Saturday, November 22, 2008

Life Changes...

As it has been a while since I've updated my website or input any blogs, I thought I would use a lazy Saturday morning to get caught up. Life has changed quite a bit for me in the past few months... I got engaged, moved to Switzerland and will start a new job in a week.

Tim and I the night we got engaged (more pics)

My fiance, Tim, proposed at the Beijing Olympics in a paddle boat on Lake HouHai on August 18th. It was a bit of a surprise since besides a 10 month stint of dating in England back in 2001, we hadn't seen or spoken with each other in 7 years until China. Tim was at the Olympics as the head rowing coach for Switzerland and I was there covering Archery for the Olympic News Service.

Among other things, the Olympic spirit runs in our veins... before coaching, Tim was a three time Olympian for Great Britain, winning Gold at the Sydney Olympics and Bronze at the Atlanta Olympics. 

After the Olympics, I returned to California and packed up my stuff, visited my family in Colorado for a couple days, met my nephew (who was 3 months old at the time), and then moved to Luzern, Switzerland. Luzern is absolutely beautiful and I've enjoyed living in Europe again (I lived in France 1995-96 and England 2000-01). 


Luzern, Switzerland (more pics)

The adjustment has been major but I am very blessed to have found a job which starts in Zurich next week. For the past 8 weeks as I've been waiting for my work visa to come through, I've been taking German courses und jetzt - ich kann ein bisschen Deutsch sprechen. 

As for archery... I have been meaning to start shooting for some months now but my equipment has literally been sitting on a boat crossing the ocean. Overall it has probably been a good thing that I haven't been shooting - for starters, I needed to let the tear in my teres minor fully heal which I wasn't able to do last year and secondly, I needed to enjoy it again. 

I have however, been preparing myself physically for the World Indoor Trials in Iowa in January. Tim wrote a training program to build up my strength and fitness which I have been following for about 7 weeks now. I've been cross-training with the erg (indoor rowing machine) and my scores have been steadily getting better week by week. I may even row at the Swiss Indoor Championships in January if I feel like I can get close to my personal best.

Well... that is all for now! Hope you have a great day! To see more pictures check out my website.