A day of ice and snow

When we arrived in Lake Placid yesterday it wasn't particularly snowy.  When we woke up this morning it was already very snowy and still very much snowing.  So rather than slip-slide along to the Olympic Center in the car, we walked from our hotel - the Girl rather incongruously kitted out in a floaty skating dress and clunky snowboots.

There was a long wait at the rink for her group to skate.  When at last their turn came, she was last of five out on the ice.  She made a strong start - looked good, like she has in practice - but towards the end of the programme it all went a bit off...  Oh dear.  After all that hard work.

We put on brave faces and waited an even longer time for the results to be posted.  And when they were - surprise!  She came in joint second in her group!  There's just no second-guessing figure skating judges.

Needless to say, our Girl is thrilled.  She can hardly wait to get back to school to show everyone her silver medal.

School... oh yeah, another great thing about being in the Empires was that she got to miss school when all her friends didn't.  Though as it turns out, they did too.  We're in the middle of what the media is dubbing the "blizzard of the century".  Lake Placid locals are scoffing at that, but I gather things are rather worse further east and along the coast.  We're heading home tomorrow and preparing ourselves to find 12-18 inches of snow piled up on the driveway.  What larks!