Wow! It was a suspensful competition last night. Sasha came in second (a disappointment but it's okay). Fumie, who we've met now and really like her, came in first! woo-hoo!

today is the exhibition by the skaters. This is when they get to do the FUN stuff when they skate without all the presure. I'm looking for some good programs to be put together. It will be fun.

Today - we went to the top of Pike's Peak. What an adventure that started in the morning. We first got the signatures from the number one pairs team from China! They signed Gabby's bear at the hotel. We were READY with our bear and the pen. We took pictures of them with Gabby and they were great. They're coach did all the talking since they only speak Chinese. They noticed Gao's signature and laughed! They signed the bear right next to his.

Did I mention it was cold? Well, TODAY is not so bad...about 30's. Funny story: I packed my snow boots in anticipation of the hike at Pike's peak. What I DIDN'T realize until the last minute was the the boots are both RIGHT FOOTED! oh no! How did that happen? Joel and I put our ski clothes in one tub in the attic. In a rush to pack, I just grabbed two boots and shoved them in my luggage. It wasn't until I slipped them on did I notice something was awry. I looked at my feet and noticed that they were both pointing the same direction - right. Heh,heh... at first I thought it was because I am a Republican. :)

Anyway, we hiked up to Pikes Peak on a cog's train...which is a train designed to go up steep inclines using a "cog wheel" mechanism... it helps push the cars up the track at inclines up to 25 degrees. How steep is that? Well, on 25 degree incline, if the last car is at ground level, the first car is 6 stories in the air! That IS steep. So, we knew that the weather at the top of the mountain (14, 056 feet) is COLD and WINDY. Did I mention it was cold? The temperature will be 40 degrees below the temperature at the base. So, let's see... 35 degrees at base...would make it 5 degrees below zero at the summit! Yikes! So, we get to the top... Sally and Gabby tried to make it out of the train to the observation platform but the wind is blowing (make that HOWLING) at about 60 miles an hour! Not only is it blowing, but it has a "grit" - like sand paper. They pretty much turned around and made it back to the visitor building. I, on the other hand, soldiered on. Wind was cutting me so I had to walk backwards because I couldn't see. I just ducked behind some rocks and snapped whatever pictures I could. I then walked, crawled, slowly back into the lounge. My face was hurting so bad and my ears were just burning. I didn't have any tears in my eyes because I think the wind blew them all off. ha,ha. Anyway, Sally was there and got me a stew that hit the spot. Gabby was having a good time looking at rocks in the gift shop. I swear we were only there about 30 minutes before we had to start back down the mountain. Was it worth it? Hmm... well, we can all say, we did it and leave it at that.

When we got back down the mountain, I noticed that the Olympic Training Center is also located there. So, we got the map out and zipped downtown. We had an EXCELLENT time touring the facilities and got to see some athletes training for Athens - this August! We also took pictures holding the OFFICIAL OLYMPIC TORCH! Wow! The tour guide - Jennifer? was so nice. We, of course, loaded up at the gift shop. We bought some sweat shirts and stuff.

After the Olympic Training center we headed back to to the hotel to get ready for the long programs. We ran into more skaters and had more signatures. After the competition, we went over to the West building and ran into Fumie and Pruschenko in the lobby. They were happy to sign the bear and take pictures. We also ran into the ice dancing team from Buguria and they signed the bear. Still no sign of Sasha. We did make a new friend - Pete Schmall of ABC Sports. What a nice guy! We sat around the fires outside and just "chilled". Did I mention it was cold?

Well, the competition is over and EMANUAL Sandhu won the men's and Fumie Suguri won the women's! Also, Xue Shen and Hong Bo Zhao won the pairs! yea! They are soooo smooth. I didn't get the name of the ice dancing - Tatiana and Roman I think.

Evegeny Plushenko did excellent but Emanual did such a good job at short program that he won anyway. I was looking at Evgeny's footwork and he was awesome during the competition. He was really focused!

We got back to the hotel late and we're all pretty wiped.

Oh my gosh! The skating is EXCELLENT! We had GREAT seats with a perfect view of the ice and everything. We are just behind a camera man and Gabby is just soaking it up. She keeps tells me to hush! ha,ha. This evening it was the short program...basically 1:30 seconds and it incorporates varing degrees of dificulty. Unfortunately, Sasha fell during her short so she will have to kick in the jets to get back on top. She's not far off as her program was flawless - except for the stumble. In this new scoring system it's not as bad. In the old scoring, if she fell she was toast. Now, she has a chance to make it up in the long program - Tomorrow.

In the men's program - Emanual Sandu has come from NOWHERE to score very, very, well. Timothy Goebel skipped the competition due to boot problems and dropped out. This opened the door for Emanual. GO EMANUAL! The announcer was saying, "Sandu CAN do". I agree.

Gabby and Sally ran into Todd Eldridge when they went to the bathroom. Did they have the bear? Nooooo! What did we learn? TAKE THE BEAR EVERYWHERE! It's EVERYWHERE BEAR! :)

They did manage to scrore an autograph from Gao (Men's single). Woo-hoo! He wrote it in Chinese. How cool.

The foot work from Plenshko was AWESOME! Good stuff. More tomorrow.

Did I mention it was cold?

One word: DAMN THOSE PLANES ARE SMALL! Holy cow! We got in a tin can - two seats on one side and ONE seat on the other... teeny tiny thing with wheels.

We got in today and we are a little tired. I was hoping to go to the ice rink for practice, but I think we'll just "decompress" at the hotel and get ready for the short program tonight. It starts at 8pm but the women do not come on until 9:45pm... yawn... that's 10:45pm OUR usual Texas time.

The hotel is absolutely STUNNING! I am looking from my TWO windows... we have a corner flat... I have a view of the lake and a view of the mountains... they are like RIGHT there! I can see Pikes Peak and Cheyenne Mountain and some others I don't know of. GABBY is just loving it because we are being pampered and she's just spoiled rotten! She's already swiped my hotel robe for herself. There she goes parading around in it and dragging it around on the floor. We've already ordered her a "roll away"... our bed has like nineteen ka-jillion pillows on it... all for ME!

The lake behind us is frozen with some Canada geese in it and a bunch of ducks. We'll have to go see them later. Right now, it's time for the competition. We thought we would just use the shuttle but I went ahead and hired a car. It's a BRAND-NEW Toyotal Corolla. Driving in the snow can be such fun...

Did I mention it is COLD! Freezing!

Woo-hoo! Getting ready to head to the airport. We're taking off - Sally, Gabby, and I - to Colorado Spring, Colorado. We will be staying at the Broadmoore hotel... fancy schmancy. It's supposed to be cold - something like 8 DEGREES! Yikes!

I want to make sure we have the autograph bear ready for autographs.

Way cool! Over the weekend, Gabby and I had a great time working at the rink for the upcoming "Nutcracker on Ice" show. We went to the hardware store and bought 'stuff". Gabby made a new friend - Emily. Emily is Kim's daughter and an ice skater. They paled around most of the night togehter and got some "pizza dough" to play with.

We, Mark, Jimmy, and I put the ice ramp into place. It was very impressive and everyone could not wait to try it out. Val was the first one to check it out... and the Jimmy and Mark and everyone chimed in. We had a couple of kids fall but it wasn't too bad... certainly nothing worse then falling from a regular jump.

Gabby also had Dianna and Ashliy spend the night on Saturday to Sunday. They were a riot and they did cause one. Ha,ha... I pretty much stayed to myself so I didn't really get to spend to much time with them.

We took pictures for the Christmas cards on Sunday. We went to the new Towncenter square and took pictures in front of the fountain. Gabby wore a red Christmas dress with her skates draped over her shoulder. It was SO cute. We got them developed at Sam's and we are set and ready to go.

We wrapped up the evening by going to Camiell's Sidewalk Cafe. What a GREAT place to eat. Gabby ordered the Banana and Peanut Butter wrap (with Honey). YUM! They ran out of bananaas so we had to literally wait while somebody ran to Target to get some. They gave us free tea while we waited. It was a funny way to wrap the weekend.

Woo-hoo! On Friday, we leave to Colorado Springs! yea!

Yesterday we went to the FIRST annual tree lighting ceremony at Sugar Land Town Square. Gabby had a good time as we took Katelyn and Sarah. There was music and lights and lots of people. We ran into Jamil and Jim and some other friends.

Today is the first day of the blog for Gabrielle Celline Nieto (age 7). Gabby is our daughter who is a competitive skater representing the Gulf Coast Skating Club. She lives in Sugar Land and trains at the Aerodrome. She is coached by Dorothy Kowalczyk. Dorothy is her favorite coach! Gabby's best friends are Diana and Katlyn. When those three are together they have a lot of fun.

Gabby is now getting ready for her competive season which will start in March 2004. She will have a new program, new music, new costumes, and new moves in the field. She will be skating to "Legends of the Fall". She is excited! I know that we will be traveling to Austin and to Oklahoma City. There might be some other side trips that we do.