Skiing, skiing and more skiing

Today was a ski weekend for everyone, although we didn't actually go skiing together. Anders and Gaute are the big skiers in our family, and they were the only ones who headed out yesterday. First Gaute headed out for a long ski trip (30 km back and forth), and then Anders decided that he wanted to go skiing, too. He decided to head out on his own and went about 13-14 km by himself. On his way back, he met two of his best friends who were also out skiing on their own, and they all headed back here to play Little Big Planet on the Playstation 3. Which they were allowed to do since they had been out skiing...

Since I had been "sick" yesterday and hadn't been out much, I decided that I had to get out and do some skiing today. So, I headed out at about 9:30 this morning, before anyone else had really gotten up, with my iPod in my ears and went about 12 km - which is quite good for me. I like going skiing by myself - I can go at my own tempo and decide which tracks to take. Yesterday, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, but today was overcast and not quite so nice. But, nevertheless, I had really had a great time. There's a lot of snow this year, and it's great to be able to put on my skis at home and take off on skiing for miles and miles.

When I got back, the big skiers Gaute and Anders had headed out together - they went about 20 km and had a great time. They left about an 45 minutes after me and saw tons of people they knew. I was early enough that I beat the "crowd". If we would have gone out at about 12 or so, we would have met a traffic jam. In our neighborhood, EVERYONE heads out skiing on Sundays!

Not necessarily 13-year-old boys, though. Espen's friend Nicolay spent the night last night and at 12:30 this afternoon I finally had to go up and drag them out of bed. Espen's big excuse for not going skiing this weekend was that he had a football game at 3:00 today, and he didn't want to be worn out. A fair enough excuse, except he came home early from his football game and said that the game had been cancelled. So, no more excuses! He had another friend, Harald, with him when he came home. Harald is quite a bit more active than a lot of Espen's friends, so we suggested that they could get in a little ski trip. Espen's first response was "NO", but Harald said "sure, why not?" so we decided to listen to Harald instead of Espen and sent them out into the woods. They were going to go to the same place I did (Ullevålseter, for those who have been there). It's dark now, but, this being Norway, that's not a problem since many of the tracks are lit at night.

Johan is the only one who didn't go skiing this weekend. He actually tried to call some friends to go skiing with yesterday, but everyone was out doing something else. He did play outside for a long time, though, and he ended up spending the night at his friend Alexander's house (Alexander is Espen's friend Nicolay's little brother). Today Alexander's dad took them to a climbing gym , the first time he's been to a climbing gym in Norway. I think he had a really good time! He's at a birthday party right now - never a dull moment around here!

Well, I'll leave you with a picture of Anders which I took a few minutes ago up here in the hallway by the computer. He looks good, but this hallway looks terrible. I kind of forget how bad it is, until I see pictures...try to concentrate on Anders when you look at the picture!!