Winter Olympics qualification secured

Marguerite is becoming a quite the confident and skilled skier these days. It sure helps that she is on the ski slopes nearly every weekend. But hey, it not all fun as there is also the serious business of trying to qualify for the Irish Winter Olympic team for next month's games.










Here is Marguerite sitting at 8.00 am waiting on the 'T' at Northeastern University, saving her energy ahead of another great day of skiing and high intensity qualification runs.












And after a quick journey here she is reading to go up Wachusett Mountain.















The slope you can see through the trees is a steep one that Jude accidently went down by taking a wrong turn when he got off a lift doo-ans. It was rather scary but he still made it to the bottom in one piece all the same. These lifts are scary never mind the slopes. Jude always reckons he is going to fall out of them and starts squealing like a pig when it takes off. He thinks he is going to fall out of it. It's not too bad unless there is a third person in the lift and then it gets really embarrassing for poor Marguarite.






Marguerite enjoys a wee slope side snack.













Jude is pulling one of those cheesy 'don't take the pic when my mouth is full', smiles while having his lunch. But hey, check out his super cool, trendy and altogether hip new hat. He took some abuse from Emma for wearing his 'Captain Morgan' hat on a previous ski trip, so he decided to up-grade. There is no way he can be slagged about his one, no way jose. Jude's new hat rocks!!!!!
















As the skills improve so does the level of lesson. Today Marguerite moved to level 2 while Jude took level 3. Obviously each lesson is an advancement of the previous one, so Jude and Marguerite have been finding their skills gradually improving.........................sweet.









This doll here was Jude's instructor today.












Moving onto the intermediate slopes can be a daunting task, but not for these two wild adventurers. Jude reckons that flying down an intermediate slope is really 'living on the edge'. 'Aye dead on Jude, wind yer neck in ya melter', says Marguerite.

Unfortunately Jude copped an unfortunate one and fell when whizzing down this slope and to his utter shock, amazement and downright horror another skier ran straight over the top of him. You can actually see the ski marks there on his jacket, wha?

Now let's all sing along....................'You are my sunshine, my ray of sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey........................'

With the Ski season only lasting until mid/late March Jude and Marguerite are keen to make the most of this opportunity. So most weekends this year have been spent at the slopes (we'll not fill the blog with millions of posts about it though, just occasional ones - this was week two). Michael Snr slagged Marguerite and Jude about how slow they looked when skiing on the first day. Well Michael, that's all fair and good but just watch this clip of Jude's final qualifying run for next month's Winter Olympic downhill skiing. He's the new Franz Klammer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's in, he qualified!!!!!!!

Meanwhile Marguerite qualified for the Olympics with this amazing run (below) and then tells everyone to book their flights to Boston naaaay.