all and will be home very soon!

G'Day Mates!!

Day One- October 26, 2008- Well what can I say, Australia rocks! It has been 3 days, and I am still severely messed up on sleep, but as you will all tell me, I cannot complain because I am in Australia!! So let's start back at the beginning....

I get to LAX with 2 1/2 hours to spare and am excited that I will not have to rush through the ticket counter or security. I check in and have "requested" an aisle seat (some of you may know, I am tall). Much to my dismay, the flight is full and I can only manage a middle seat... yes you heard me a middle seats. For the longest flight of my life, I got a middle seat!!Thank you to my phone call and text friend who helped me stay calm and awake until I got on the flight, you were a lifesaver and you know who you are! But trooper that I am, sucked it up and slept for about 6 hours, then watched 3 movies and before I knew it I was in Australia!

So the first day we all arrive to the hotel by noon and we are off for the day. No rest for the weary... We went to the new Victory dealership, then spent a great night on the river with a few drinks and an amazing dinner.

Day Two- October 27, 2008- Meeting day. We spent the day at the Polaris Australia office with their staff in meetings and had a great Victory ride at the end of the day. It was a wonderful day, but lack of sleep is not helping me at this point. As some of you know, when traveling, we like to eat nice dinners. And this means long dinners, like 4 hours! So most of you know I am not the most daring eater, but since taking this job I think it is only fair to try the local foods in the countries I am in and tonight was no exception. We went to a beautiful restaurant called the Lake House. When we got the menus, it was clear what I had to do, there was no backing down from the challenge. So my appetizer who I named Ernie and my main course who I named Skippy were ordered. Ernie was a smoked eel and Skippy, was yes, a kangaroo. Both were amazing!!! Check out the pics of my two new friends...

Day Three- October 28, 2008-Riding with the big boys. Today we rode the bikes for almost 220km. At speeds between 120-130 km at times. Mom, I'll let you figure out how fast I was going:) But it was a great day. I was the only female driving and I was no "Sally". I held my own and got comfortable in the twists and turns of the Great Ocean Road. It was an amazing ride and we have one more long ride ahead of us tomorrow. Check out some pics from the ride today.

Check back soon for more updates!!

Cologne, Germany

October 8, 2008- Well, after some long days of set-up and press people, the show is over for me. We had an amazing booth. It was a big improvement over the past years and everyone loved the new look. We had a great team dinner last night, topped off with quite possibly the best apple strudle and vanilla custard I have ever tasted. YUM!! And of course, Jaegermeister.

It was a brewhouse that was built in the 1300's. Great atmosphere and German food. We all had a great time and left very full!!

After dinner, we of course found another little bar for an after dinner beer or two.

This morning we went to the show for a couple hours and I did my walk of the show gathering research on booths and marketing materials. Then me and some of the guys headed back downtown for lunch and a tour of the Dom Cathedral. We walked the entire Cathedral, then paid 2,50 Euro to climb the bell tower stairs. All I can say is, feel the burn!! It was so worth the effort. We were at the top of the Dom, and I mean the top. My legs were shaking climbing the last set of stairs as you could see how high you were. Not really fun, but the view was more than worth the fear.

So I will now retire to my room, pack and go to bed early. I am jumping in a cab at 4:45am, so sleep is a key piece to my sanity at the end of this trip.

I will be home for 2 weeks and then it is down under for me. My first trip to Australia. I am very excited about it as will be doing a Victory ride along the coast. From Australia I go straight to Italy for our next tradeshow. It will be a crazy but exciting 2 weeks for me.

Thanks for checking in and catch you back in the states soon!

Deutchland!

October5, 2008- So this trip over was the first time I got no sleep on the flight. I got one hour of sleep on the short flight into Cologne from Amsterdam. So my afternoon consisted of a short nap. We are heading to dinner shortly then an early night for me.
I did take a coule hour stroll this morning in the cold, misty German weather. I went to the Dom Cathedral and was amazed to be there during a service. I was able to sit in and go to communion in the church. What an amazing site. It was truly awe inspiring. I walked around the entire church, took lots of pictures and then walked the 30 minutes back to my hotel.
The Cologne marathon was going on so there were plenty of people around. This is a cute city and a nice downtown area. We are heading there for dinner tonight.
I'll have pictures to share soon. The booth is coming along well for the tradeshow. My work begins tomorrow.
Check back soon...

Fight, fight fight, but fall short against Edina

September 18, 2008- After a night of swimming and racing and yelling and cheering, my head is still pounding. All I can say is that we gave the number one team in the state a run for their money, but it was not enough. We lost 101-80, but they took it easy on us and went exhibition the last 2 events. We had some great swims. Our JV kicked butt and remained undefeated. We had 47 season best swims and our 400 free relay swam great and 3 of the 4 girls on the A relay had season bests.
Overall, we swam well. Raced well. Which is what we preach. Now we have 6 days before the next meet. That means we get to pound them in the pool for a couple days:) We enjoy that way too much.
Thanks for checking in. Coming up on my radar... swimming of course, but a trip to Cologne, Germany on Oct. 4th. Should be a good trip.

Minnetonka goes down....4-0!!

September 11, 2009- Well, what a meet. We managed 77 season best times against Minnetonka last night. This was our biggest test of the season so far. We raced well, but got touched out in some races, so the good news is we can do better. I guess if it went perfect, we'd have nothing more to work on:)

Saturday this week we will be heading to my old stomping grounds for the Eden Prairie Invitational. Some of the top teams in the state will be there so it should be a good test for our team.

Then next week is the big daddy, EDINA. If we beat them, we should win conference for the second time ever. We beat them last year to win our first ever title. I think they'll remember that and be pretty fired up at their home pool. We'll do our best to get our girls ready.

Check back soon for the highlights. Go Trojans!

Season starts out 3-0!

September 9, 2008- Well, the season is off to a good start. We have 43 swimmers on the team and have started out the season 3-0 in dual meets. We have our first BIG test tomorrow night, Minnetonka. This would be a big win for us. Most of the girls are doing great and we have a lot of depth on the team. It will be a fun week with 3 big meetings in the next 8 days.
Check back soon for more updates.

Next Year's Big Move...

August 31, 2008- As most of you may know, I will be spending 6 months next year in France for work. I am very excited, nervous, scared, elated, etc. A lot of emotions go through one's mind when an opportunity like this comes up.

I wanted to give you a quick idea of where I will be located. I will be working in the town of Passy, France. I will be living near Chamonix, France. I've heard it described as the Aspen of the Alps. It is very close to the Switzerland and Italy borders, which means great weekend road trips for me!

Here are some pics of what I hope to see next year. Hope you can follow me on my journey, I plan to blog very often.