Olympic Season: We're on Our Way!!!

Our Olympic journey started off on Wednesday of last week with a direct flight to New York City, for an event with one of our sponsors, Kellogg's.  We saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time (as you will see below).

The following day we had a late start for a scheduled 5 hr drive.  Those plans were foiled by a 1 hr delay with traffic in the city and an accidental detour.  Our navigator fell asleep (don't tell her I said that :)) and we took a freeway that lead us west instead of north.  We ended up in Utica, NY when we should have been only 1/2 hr away from our destination. :( So after a 2 hr drive to nowhere, we discovered our error and made our next 2.5 hr drive safely to our adopted family in Wilmington, NY!

Weather here in Lake Placid, NY has been extremely warm.  Sliding has been cancelled every day so far, with the exception of the bobsled team trials which took place today.

Sliding will resume tomorrow but Noelle will be sliding for the first time this year Monday morning.
Wish her luck and thank you all for your support.

Team trials races will take place next week Monday and Tuesday October 20 and 21.

Konigssee Race Update

The next race is in Konigssee, Germany.  It will take place tomorrow evening for us, but 9:15 a.m. MST for all you back home in Utah.  Noelle has an injured hamstring right now, so we are hoping that she will be able to push her best.  She loves this track and knows it well.  We are hoping for a good race.

Konigssee Race Day

Friday January 11, 2013

9:15 a.m. MST

https://www.youtube.com/user/bobskeletv

Look for the live event and remember there is heat 1 & heat 2 about 1hr 30 min apart.

La Plagne & the French Alps

We're still alive!!  Sorry for the long delay in updating the blog, I will make sure to keep you all informed more frequently.  There was a slight change to our plans for the La Plagne race.  We were told that another athlete would be coming out to race to try and earn points for a 3rd spot in World Championships at the end of January.  It was definitely difficult for Noelle to go there and forerun knowing she would not be racing.  She was sliding very well there, but she at least got some experience there for the World Cup race next year.  I learned that there are some of you who woke up earlier in the morning to watch the race and did not know that Noelle had been replaced.  I am sorry for that, I didn't realize that there were more than a few "Die Hard Fans".  That was her first time down that track.  It was very bumpy and painful on the neck and head.

Enjoy the pics below of our journey from Winterberg, Germany through La Plagne, France.

 We found a Burger King along our drive just before leaving Germany.

We were able to stop in Bern, Switzerland and stop outside the temple.  It was really pretty with all of the snow.  It was a 30 min detour to stop by on our 10 hour drive to France.  Because of the long drive we were unable to find a church, so it worked out perfect that we were at least able to find the Temple.  (FYI, Switzerland charges about $50 just to drive your car in their country, it is good for 1 year though).

Bern, Switzerland Temple.

This was the amazing view from our room in La Plagne.

The kids found something to do.  They don't stop!  Traycen is on a mission to destroy everything.  He'll just walk around pulling things down and making sure he leaves his trail.

This is Noelle at the start of the La Plagne track, with her coach Tuffy filming her push.

 The kids found this little ramp right next to the track that kept them busy sliding, throwing snowballs and making mini snowmen.

 There are many hotels in La Plagne, probably one of the most insane villages I have seen.  It is all crowded up in the top of the alps, how they built everything up there, amazes me.  We had all of our meals covered in the hotel restaurant.  The kids definitely were dined on the best they will ever get.  This is a pic of a fancy desert after lunch.

 Another picture of us at dinner with some of the team in the background.  Lacee and Traycen entertained everyone.  Traycen would only eat the inside of the bread out.  The outside was a little tough so he hollowed about 15 pieces each meal.

 For some reason Lacee likes playing "jail and dungeons".  They were locked up temporarily.

We stopped into a neat old town "Moutiers" which was about 30 minutes away.

Winterberg Wonderland!!!

This portion of our journey lands us in Winterberg Germany.  It is about 2 hours north of Frankfurt (although it took us about 4 hours with some snowy weather and bad traffic).  This was Noelle's 2nd World Cup competition.  She ranks 9th in the World now after this race.  That is a really good position considering she has competed in only 2 of the 4 World cup race.  She does have some ICC races that have filled in the missing points.  Just to give you a quick briefing, a 1st place finish in an ICC race is equivalent in points to a 13th place finish in a World Cup, and a 1st place finish in an Americas Cup race is equivalent to a 19th place finish in a World Cup.

For those of you who are unaware, Noelle had to compete in 4 Americas Cup races on 2 different tracks this year before she was qualified to race in any World Cup races.  This is the reason she missed the first 2 WC races in Lake Placid and Park City.  She has been working together as a team to obtain a 3rd US sled to compete in World Championships this year and hopefully onto the World Cup circuit next year (there are currently only 2 US world cup spots due to last years results).

The four of us after the race, after Noelle claimed Bronze!

On Dec. 6th St. Nick visits to leave gifts in shoes left outside the door.  Lacee and I were fortunate to see St. Nick in the town that night.  It was really cold and St. Nick didn't speak english, but we managed to get a picture with him.  Lacee loved it.

 The kids got umbrellas, a little souveneir from Winterberg.

 We met Noelle at the top of the track after her first run. 

 I pushed the kids down the track to a waffle house!  That's right, imagine a bobsled/skeleton track that has waffle houses, not one but 3 of them.  This place was crowded with people.  They take their sports serious here, not just basketball and baseball.  They go all out!

 I captured one of the German sliders in Kreisel (a full circle) during the 2nd run of the race.  If you noticed the kids have a new hat, we found a hat with a hole for the face.  It was really cold here and this really helped the chubby cheeked kids from turning red and purple from the cold.

 Here is a picture of Noelle at the finish after the race, in midst of the media coverage.

 Noelle is enjoying a hot cocoa just before the awards ceremony.

 The top 3 finishers get their flag raised during the awards ceremony.

 Here are the top 6 of the Winterberg world cup.

 Noelle, Tuffy and Zach (coaches), Travis and Chad (trainers) and Lacee.

  A little celebration pose with her trophy.  No medals were given here just trophies and stuffed dogs :).

 Remember how I said they went all out?  Well here is a picture of band playing through the cold weather.  Below is a video of the madness.  It was pretty exciting, kids loved it.

 This is Team USA 2 (Noelle's team) during the team competition.  They placed fourth, Noelle had the fastest time out of the skeleton racers.

 We celebrated Noelle's 30th birthday here.  The cooks at the hotel were extremely nice and baked her a cake.  The entire USA bosled/skeleton team sang Happy Birthday.

 This is Noelle's team during the team race on Saturday.  USA 2 TRESS, Kyle / MEYERS, Elana / JONES, Lolo / PIKUS-PACE, Noelle /CUNNINGHAM, Nick / LANGTON, Chris.  This is a new race that is only held 2-4 times a season.  They combine the times of Women's bobsled, Men's skeleton, Women's skeleton and Men's bobsled.  They each get 1 run and they total all of their times.  We placed fourth, and the other USA team placed fifth.

 Lacee making a snow angel during one of Noelle's practice days. 

This is a firework display after the team event.  Like I said: they go all out here.

1 Week Down

We are 1 week down on the long journey towards the Sochi 2014 Olympics.  Moved in with some great friends near Lake Placid, NY, we are 2 days away from the first set of races of the 2012-2013 Skeleton team trials.  Practices so far have been going very well for Noelle and she has been placing at the top of pack each day.
We are experiencing some technical difficulties with the comfort of the saddle (the part of the sled she lays in and holds on to).  Her first few runs left her some pretty gnarly bruises, so we did some cutting and adjusting only to repeat it again 2 more times.  We finally finished the last set of modifications (fingers crossed) and we'll find out Monday morning when she slides if they worked or not.  The actual races take place on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, (you can visit www.noellepikuspace.com for a more detailed schedule of upcoming events and races). Noelle is supposed to be sliding in official training on Sunday, but we have decided to forgo any unnecessary sliding on Sunday's.  We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and feel that we are being blessed for this decision.  Mormons are Christians and as such, we believe in keeping the commandments to the best of our abilities.  We aren't perfect but we do our best continually try to live Christlike lives.  You can find out more at www.mormon.org; don't believe the rumors, find out for yourselves.  We're not as weird as people think we are.
Thank you to everyone who has helped us in this journey and making this dream and experience a reality.  We hope that your lives can be touched as much as ours has through the generosity that has been given on our behalf.
I will try and keep this updated as often as possible, anywhere from 1-3 times a week so you can be a part of the journey.