me
When I turned 18 I told my old man that I was going to make it as a professional skier, or die trying. I slept on a lot of couches and ate a lot of ramen along the way, but it worked. 12 years later and with more titles to my name than I could have ever dreamed of, I have made a habit of setting impossible goals.
In every marriage there usually a dreamer and a realist, but not in THIS marriage. My wife Alexandra and I both like to dream big, even though our dreams tend to be different. I dream of making my third Olympic team and winning my third Olympic Gold Medal. She dreams of breaking the motherhood mold and raising world changers. Together we dream of chipping away at a sustainable lifestyle on our #TinyFarm in Nevada with a project called Wise Off The Grid. People often ask me how I balance being an Olympic Athlete and a family man, but the truth is that my family IS the balance for me. As an athlete it is easy to get caught up in the need for more success or more titles, but husband and daddy and child of God are the titles that keep me grounded. Thank you for stopping by!
children's
Author
I was a 21 year old professional halfpipe skier when my daughter Nayeli was born. Since we were too young to know any better my wife Alexandra and I took our newborn on the competition circuit with us and I had the best year of my career. Reading bedtime stories was an important part of the routine for us. It gave our young daughter something constant in an ever changing lifestyle. Eventually she became bored of the stories we had packed and I started making up stories out of my head. One story in particular became her favorite and it grew and grew with each telling. One day when she was about six Nayeli asked me why my story wasn’t a book. I could have made an excuse to her about how hard it is to publish a book, but I decided not to. I found an illustrator and a publisher that believed in me and now I’m proud to share my first children’s book with you. People might think that Olympic Gold Medals are cool, but my kids more often brag about the fact that I wrote a children’s book.
OFF THE GRID
I’ve been hunting almost as long as I have been skiing. I harvested my first deer with my dad when I was 12 and I got to experience providing food for my family first hand. It has grown since then and I spend a significant portion of the offseason hunting to fill the freezer and fuel my skiing grind with wild game. This year we are taking it to the next level. We are experimenting with raising chickens and a pig and growing as many of our own vegetables as possible. In the long term we dream of converting to solar power and living a sustainable life. We don’t have ridiculous budgets, but we think that by tackling this big goal in bite sized chunks we can show the world that it is possible for everyone to make a difference one small step at a time.