Birthday week

This week on the 22nd of December I turned 18! It was also Christmas eve and Christmas day, so not a great week for my diet... Still it was a really good week of training. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I went to train with Vincent Soubiron at ski fluid. On the other days we trained at home, including on my birthday!

I didn't do much with jumping this week, so there is nothing worth mentioning there. However in slalom it was going really well. I had some stable passes at 14, which I ran with some pretty heavy wind as well in the beginning of the week. I also went back on 13 for the first time again, but I took the gate very wrong and only got around 2 boys. Despite that, it still promises good results for next week, so maybe I can improve my trainings PB just a bit before I leave. Even if I don't improve in bouys, I do know that I've learnt a lot in technique and that will eventually pay off in the next season.

Tricking also went very well, I'm learning the new tricks for next years run. This takes a lot of time and falling, more so than jump, therefore I'm investing the off season time on the new tricks right now. Especially in toe holds I'm learning them quickly, which is good, because those points will add up fast. Learning new hand tricks is a little more challenging, because the tricks that I want to learn have a high risk of falling on my ear, which right now is not healed yet. I'm still working on the beginning of my new run with one new trick and a new order, but I would have really loved to also have learnt wake 540s before I leave, sacrifices, sacrifices... Still I'm really happy with what I'm doing in toe holds and will upload a video to my Facebook page soon.

Now over to the best parts of the week that were not necessarily waterski related.... my birthday and Christmas! On both days of course I skied, which is incredible because it is after all December. I also drove for the first time in a country other than the Netherlands, because my drivers license is now valid everywhere, since I'm 18. My first road trip was to get a beautiful and delicious cake, the second one was to a waterski store.... priorities :D. I also went paddle boarding on my birthday and skied some more. In this time the Hof family planned a great dinner with everyone I'm skiing with and the neighbours, which I didn't know about until they were suddenly in the house when I got home from the gym. This was an incredible surprise and I can't thank them enough! Christmas was also filled with skiing, but this time more for show, because Talisa was shooting pictures from a paddle board. The result is absolutely amazing and more pictures can be found here. It was great to be surrounded with so many loving people, because this made it easier to be away from my own.

For now theres only one week left before I have to go home, so I'm going to make the most of it!