I am just now getting around to putting something up about the family time in New Hampshire that happened during my rest week, the week before last.  Right after a high volume month in May, straight from the finish of my OD for the day, I hopped on a plane to go to Boston.  From there we headed up to New Hampshire.  The whole famdamly was there, not all parts from each side as one would imagine, but a part of the Rorabaughs from Kansas joined a bunch of the Faulkners in New Hampshire.  Most people look at me kind of funny when I say that my Mom’s and Dad’s family like each other.  I don’t think that they are supposed to dislike each other necessarily, but I am told that they don’t usually have little family get-togethers with each other.  

 

The weather was really awesome for most of it: we got sunburned, played tennis, pedal-boated around, swam a bit, and hiked up Pitcher Mountain to the fire tower.  Nica made eclectic and interesting food, our little Faulkner cousins attacked, chased and pummeled us, and we got to try the alp-horn.  Generally, a good time was had by all.  I had one small trouble:  I started getting sick on the third day.  Almost certainly due to traveling on a redeye the day of an OD after a big training period when my body was really tired, I had a sore throat and runny nose, and it was quite irritating.  After all of that refusal to share food and time spent as a germophobe, I still caught something.  And there were some troubles with timing.  Marisa had to come back to High School State soccer in Anchorage quite quickly, a day before any of the Rorabaughs left.  It had been the plan for me to come to Boston with her in order to sit down with Bob and lay out the stretches that I was supposed to do on my own time this year.  However, the Rorabaughs did not know this and it was generally an uncomfortable situation for me.  I feel and felt really bad about the whole thing, although I think I had a fever the day I was in Boston so I would not have been any fun to be around anyway.  I should have stayed in Stoddard with the family and tried to talk to Bob about stretches via email, and I feel really terrible about leaving everyone that had come there in order to see the Alaska crew.  If there are any of the attending Rorabaughs reading this, I sincerely apologize.  I hope that we get back together for a longer time in the near future.  Maybe the Faulkners should come to Kansas this time!

 

My little lesson from that is to prioritize.  I tried to in that instance, having chosen skiing and the pursuit of better skiing as my priority in life right now, but I did not look at the fact that it was a rest week (one of not very many a year) and that I had chosen to spend it with my family.  By that thought, I should have realized that I had made them the absolute priority for the week, and should have changed my plane ticket to stay.  Hopefully I remember how bad I felt when I try to decide something like this in the future.

 

I go up to the Eagle Glacier today for a training camp, so hopefully I have some awesome mountain pictures or art to share when I get back down, as well as training and skiing stories!