Transcripts For WRC Today 20100211 : vimarsana.com

yes. the morning after, a live look outside right now. a blanket of snow historic snowfall accompanied by punishing winds. this morning we have live team coverage, we ll tell you whether the worst of the blizzard is over and when your street might be cleaned. with so much snow and nowhere to put it many of you are off again today. the federal government is closed for a fourth straight day. the d.c. government is closed as well. all local schools are closed today. metro runs only underground. dulles airport just re-opened at 6:00 a.m. however many flights are still cancelled so you will want to check with your airline before heading to at the airport. ronald reagan washington national airport remains closed. bwi airport is open this morning. the first flight is expected to land at 8:30 but there will be a loof cancelations this morning. check with yourirline online before you head to the airport. we understand that most of the airports or all of the airports inur area had no planes overnight during the blizzard. so no early morning flights able to leave. they have to wait for the planes to get back into the airports before those flights can depart from our area. let s get to tom kierein to get the latest on forecast. tom, irdon t want to hear what you re saying next. i can believe you re telling me more snow. maybe on monday. first let s relish the respite we have coming ahead in the next several days and we certainly do need it. a chance to dig out from this latest storm. right now, 31 in washington, upper 20s in prince george s county. montgomery, arlington, fairfax also in the upper 20s. we re below freezing all around the region. now the other story, of course yesterday were those terrible wind that were gustingver 50 miles per hour. this morning they are now down to under 35. just had a gust at ronald reagan washington national airport at 33. so we ll have them perhaps briefly above 30 miles per hour from time to time here this morning. by this afternoon most of our wind gusts should only be in the 20s. a lot better than yesterday. may cause some moderate drifting of snow, especially on those snort/south rural roads adjacent to open fields. as you look on the eastern shore, they are in the upper 20s. out in the mountains 20 degrees. view from space is showing partly cloudy sky here across the region. the big storm that hit us yesterday, snowing so hard and wind was really blowing so hard on monday we could get some accumulating snow. on monday evening, ending before dawn on tuesday, could give us some light accumulation. we ll know a lot more as we get closer to the day. let s look at the traffic and the road conditions. let s head out to beautiful downtown rockville. from the top of the executive office building. this is the mixing bowl around 25 and 28. you can see clearly snow covered and potentially very, very slick so en some of the more secondary roadways still have a long way to go. they are passable for the most part, but potentially very, very slick, we still could face some additional power outages which could translate into some power outages. let s head on over to take a check of things, along interstate 66. you can see payment and road spray and that is a good thing. that is definitely a good thing. now let s take a look at how things are going in the district. tracey wilkins is up on capitol hill and she s been watching the progress up there. what do we see? i m up on capitol hill and i m about to get on another hill because i wanto show you what you re looking at when you actually go to dig out. look how i m sinking into this stuff. i m doing this to show you how it s not frozen solid. it s not going to take a whole lot to dig out, although it s going to be work, it s not as serious as if it had gone into a deep, deep freeze. some people are out here taking care of the sidewalks here and preparing for the customers to come in. you can see it is a little harder than the rest of it. it s not the lightest snow, it s going to take little bit and if your shovel has been through as much as mine has this winter, it may be time to replace it, unfortunately. but whatever you have to take care of it, it s going to be messy when you get closer to the bottom because that s where we have some freezing rain and some of that other messy, where we got the nice, fluffy snow on top of it. this is what we re looking at for the rest of the district. this is what a lot of our main roads are looking like. taking care of those major roadways, because out here on pennsylvania avenue, that s pretty much what it looks like on a lot of the major roads throughout the district. i was say earlier today we went down many roads, massachusetts avenue, we were on connecticut after the other day and a lot of these roads have been taken care of really well. they re more than passable, but it s the neighborhood streets, that s the issue. we have some video of the the neighborhood streets here in the capitol hill area because of some video right down the street here. and it was very snowy and some of the it even though it had been plowed, still was not the best for folks to be driving out in. and that s the problem, because you have got some great looking major roads, but here s the rub, you got to get to them. and if your neighborhood hasn t been plowed that well,ou got to deal with that issue. oftentimes in roanoke, they ll plow the front of your house and that s great, but where you actually park and have to drive out of us and the back of your house and the ally ways that they don t get to. that s what people wiare dealin with as they have to dig out. thank you, tracey. let s head to virginia now. what do you see going out there in vienna? is been dragging all morning about how great the conditions are, but, you know, there are some issues just across the street at this gas station here, someone s trying to get over that hump there, trying to dig out, maybe didn t see how high, there s a minisnow bank there and started spinning. i want to show you something else that we haven t seen in a very long time. i think the sun is coming out, guys, look at that sky, isn t that beautiful? amazing the light is starting to shine through the sky, it s beautiful. now let s look at these really tall snow banks that we have been talking about, some issues of roads across that metro area, the plows have been working really hard all night long, continuing to push that to the side of the road. here we are seeing some pavement and a lot of traffic as people are heading into work taking advantage of the great conditions right through here, and we have been seeing plows from the town of virginia the county of vienna as well as some plows here s one trying to get into the parking lot that we re working out of. let s let him get to work. a lot of people out and about this morning trying to get back to normal. this plow is having a little trouble spinning, we may have to get out of his way just for safety, guys, but the town of vienna, virginia doing great this morning. thanks very much, elaine. and there are there is some good news for people hoping to fly out of town today, dulles international airport is open, reagan airport is close today. bwi marshall is open and flights should start arriving there at about 8:30 in the morning. be sure to call your airline or check online before you head out the door. if you plan to take metro today, you will only be able to use the underground stations. the transit agency is going to keep all accesses closed. metro says it is doing all it can be to provide service, but it says more than 1,000 of its employees have been working 12-hour shifts to dig out of the snow. our continuing extended coverage of the blizzard of our time right now is 7:12, we have 31 degrees in the nation s capital, still below freezing and a lot of people are trying to dig out of the snow and that snow is icy down by the sidewalk. but the rule is you re supposed to clear the sidewalk out in front of your home or business. and these people are hard at work trying to get the job done. look at this huge chunk of frozen snow. the neighbors are anxiously awaiting that store to reopen so they can get their coffee this morning. and at least one television crew. they re waiting. let s check in with meteorologist tom kiron to get the latest to expect some relief. looks like it s here, tom, a little bit. looks like a respite from snow, and we need it. looks like some of what they were digging was compacted down from the saturday storm and that consistency was from the concrete. right now, it s near 30 in washington, upper 20s in prince george s county. montgomery county is also in the upper 20s and we are now digging out from yet another february storm. february so far has had 32 inches of snow in the last eight days since february 2. here it is only the 11th now. we still have a lot of the month to go. 32-mile-per-hour gusts at reagan national. that s down from 40 and 50-mile-per-hour winds. it s blustery enough to cause some drifting on the roads. and windchills are silver spring now, they ve got a the peak gusts since midnight has been 30 and their temperature 27, the windchill is at 18. and their gusts generally are going to be under 30 there as much as the region. temperatures in the upper 20s out of the mountains, it s a frigid morning, up in the teens to near 20 there, and it is partly cloudy elsewhere across virginia, maryland and the eastern shore. we have just a few clouds coming through and they may be with us from time to time throughout the rest of the day and we ll certainly have the welcome sunshine at dawn now in washington and we re just a few minutes past sun rise. and we ll see that sunshine brightening the landscape. you ll need your sunglasses, you re going to get quite a bounce off the snow. by noontime the mid 30s and by mid afternoon hovering in the mid 30s. it will be above freezing, we ll have some melting which will cause some ponding of water in low areas because there s really nowhere for the melting to go. so, yeah, we may have some problems with that then refreezing, so we re going to have some icy patches and as we get into tonight, we ll be back down into the low freezing, in the upper 20s and perhaps mid 20s by mid night and then the teens by dawn tomorrow. friday, partly cloudy, lower winds, highs mid 30s, morning lows, teens, but then on monday for president s day, it does appear that we might get some light amounts of accumulating snow. the way it looks initially just light amounts monday afternoon and evening and ending before dawn tuesday and sunday afternoon into wednesday. now the traffic conditions, jerry, how are they looking? tom, to the north, conditions are very, very poor around i-70, and westbound i-70 remains closed at alternate route 40. the problem is the plows can t get to the interstates. nobody s getting by. there s also problems around emmittsburg around route 15. heads up, you don t even want to think about trying that. let s take a live look around 295 near duke street. the overhead roadways, bridges, and overpasses, still very treacherous. we salute those hard workers out there, for sure. speaking of hard workers, the folks that have been trying to restore power to thousands of people who lost power since the beginning of the weekend and now they havewo storms to deal with. and clay from pepco joins us on the phone. give us the latest now in terms of the people in your area that don t have power. yes, good morning, everyone, montgomery county, 1,337. prince georges county, 115. district of columbia, 308. there are about 1759 customers out at the 7:00 a.m. hour. are you folks able to continue working today? i know that for a brief period yesterday, the workers had to be called back and sort of shelter in place because it was too dangerous for them to be working, but have they been out most of the night and then today? they have been out all night. we got the okay to go back out when the visibility improved. the blizzard was because of high winds, but our crews were out last night. they beale out there climb iing- in an attempt to get everybody back today. that is our al today. by the end of the day, you think, clay? we want to push as far as we can. we know it is a daunting task before us, but, guys, we just have a crew of men and women that are just determined. so at pepco we want to see the numbers go down because every number is a customer and that s what we want to see at this point. do you see these outages continuing to come into your offices or have they died down now? we re not getting as many new outages as we have in the last 24 hours. there s still a few that were out from the previous storm. but as you see from the numbers, those are the total customers across the entire system of 750,000. we still have our folks assisting us. but we re going to manage the numbers that we have to bring as many people as we can back online today. clay anderson with pepco, thanks so much, clay, we ll talk to you soon. we re going to take a quick break now, we ll have continuing coverage of the blizzard of 2010, round two. 7:21 is our time right now. the blizzard of 2010 round two continues, but look at that gorgeous blue sky as we have sun rise here in the nation s capital. if only we could stay looking at it from afar. and if only the sun could actually melt the snow or heat up the atmosphere. tom, good morning, what s the latest on the forecast? the snow reflects the color of the sky. right now it is below freezing in the wake of the big storm from yesterday and those howling winds, those have setled down. it dipped into the upper 20s in montgomery county, arlington and fairfax. over the next couple of hours, we may creep above freezing, it may take until late morning to do that. the latest gusts, 33 miles an hour in washington. for the most part, most of our wind gusts are under 30-mile-per-hour. windchills are in the teens rite now with those winds, 25 to 30 or so. temperatures are 30 and the wind gusts are only 32 miles an hour. that s certainly nice, the peak daily gusts there has only been 24. they had whiteout conditions in virginia as much as maryland and northern virginia where the temperatures are in the low 20s in the mountains and a few clouds coming through, but allowing a little sunshine as well. now that we re just several minutes past down now, and we ll have our temperatures by 9:00 near 30 and finally get above freezing by late morning, and we ll stay above freezing for several hours into the mid to late afternoon hours. by then we ll begin to get back down below freezing, partly cloudy tonight, down into the teens tomorrow. during the day tomorrow, it should be partly cloudy, highs reaching the mid 30s again for a few hours in the afternoon and below freezing again friday night into saturday morning. saturday, a few clouds are out into the mid 30s, on sunday, we might make it into the upper 30s by mid to late afternoon. it does appear right now the initial indications on monday afternoon and evening ending before dawn tuday. sun back tuesday afternoon and partly cloudy on wednesday. now let s go to marty fitzgerald in fairfax county, she joins us live on the phone. good morning. any progress overnight? how is it looking out there? it s very cold here, it s icy, our caution today is safety, people want to get out, but we re still asking people, try to stay off the streets, there are still streets in fairfax county that haven t been plowed. we don t want anything to impede vdot plowing that so we don t want more cars to get stuck or something like that. we re asking people to check on their neighbors. there are people who really haven t been out of the house in a week. check on your neighbors and make sure they re safe and also the fire hide drarnts. fire hydrants are still buried after yesterday s blizzard number two. find the fire hydrants, shovel them, we want to make sure that they re available if needed for our fire and rescue personnel if they need to find them. so we can all look for our fire hydrants. also flooding, as the snow starts to melt, as we see more sun out, there s a potential of a lot of water, so people have to take measures to make sure that the water has a place to go. find the drainpipes and find different things like that and clear the snow from around them. safety is today s word. let me ask you about the status of today s government, it s closed today, and you anticipate it will be closed tomorrow. it is closed today, although many of us are still working, here in the emergency center in fair faiblg fax county are hard at work today and we don t know the status for tomorrow. and any guess what your publics works crews are going to be able to clear the streets, vdot does most of the clearing. the neighborhoods will be clear for folks. we re talking with vdot. we re working with them very closely. they re doing everything they can do to in the county in the subdivisions at have never seen a plow, so hopefully they will see a plow today or soon. so that they also can start to get their lives back to normal. and it is the state that plows the roads in fairfax county, it is not fairfax county personnel. we re going to take a break now, 31 degrees, our continuing extended coverage of the blizzard of 2010, round two continues. you re taking a live look at northwest washington where snow drifts have covered large parts of the streets and a lot of people are trying to dig out once again. and it s going to take a while to get the snow out. that s a picture of your car, i think. my car looks worse than that. that person has a lot of work ahead of him or her just digging out that car. there s a lot of snow on the side of the road from the last storm and now there s high snow banks, not only do you have to clear your car, but you have to dig out. at least under all that ice and snow, the car hasn t spoiled. it is going to take a while to dig ourselves out from the snow. because of that the federal government remains closed for a fourth day. all local schools are also closed again today. metro will run only under ground, meanwhile dulles, bwi, marshall, have reopened for flights who are incoming, still a lot of canceled flights and you need to call ahead. however they re hopefulhat it could open up later on today. let s get the latest on the forecast with tom kiron in the storm center. that should improve our moods and give us a wonderful break from snowfall and giving us a chance to dig out from yesterday s storm. there are the temperatures now, near 30 in washington, upper 20s in prince george s county, montgomery, arlington and fairfax counties in the upper 20s. i want to thank all of our weather watchers and reporters as we were going strong all the way from 4:30 in the morning until 8:00 last night we were covering this storm and we couldn t have done it without all of your help. the latest wind gusts thankfully are down below blizzard conditions and now the latest gusts at reagan national are 33 but still gusting a bit there and still causing some drifting of snow there is nothing like we saw yesterday with those dramatic whiteouts. it has calmed down a lot. with that blustery wind at dawn now on the day after. in frederick, maryland, they got a lot of snow up there, temperature there now is at 28 and their peak gust was at 46-mile-per-hour, in fact that occurred right around midnight, but it has settled down a lot since then and things are getting a lot better now as the winds have really begin initiated. eastern shore, in the upper 20s there. in the mountains, it s near 20 degrees. and they have quite a bit of cloudiness there, but generally from the blue ridge to the bay, we have a partly cloudy sky, so we ll have a little sunshine this morning. now to tabulate all of those wonderful reports we got in from all of our observers and viewers and weather watchers, joining me now is chuck bell with all the latest on that. one way we can measure the busyness of the snow, i have an itt command and give me special administrator privileges so my mailbox could be bigger with all the e-mails and pictures that were coming in. it was a lot of snow and it was a lot of wind coming across the area yesterday as well. check out our snowfall totals across the region. northern maryland, far and away the hardest hit in our viewing area. emmittsberg, northern most maryland. germantown to rockville to 18 inchings there. national airport only 10.8 inches of snow yesterday. already broke the record, so yes, indeed, i still think keeping a national record is a good idea. next page of snow report more hard hit across northern maryland, westminster, maryland, northern parts of carol county, 26 inches of snow there. south gate, maryland, 19.2, that s just outside of annapolis. american university outside of washington. 14 inches of snow there. nine in vienna, virginia. 13 and a half in hollywood, even way down into st. mary s county. the poor kids in fredericksberg may actually have to go to school soon because they only got four inches of snow there. pools ville 15-18 inches. the records have have been broken, the records that are going to be going away soon. this storm 10.5 for the winter, almost 56 inches of snow at national airport, breaks the more than 100 year-old record. same story at dulles, 75 inches for the season now, that is a new record. and at baltimore, almost 80 inches of snow. snow records go back to 1893 in baltimore. and only snow record we have left to break is the snowiest month ever and threeore inches and we ll have it. and the winter is certainly young and so is the month. let s take a look at the forecast for the rest of the day, by 9:00 we ll be near 30s, by noon near 30 in the afternoon. by sunset we ll be down near freezing and below freezing the rest of the night. sun rise friday, 7:03, another day for digging out. highs reaching the mid 30s for a brief time in the afternoon, but much of the time over the weekend, we ll be below freezing. then for presidents day, there is a chance for some accumulating snow perhaps late in the day into monday night. and right now the initial indications are it would be light amounts of new snow on monday. and now, jerry, how is the traffic? we ll head out and take a live look around town, let s head south around the 95 corridor, looking much better than just 12 hours ago. looks like traffic is moving along pretty well. but just be careful, you may lose the far right lane or the far left lane under ice and snow. around the american legion bridge, more sloppy than anything else. let me tell you that the bw park way right now is blocked up in laurel we have had at least one possibly more cars slide off the roadway, one of which may be overturned. so again, just a lesson learned, be very, very careful particularly on roadways that have a lot of shade, they have yet to get any sun and the chemicals have a hard time doing their job. let s get a check on the roadways in maryland. and chris gordon who s been doing yeomen s work out there yesterday, chris have you seen improvements? oh, there s a lot of improvement, welcome to another day of paradise in bethesda, downtown bethesda, carolyn cooper dressed for it. we re in bethesda and where do you go to work today. i m going to american university. how are you getting there? i m probably going to walk. how far a distance is it? probably about two miles. it s probably about three or four. it s good exercise. 14 inches of snow at american. american s close, but you re going in why. because we have a big training program and we have to get those materials ready. tell me about that hat. the hat is wonderful. apparently lost chris gordon s live signal out there in bethesda. but that woman was going walk from downtown bethesda to american university. can you believe that? that s a lot longer than two miles. chris are you there. we re back up now, woodmont at bethesda avenue. you can see some traffic moving, one of the things i was asked is dunk dunin donuts open? yes, they are. and a lot of the restaurants, we re monitoring, today is dig out day, dig out day and we re going to monitor it for you, you see the road crews t bethesda road crew across the street. they re getting ready to shovel. we saw the people at nih, they re shoveling out the entrances, so we re calling this dig out day. we re seeing a lot more pavement there in downtown bethesda than i did see at your location yesterday. yes, but it s just slushy and it s pretty easy driving. a little later on, i hope to show you some i d streets, they re still very, very loaded with snow and hard to drive, you ve got to just basically get into the tire treads of a car or two that may have made it down the street before you, that s on the side street. thanks very much, chris, we have taken aook at bethesda, maryland. elaine, you have got a lot of business, a lot of traffic and a lot of company o there. you know, no foot traffic, but a lot of car traffic, a lot of drivers have been on the road early this morning, the conditions at least in the town of vienna are greatly improved since yesterday. you can see pavement on the road and we have noticed plows going back and forth this morning. take a look at this video we shot just a short time ago. we saw one lady having some problems in one driveway just spinning her car, her car tires trying to get out of this little snow bank and we have seen a couple of people spinning around, but we have also noticed a lotf different kinds of cars, not just the four-wheel drives, we have seen a lot of minivans and a lot of folks are digging outnd getting out to work this morning in the town of vienna, back to you guys. elaine, thank you. let s go to fraysy wilkins, she s in northwest washington up on capitol hill. are we seeing any improvement up there? what we re seeing is that the sun is coming out this morning. that is a good thing. it s going help us with all of this snow and all of this ice that we have out here. and it s just so important that we get a nice slow melt. we don t want any issues with flooding, but we do want to get some of this stuff out of here. let s show you what it looks like on pennsylvania avenue. they have done a very good job of plowing on pennsylvania avenue. we have a very thin sheet of slush, but there s not so much that they can actually get with those plows with as much snow as has accumulated hoar. we get these large snow banks like the oneight over here on the edge of pennsylvania avenue. and that can be a mess, and the most important thing is that you just stay away from that. there shouldn t be any issues if you do that. we also want to show you again just how beautiful the sun is this morning, we re going to take you down to the right-hand side here, if you can show them the beautiful sun rise that s coming up here, and is reflecting off of this snow. this is of course what we need. this beautiful sun to help melt that snow. and start to take care of the cleanup. and make it easier for the crews to get in here and actually make sure that their chemical works and that their salt works and that the rest of that stuff is taken care of. back out this way, i also wanted to give you a view of what it looks like on some of the secondary roads as well. these are pictures that we took just a little while ago. we have got major roads that have been cleaned up and have been taken care of and those major roads look great, but then you have the secondary roads and folks have to get out of their homes and they ve got so much sn piled up and so much stuff that they have to get through to get to the major roads and that s the issue. the priority of cour, highway, major roadways and then the side streets and neighborhoods and that is so frustrated for folks who are living and just trying to get their vehicles out on to the major roadways. that s part of the reason that so many of our local governments have closed and also our school system. crews still need to get the work done, even though the work has stopped there s still amount of work that needs to be done. we have already heard from pepco that they plan on knocking out those power outages and hopefully by the end of the day they want to have those numbers way, way down. so this is giving us a break to actually breathe after all of this snow. and hopefully we will have a deep breath for the next one. but it s a small one. tracey wilkins live on capitol hill. tracey, is the cozy open for you? oh, yeah, we have already been in the cozy. okay, good news. oh, yeah, the cozy is open, we have been in, we re about to go back in. thavrngs very much. we just want to remind you in about 18 minutes from now, we will be joining the today show live at 8:00. the dulles airport is open, the airport authority is now on the phone to give us the latest on the conditions out there, tara, good morning. good morning. what s the latest on getting flights out of dulles and reagan once again. as you mentioned we opened the airfield at dulles at 6:00 a.m. this morning. we have had some international arrivals and some from the west coast. what s happening out at dull legal is that the armies are getting their aircraft in. all aircraft were removed from the region before the second storm. so we ll see a lot of arrivals out at dulles this morning and then the departures will start later on this afternoon. and reagan international we re starting to clear out our taxi ways and are going to get ready to get running today. we do not have a time, but we ll announce when we ll be ready to open. what seems to be the problem at national because that s certainly a much smaller airport and probably got a lot less snow than dulles did. it s pretty relative, you know, 50 inches versus 70 or whatever the final totals are, but what we have been doing over at reagan national, we have been reporting for six ds now is literally hauling snow in dump trucks, we have had to use front end loaders put snow in the trucks and haul it to as far away on our properties as possible. that s very hard, time consuming work and we re still moving schmo out there now. we need to make sure that all of the run way, taxi way and the parking areas for the planes are cleared of snow and ice before we want to open later today. a bit later today, by later today meaning 3:00, 4:00 in the afternoon or you don t know? we don t know exactly when we re going to open, but it will probab be not too late in the afternoon, we can open. sarah hamilton, with the washington airport authority. let s get the latest from angela gates from metro authority. with the road conditions, a lot of people are going to be relying on public transportation, right now it s only underground trains to be operating. when you do expect the above ground trains to be back in service. we re useding today to make we have had crews working overnight, 12-hour shifts to clear the snow on the above ground rails, but that looks like it s going to be a process that s going to continue throughout the day and we ll be able to make a better assessment later in the evening. also what about the situation with all the rail cars that were probably outside in rail yards during this blizzard and not to mention the busses as well. what are the expectation for getting those trains out and what are the expectation for running bus service again? we re able to store almost half of our rail car fleet underground in the tunnels, so we re able to save a lot of work by doing that. we do have trains in rail yards that we ll be digging out and that s been an ongoing process. our people have been monitoring where the buss are parked and keeping those busses dug out, so that will be a process that continues today and make sure all of our busses are clear. what are you hearing? will that be tomorrow? most likely, we don t expect to provide any bus or train access today based on the road conditions. let s get the latest on our forecast. tom kiron has been watching the sun coming up today and the approaching storm for monday. but more importantly, the immediate situation is that the winds have died down considerably from yesterday afternoon s howling winds, we had gusts over 50 miles an hour. now the peak gusts are right around 30 to 35, that s still up there, and causing blowing and drifting of the snow. but nothing like we had yesterday. temperatures are around freezing. we re in the 20s elsewhere and we do have the sun up in a partly cloudy, these are the latest wind gusts, neigh national had a gust regionally to 33 and the windchills are down into the teens, so if you are going to be out shoveling and helping to dig out, you definitely want to layer up because the windchills are in the teens all around the region. as we take a look around the neighborhood. 30 degrees there now, they have got a wind at about 20 miles an hour out out north and west. their daily gusts, their peak gusts have been around 30. eastern shore, temperatures there in the upper 20s, and they have quite a bit of cloudiness over the mountains and the central and southern shenandoah valley, but east of the blue ridge, we have got some welcome sunshine back. it will get us over freezing. so that will certainly help. but unfortunately the, what s going to melt is going to pool into ponds of water and then that s going to freeze up again tonight. so we re going to have some icy conditions. it s going take a couple of weeks to get rid of a lot of this snow. we re going to have melting during the day and then freezing up overnight. and then, yes, unfortunately, presidents day monday, we might get some accumulating snow. right now the initial indications are itill be light amounts. but we ll have a much better idea as we get closer to the day. now we ll check the traffic. how is it looking now, jerry? tom, looking much, much better as we travel the 95 corridor in maryland, this is very close to the route 32 interchange and clearly you can see a lot of work than done by state highway folks. it is certainlyassable but there s still patches of ice and snow but it s potentially very, very slick. we ll check 395, that s duke street over 395 closest to you, no big hangups here. but i-70 westbound at alternate route 40 in frederick remains closed and multiple accidents up on the baltimore-washington park way and if you re going to be out on the gw park way, chances are it s going to be more slick on the other roadways. just exercise great care, watch out for pedestrians, still having to walk in the travel porks of the roadway. but it s sunny now, hopefully everybody can see everybody else. there s a lot more traffic out there that s traveling faster. and that makes me very nervous because people say the snow is done and sunny out, and i can go 80, no you can t. you can t even go 40 at this point. 7:50 right now, 31 degrees, our continuing coverage of the blizzard the blizzard of 2010 round two. you can see that the roadways have been cleared pretty much, but there are a lot of snow drifts along theside where the snow has been plowed up against the curbs and the sidewalks and a lot of problems the snow is causing a lot of problems for walkers because the sidewalks are not clear. a lot of folks having to walk in the streets now the traffic is picking up and so it could get hazardous out there. the snow banks are getting really, really high a it s hard to navigate when they re going into a gas station or a parking lot, the snow banks are so high they right run right into it. they get hard and they get dirty and ugly and they turn into styrofoam. how is it looking out there, chris. it looks really good. i was just told barns and snowball will be opening. you make one mention on channel 4 and all of a sudden the community responds. giant in bethesda was open yesterday, it will be open today. we re in a public parking lot, all the spaces are cleared and open, it looks like we re getting back in business today. i want to show you the side streets, let me show you video that we shot earlier on. inbethesda, we had a snow blower, craig black stone on a snow blower, he not only clears out his own driveway, he clears the entire street for about six or eight houses and he did this the other day until his snow blower burned out. he s a good samaritan, he s back doing it today as we dig out. but the rest of the streets you got to find tire tracks to get through. we re back now live in bethesda and you see that this is bethesda up, a group that s shoveling out sidewalks. this is a day you re going to be able to get around. it s a very pleasant day, the sun is coming out. there s got to be a morning after. didn t they once they that is a good theme song, this is our morning after. i want to know where they put all that snow from that parking lot, because i know that parking lot, it s pretty big. it s all piled up on the side. we ll show you, i mean you ask, we tell and all that. i like how you deliver the news for us, thanks very much. thanks very much, chris, appreciate it. let s take a look right now at how things are looking in district on capitol hill. tracey is live. good morning to you. we are out here on third street on capitol hill. i want to show you a couple of thingts. first of all they have been out here paving this road and they have been seeing some pavement on third street. but you see how it hit this is chunk of ice here and a higher slush and so it s almost like a speed bump that takes you kind of up. and this is what we re talking about, that when they re out here doing this kind of cleaning, you know, all of a sudden you re going along just fine and you hit what is essentially like a pothole almost when you re driving. and that s a the best of driving conditions. but this is one of the better looking streets in terms of a side street and joining us now, jason who you see behind me, shoveling out the car here. i have been watching you this morning, i know this is back breaking work, let me get you over there way, how is it going for you? it s going great, it s not very windy this morning and the sun is coming out again and things are melting out real good. what do you think abouthe snow? the people who haven t done any of the digging yet, what is it like to dig this stuff up? the top part is fine, it s fluff, but the tough part is that whenou get underneath it, you have all the ice and slush frozen from before. it can be back breaking work. thank you so much for joining us this morning. i appreciate it. so, yeah, the streets are also very narrow, so this street for instance is supposed to be two-way traffic. this is supposed to be two-way traffic here but they can only get basical just one way traffic down this street here. we re off pennsylvania avenue. we have been showing you that today as well. they have done a really great job with a lot of these major roads, what you re hearing from people not only here in the district, but in maryland as well. and in virginia, what about our neighborhood roads? these crews have been working, they have been going since friday, 12-hour shifts, getting all of these machines out here to clean the roads. and the plan is for them to get to as many secondary roads as possible. they re going to be moving into those neighborhoods a lot quicker because they ve got a lot of these major roads taken care of pretty much all over the city. back to you all in the city. now let s head out to virginia. elaine is out there in vienna, and what do we see, elaine? n, the sun is out, it s a gorgeous day, we have been seeing traffic coming through here at least for the last three hours, which has been surprising, but the roads here in the town of vienna, maple avenue have been pretty good. however if you just step a little bit over this way on the other side of the snow bank. the sidewalks are obviously still not very clear, it s a very narrow, narrow path to walk through, so we did see a couple of people walking in the middle of the road just a few minutes ago. while we re saying that the roads are clear, we noticed someone spinning out. so just be careful out there, guys, there s still some ice under there, back to you guys. thanks very much, elaine. let s check in with tom kiron in the storm center. we love to see the sunshine. we re going to get a wonderful respite from the wintry weather for the next couple of days, it is below freezing now, 31 in washington, 20s elsewhere. the wind gusts have been up to around 30, peak gusts around 35 miles an hour, so it is still a raw and windy day that s under way but not nearly the howling winds we had yesterday, the windchills are ithe tes, right now in leesburg, it s 27, 20s on the eastern shore, near 20 in the mountains and just a few clouds around today and we ll have highseaching the mid 30s. tom, how s the traffic? a lot of work yet to be done even up to the north, emmittsburg still buried. i-70 westbound and route 40 remains closed. baltimore, washington mark way closed. accident up in laurel with an overturned car. so if you re going out know what you re doing and be very, very cautious out there and use great care. and we re about to rejoin the today show at the top of the hour, but before we leave, we want to give you the headlines and the latest on the blizzard. federal government is closed for a fourth straight day. the d.c. government and most local governments are closed as well. all local schools are closed again today. metro continues to run only under ground, meanwhile dulles and bwi airports have reopened. there are still canceled flights however so you ll want to call ahead before you travel out to the airport, reagan national could reopen later on today. thank you for joining us, see you tomorrow morning. 8:00 now on this thursday morning, february 11th, 2010, the day after the big blizzard, including new york city, where wednesday s blizzard led to just the third snow day in manhattan in the past nine years, but sorry, kids, as you can see, not too bad out today. schools are open. meanwhile, that storm has made it tough for some members of team usa to make it here to vancouver. hopefully, they ll get out in time for the opening ceremony. al, that goes for you as well we re hoping you ll be here. i m meredith vieira alongside ann curry. we gave matt the morning off because he is busy preparing to co-host nbc s coverage of tomorrow s big event, but he ll be back tomorrow with us on today. that s right. just ahead this half hour, we ll be talking with some of the stars of the sport. the u.s. has a real chance of dominating here in vancouver. we re talking about snowboarding s halfpipe. such a cool, such a cool sport. and take a look at this live shot. this is grouse mountain, 3,700 feet above vancouver, our home away from home starting tomorrow. it is open 24/7. so, if you re in the area, come on over and join the party. speaking of partiers, al, do you think you might make it here for tomorrow s show, since the weather seems to have improve i we are trying. we are trying. it s not so much the weather, but it s the airports at a standstill as they try to get things back together, but we re going to make every effort to join you two ladies there. do they know who you are? what? do they know who they are? do i know who i think i am? that s right. and by the way our fingers are crossed. okay. by the way, just in time for valentine s day, we ve got the six questions every couple should ask each other each year just around this time. but before we give you those questions, first we re going to turn to hoda kotb, who s filling in for ann. hoda s at the news desk with the news headlines. hey, hoda. hey, al. hey, meredith, hey, ann. washington, philadelphia and baltimore have all set new marks for their snowiest winters on record. the second blizzard in a week shut down schools and offices in the nation s capital for a fourth straight day. more than two feet of snow fell along stretches of the eastern seaboard, while roads and airports reopened. thousands remain without power. today in iran, hundreds of thousands gathered for a pro-government rally. iran s president declared his country is now a nuclear state after producing its first batch of higher enriched uranium. security guards in seattle are changing their observe-and-report policy after three unarmed guards stood by without intervening last month as a 15-year-old girl was badly beaten in a bus terminal. officials say it was unacceptable that the guards did not stop the attack. in florida, a helping hand. seniors at a retirement home held a bake sale to raise money for mikey brewer, the teenager attacked and set on fire last year, allegedly by his schoolmates. they were surprised when he showed up to say thank you. the number of u.s. households facing foreclosure jumped 14% from january from the same month a year ago. the group realtytrac expects more homes will be threatened with foreclosure this ye. and a man fishing in florida got goosed instead. the man who had his own fishing website was attacked by a goose and he was knocked out of his kayak. a camera mounted the back of the kayak caught the whole thing on tape. right into the drink. it is now three minutes after the hour. let s head outside for the weather and al. announcer: today s weather is brought to you by turbotax software. turbotax, choose easy. why did the guy have a camera on he must like watching the back of himse. anyway, we ve got i like that hat. that s a nice, warm hat. i got it from russia. from russia with love. from russia with love. very nice. let s check your weather, see what s happening. again today, the good news is our basic city is south bend, indiana, wndu. cloudy, cold, 28 degrees. we ve got a southern soaker ming up. it s bringing rain to southern texas, snowo northern texas, and that snow will spread across the gulf coast, even snow in georgia. atlanta may see an inch of snow later today on into tonight. rain pacific northwest, windy conditions, snow showers eastern great lakes, leftover remnants from that storm. high pressure over the four good morning, the day after the second blizzard of february, well, it s finally settling down. it is cold, just near 30 degrees in washington, 20s elsewhere and the winds have diminished again, thankfully it s just down near 20 to 30-mile-per-hour gusts and the temperatures around the region generally below freezing all around the area. we ll have highs today reaching mid 30s and partly cloudy settled weather through the weekend. thatt weather. ann? all right, al, thank you. coming up next, the heroes of the halfpipe. we re going to talk to three of the coolest members of team usa. that s coming up right after this. 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[ female announcer ] for ultimate flawless perfection, the eraser foundation, only from maybelline new york. i m ready. i said, daddy, of course. he said, no, no, no. daddy doesn t count. you know, your valentine is who you want to sit by, who you get in trouble with, who you tell your secrets to, who you play with at recess. i said, well, that s daddy, too. this valentine s day, wouldn t your valentine. like to know how you feel? give them a refreshingly real card from hallmark. yep! look in your bag, made you something. (announcer) it s more than just that great peanut taste, choosing jif is a simple way to show someone how much you care. choosey moms, choose jif. announcer: today s countdown to vancouver is brought to you by walmart. save money. live better. walmart. back at 8:08 with more of our countdown to vancouver. call them the golden girls of the halfpipe, u.s. snowboarders hannah teter, kelly clark and gretchen bleiler. we re going to talk to kelly in a moment, but first, kevin got to spend time with all three fearless women. kevin, good morning to you. lucky guy. reporter: indeed, meredith. these three young athletes are the most competitive of olympians, but they re also the best of friends and each other s biggest supporter. they are the high fliers, that s for sure. three american snowboarding icons as familiar with the podium as the daunting half p e pipes they dominate. for gretchen bleiler, kelly clark and hannah teter i think it s a very supportive sport where we all travel around the world together. we compete together. we train together. we live together. we eat together. reporter: at just 23, vermont s hannah teeter hails from a maple syrup-making family of snowboarding fanatics. she won gold in torino. four older brothers, always trying to keep up with them, always on heir tail, and i m always like, yeah, yeah, you know, go play with your barbies, and i was like, no, i want to go, too! kelly clark goes big. reporter: kelly clark won gold at just 18 years of age at salt lake in 2002. kelly clark has done it! reporter: just ten years after starting up anowboarding club at her elementary school. a monumentous occasion for clark and america. it s been fun to be part of the sport that s progressing. i really hope that wherever i leave off in the sport that my ceiling is really next generation s floor. reporter: gretchen bleiler is one of the most accomplished riders in the world, taking the x games title for the fourth time just last month, edging out kelly clark. she won silver in torino and she is the sport s cover girl. her big trick, something called the combo crippler 720, whatever that means. it s something that combo crippler 720 to cap 720 is what i ve been working on all summer and fall and just perfecting it, making sure that it s big and fluid, strong. bleiler goes ballistic! when you nail it, what do you say? i mean, do you say i nailed it? you must say something other than i nailed it, right? i don t say anything because i m not done with my run yet. oh, you still have to do a couple more? yeah. reporter: that notion of all for one and one for all certainly worked for the three musketeers, so why not for this american trio of halfpipe golden girls? when i see these girls land great runs it makes me want to be a better snowboarder. it s a unique thing that i don t think happens in a lot of sports and it s a wonderful thing to be a part of. reporter: such close friends that gretchen asked kelly, her roommate on the road, to be a bridesmaid at her 2008 wedding. off the slopes, gretchen bleiler adds her artistic flair to a design of outerwear. it s feminine, bold, flattering, sophisticated, but it s also edgy and fun. reporter: but it s on the mountain where this trio s real artistry comes alive. hannah teeter lands that clean with a grab! reporter: so, they say you re big on amplitude. what the heck does that mean? what the heck does amplitude mean? is that an electric thing? what is that? no, amplitude is just going high and up in the sky, you know, like up there. up there. up there where you have to look up to see where they are. so, that s what i like to do is way up. make people go, oh, there she is, oh, look. that s kind of my thing. there goes my hero reporter: what s it like to fly? it feels so good, you know. the mind s quiet, everything just seems so amazing, you know, because you re just up in the air. reporter: taking a high-flying sport to brand new heights together, and who knows, maybe sweeping the podium along the way. well, meredith, of course, i ve been snowboarding and i got a lot of amplitude. i was right up to about a 40-watt bulk. everybody was pointing down instead of up, for some reason. oh, i m sure you were great, kevin tibbles. thank you so much. kelly clark is up early with us and she s brought along two of her male counterparts, louie vito and scott aey scotty lago. good morning. good morning. let s talk about where you re holding your events. we had the ceo of the organizing committee here, john furlong, here this morning sitting where you re sitting, kelly. he said everything s looking good. i know the snow has been an issue, lack thereof. have you been on the mountain and tested conditions yourselves? no, not yet. oh, you haven t? we just got in last night. oh, my gosh. okay, are you worried about it, or no, not really. yeah. it s kind of a factor that you can t really control, so no sense in worrying about it. yeah, my experience at the olympics, they ve always put on great events. and so, we re looking forward to the same thing. okay. you have confidence in them. yes. for sure. this is your third olympics, kelly. you finished fourth in salt lake city, fourth in torino. and people are saying she may very well get the gold again. what s going through your head right now? i m having the most fun i ve ever had. i m more motivated than ever and i m coming off of the best two seasons i ve had. so, i couldn t be in a better place heading into these games and i ve had a great field of olympic experience and i m looking forward to having fun and riding my best here. no u.s. snowboarder has taken home two gold medals in the halfpipe. does that put extra pressure on you? for me, it s one run at a time, one day at a time. i m looking to have fun and do my best and that s all i can hope for. louie and scotty, for you, this is your first olympics. tell me what you re feeling? we were just talking about that when we were walking over. i don t think it s fully hit me yet. you know, you don t really know what to expect when you get up to the top of the halfpipe with the venue full. it s cool right now walking around the village, but you don t know the feeling of actually competing. yeah, like, we got our gear yesterday. we got all this usa gear, you know. we re like, oh, put these vests on. we were walking around with the team, me, shawn, greg and lou, and we re walking around with usa on our back, and it was cool. louie, early predictions are putting you on the medals stand. are you paying attention to that chatter? no, not really. you know, my whole goal is just to come out here and, you know, take it all in. i m really happy. i got three of my good friends here with me now don t forget that one. to share my experience with. and i just want to come out here and put together a good run tt i m happy with and land. and if i do that, no matter where i end up, i m happy because i landed my run. scotty, quickly, you re dedicating your time to two snowboarders who get hurt earlier in the season, danny davis, kevin pearce, part of a group called the friends. the friends crew, yeah. what s that? we re just a tight-knit group of friends, really, and we, you know, we re a good, close group, and kind of go out and ride together you ll be thinking of them when we started a company called frends headphones. very good. you re going to be thinking of them when you re snowboarding? absolutely. absolutely. all right, scotty. my thoughts and prayers go out to my boys. all right, scotty, thank you. louie as well and good luck to all of you. thank you. thank you. hope to see you all on the podium. thank you. and coming up, it s off to whistler. a special tour of the place where the majority of events at the vancouver games will take place. give me a kiss to build a dream on and my imagination will thrive upon that kiss mm, sweetheart, i ask no more than this a kiss to build a dream on [ female announcer ] why not rekindle the romance? visit royalcaribbean.com. all you want without any dyes or perfumes. all you expect from the number-one free clear detergent. that s because all free clear is the number-one recommended detergent by dermatologists and the number-one choice of moms. plus, like regular strength all, it has its own powerful stainlifters that fight tough dirt and stains. for sensitive skin, it s all good. my tables are empty anyway. bertolli! (announcer) bertolli oven bake meals, like lasagna rustica, restaurant taste with your homemade touch. bertolli oven bake meals. restaurant taste with your homemade touch. there s a movement afoot in this country. a student-led revolution. people like me think it s time higher education was held to a higher standard. because it s time traditn no longer stood in the way of getting an education. people like me demand a different kind of university. one that puts my talent first. on-line. on campus. on my terms. it time a university recognized people like me. people like me. people like me. special k protein shakes a truly great-tasting breakfast shake. with 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, it s the creamy, delicious way to satisfy. your hunger to help you lose weight. so you can kick the tin can habit. try special k protein shakes today. announcer: today s health is brought to you by kellogg s special k products. back at 8:20 this morning. on today s health, triple negative breast cancer. it is an aggressive, difficult-to-treat form of the disease found in roughly 15% of breast cancer cases in the u.s. we want to show you one woman s story. jennifer griffin, a 40-year-old mother of three, is in the best shape of her life. but jennifer isn t your average gym fanatic. and she s not your average cancer patient. we just heard the israelis fire. it sounds like they re firing reporter: as the national security correspondent for fox news channel, jennifer has seen her share of wars. we lived in africa, afghanistan and pakistan, middle east for a lon time, and i didn t really expect to be fighting a war inside myself. reporter: jennifer was diagnosed with stage 3 triple negative breast cancer five months ago. it s pretty scary when you heard those words, triple negative. triple negative breast cancer, an especially aggressive form of breast cancer, is not susceptible to hormone treatment but is proven to be responsible to chemotherapy. so far, the chemo is working. so, the tumor was about eight centimeters or so, so, that s about the size of a small orange or lemon. and right now, it s really hard to feel. how was school? reporter: but the last few months haven t been without their obstacles, especially with young children in the house. they were fine with talking about breast cancer, but when i said that i was going to be bald, that s when the 7-year-old, her, literally, i saw her jaw, her mouth open, and i immediately, again this could have been a very emotional moment, it wasn t. i said, you know, just like hannah montana, i m going to get a wig. and suddenly, it wasn t so scary for them. right now my mom is wearing a miley. reporter: with her daughter and friends at her side, jennifer decided to shave her head before her hair fell out. you think, that s the debilitating part of this. it s not. being bald, when i looked at myself at first in the mirror, i felt very strong. i felt i really did feel like i was a warrior. reporter: and with more chemotherapy and surgeryahead, jennifer continues to fight. i ve taken all of the lessons that i ve learned on how to cover wars and i don t go out without my body armor on, and my body armor is this wig and this lipstick and making sure that i don t feel like a sick person when i walk out the front door. jennifer griffin is here along with dr. fraya schnauble, a director of breast surgery. i should point out fraya was my breast cancer doctor. first of all, i love you. watching this piece it makes me crazy about you. but tell me, you had this big tumor that the chemo just shrunk right down, is that right? what s amazing is it was masked by my pregnancy and nursing. and the more women i ve talked to who have triple negative and triple negative strikes young women, you know, young women, it s very aggressive. and the chemo tends to work with triple negative. the danger is that it comes back and it can come back in the first two to three years, and when it comes back, it comes back strong. what s dangerous about triple negative is we don t have something to prevent that. there is one line of defense for people like jennifer, and that s chemo. that s the only bullet in the gun, right? right. this type of breast cancer is not sensitive to hormonal therapies orhe targeted therapies that we have available, like herceptin, so, it s sort of the little orphan of breast cancer, where we really only have at this point one sensitive sort of treatment for it. jennifer, you decided to talk about this, and i like that so much, because i mean, as a breast cancer survivor, i haven t heard of triple negative. why do you think it s one of those cancers that people don t know much about? well, it was only named about six or seven years ago, so, it s a new designation. and i think that people don t realize that 10% of the breast cancers are this triple negative, and the fact that there isn t a treatment. we need funding and research into what is going to prevent the recurrences. was it hard for you to come out i know you tell other people s stories of war zones in dangerous areas. was it hard telling your own story? i think it was hard just watching myself going through that. that s a little bit of an out-of-body experience, but at the same time, i think it s important for women to know i m having my 14th tumor treatment tomorrow. i ve been doing this for four months. wow. i want to tell people that if you re diagnosed with triple negative, you can get through this, it does respond to chemotherapy, you need to exercise every day. now, that s important. you re at the gym. you look terrific. freya, do you think that exercise, the right diet can help when it comes tochemo? well, there s no question that low-fat diets are now being increasingly associated with a better outcome. right. in terms of helping people get through chemotherapy, all these wonderful, health-conscious, great lifestyle things that make you feel strong really help you with endorphins and stress reduction, i think that s got to be helpful. well, we wish you the best of luck. you have the most beautiful family. come back and keep us posted on how you re doing. jennifer, thanks, freya. up next, we chat with the u.s. figure skating teams. our time is 8:26 right now. we have 31 degrees outside. another blizzard, another day of cleanup here in the washington, d.c. area. the federal government is closed four a fourth day as are most local governments. metro rail is running only under ground. metro bus and metro access are not running. dulles and bwi airports have reopened and many flights are still canceled. reagan national is still closed. so have the wind and the snow stopped for good? we re going to good morning, temperatures in the upper 20s, winds in the 30s, they ll diminish today. highs mid 30s, morning lows in the teens. how s the traffic, jerry? tom, condions much better, not perfect but looking much better along interstate 66 along the capitol beltway. for the most part we re looking pretty well. crews continue to work, this is 27 and brink road. be careful. thanks, jerry, we ll be back with another update 25 minutes, 8:30 now on this thursday morning, february 11th, 2010. the big day almost here. you re looking at breathtaking grouse mountain, highest point inetro vancouver and the city s most visited attraction. starting tomorrow, it will be our olympic home for the next two weeks. i m meredith vieira here with ann curry at the international broadcast center in vancouver. al and hoda are back in new york. let s go back to grouse mountain for a second. i want to show the audience this shot of the torchbearers carrying the torch up on the mountain on top of the gondola yesterday. do we have that shot, guys? it s got to be something of a first. that s how we ll be getting up there tomorrow, by gondola. not carrying the torch obviously. although mr. lauer will be a torchbearer himself a little later on today, and we re going to see that. that s pretty exciting for him. i m not sure where he will be along the route, but well, probably on the way u to grouse mountain because it s going to go up the mountain and then actually come back and light the cauldron here in vancouver and we ll be talking that up to grouse mountain do we get to ride inside the tram or do we have to be outside? you, outside. no, inside, dear. i will make sure you re inside. by the way, grouse mountain was named in something like 1894, after a blue grouse bird was spotted on the mountain. was spotted. we ll have to take out our binoculars. there you go. what do you have? don t forget that even though you re in vancouver, valentine s day is sunday. yes. so don t forget to make your valentine s, put them in the mail for your husbands. don t forget. that s right. and also, if you have the time, maybe you could make a tasty dessert for your loved one. well, martha stewart is going to show us just how to do, how easy it is. yeah. easy for you to say, roker. absolutely. i m thinking about riding outside that gondola. that s the problem. all right, i ve got to mention, february 14th is also my husband richard s birthday, so, two things i ve got to remember, yeah. wow. anyway, yeah. thank you, guys. okay, thank you, guys. ann, this is our first olympic games together, winter olympics, but we re in good company because it s also the first for both u.s. pairs figure skating teams, katie denny and jeremy barrett and amanda and brad, welcome. how are you feeling knowing this is your first time? you the new bees! yes, it s been amazing since we got here. we arrived on the 8th, moved into the olympic village on the 9th. and how could you not have an amazing time? we ll take you two by two, because you skate in pairs. katie and jeremy, you re the u.s. national champions, now you re first-time olympians. here you are on the today show. how are you handling this newfound kind of focus, being under the spotlight? it s so exciting and i m having the time of my life and i m just enjoying all of this. it s been amazing. yeah. we re having a good time, enjoying everything, buttill staying focused on the ice and getting the job done and ready to compete. and amanda and mark, talk about getting the job done, you guys beat out three former national champions to earn your spot, and you did that with less practice time, because mark, you have a newborn and you had to spend some time with the baby. it s all about the planning this season. we took it in two halves. we did the preseason until the summer and took time off and then my wife janet and i had our son holden. congratulations. thank you. he s a great 5-month-old. but the biggest story is amanda goes out with jeremy. this is amanda. she s on the other team, and this is jeremy. so, they are how does that work? yeah. that s got to get ugly. well, i don t recommend to most guys competing against your girlfriend on valentine s day, but oh, my god. but i guess since it s the olympics, we ll make an exception. yeah. i mean, mark and i have been skating together for eight years and jeremy and i have been together for five, so we re pretty used to this case scenario. who do you root for? oh, both. we re team usa. team usa. good answer. my gosh. yeah, awesome. katie and jeremy, thank you so much. amanda and mark as well. good luck to all of you. we re very proud. we should mention that you guys are part of the u.s. olympic team is part of a fund-raising effort for support a sport, and people can actually make a donation and pick a sport and they can help support their training. it s a really great process because it allows you to donate to the sport that you like. and for us in figure skating, we use that support directly. before coming out here, because we re all working and supporting ourselves, i mean, i used that to pay my mortgage last month. and it s not too late to throw some money in the pot. no, through the games and on and on. we wish you so much luck. good luck. we ll be rooting for all of you. thank you. now back to al in new york. all right. hoda joining me. we re talking a lot about how excited the olympic athletes are to visit vancouver, but for some of the families, it s a hardship, and that s where a new campaign by pg&e called thanks mom comes into play. mora bellamy and lois mesler are both moms of two of the olympic athletes. your daughter, kacey bellamy, is on the ice hockey team, and steve mesler is the mother of bobsledder steve mesler, part of night train, the night train. yay! oh, yeah. so, tell us about this campaign. for me, this is my first olympics and i had an unbelievable call last wednesday night from p&g. a girl named sherry, telling us that they are going to give all of the moms of u.s. athletes a gift to help them, you know, alleviate the cost for the olympics, and it was i never got a call like that before. amazing company, amazing people. it s been an amazing experience. lois, what do you think? i know your son doesn t compete until the last weekend. there s a lot of hand-wringing going on. yes. we ll be there for the two-man also and the four-man. and this is his third olympics and we re just so excited. and they ve done really well this year. you want to show your t-shirt? i do want to show my t-shirt. she s not flashing us. she wanted to show the world champions. they won the 2009 world champions and they ve been doing super this year, and i m really nervous. ah, all right. we ll see you guys in vancouver. i can t wait. congratulations. for the first time. it s going to be great. good morning, the day after a good day to be digging out, we have got the sunshine back, the winds are diminished, it s cold, 31 in washington and we have a blue sky, winds are still gusting to 30 to 35 miles an hour. the peak gusts anyway. and thos are more and more infrequent. and as we get into the rest of the day, the winds will continue to diminish. morning lows in the teens, more of the same on saturday and sunday. might get some light act accumulate lagtss of snow late on monday. that s your latest weather. hey, uncle willie, i thought i d improve your intro by having hoda stay here. hello, uncle willie! hoda. hey, we had a guy on the show last week that loves you and kathie lee. says he s in love with both of you. oh, he loves her, too? hey, listen, i saw an alligator yeah, i ll get his number. i saw an alligator ice skating onhe way into work today. that s how cold it is. check it out. this is the wonderful lincoln tie, u.s. capitol. they have a whole sers of these. they re beautiful. u.s. capitol historical society. happy birthday to our birthday lovers in tv land today. herman my middle name goldblatt, los angeles, california, is 100 years old. came to the u.s. from poland ten years ago no, when he was 10 years old, and enjoys spending time with his grandkids. how about that? pauline franklin. here is pauline, pinson, alabama, 108. secret to longevity is her faith in the good lord and enjoys planting flowers in her garden. otis i always liked that name. otis clark of tulsa, oklahoma, is 107, and he survived an awful, terrible tulsa race riots. heard about that? in the 20s. lives indepenntly and takes no medicine. tulsa one of the prettiest, cleanest towns in the country. sarah pascotto, she s from ft. myers, florida. that s here, where we are. 100 years old. made designer dresses for the fashion industry at 10 years of age. how about that? attributes her longevity to retiring to ft. myers. courtesy of the chaer of commerce. here is angel hooks, highland haven, texas, 106. voluntee at her local church with all the services. and i ll bet she can sing, too. here oh, i love this. irma. i m in love with irma kaiser from seal beach, california, 100 years old. enjoys gng shopping with her daughter. how about that? and that s it, and that s all right now. back to i m carrying the torch for you sweet ann in van. love you, too, willard. thanks very much. still ahead this morning, the latest on lindsey vonn s shin injury. and also coming up next from new york, martha stewart shows us how to make shothose sweets forr sweeties announcer: martha on today is brought to you by macy s. the martha stewart collection is now available only at macy s and on macys.com. back at 8:41 this morning, and martha on today, a homemade valentine s day treat for your special somebody. martha s here to teach us how to make the heart-shaped chocolate ganoch tartlets featured on the cover of martha stewart living. you ve made this, right? so many times. in my sleep. and you baked it. of course. the chocolate filling, the tart shell is very easy to make. it s butter and sugar, flour, cocoa, a little vanilla and a little salt, and it s a press-in tart shell and you bake that. you bake that first. yeah. you need the heart-shaped pad that makes it pretty and you can use large individuals. are those difficult to find, those pans? no, they re at the cake and bake store, any of those nice home stores. okay. now, heavy cream. right. and milk. pour it into your semi-sweet chocolate. okay. now, that s how you make ganache. it s a simple process. you can mix that up, al, until the chocolate is melted. we have it all melted here and then cool it a little bit before you add one egg. because you don t want the egg to cook. no, you don t want the egg to cook. you want it to thicken the mixture. all right. so, i m beating the egg up first, putting it into the chocolate. and then that is your filling. that s it. that s your filling. it s as simple as can be. i like that. and you pour that into your tart shell and chill. uh huh. you want me to pour it? yeah, you pour it. see, i can do cooking. i can. i m better tn al. meredith is the best role model you can have. i know. i follow her. yes, yes. and while you re doing she s pouring, we re going to now, the beauty is the meringue hearts. we re going to make meringue hearts, which is basically egg whites or meringue powder, tinted a pretty color. we made many colors of pink. you just use that s the meringue powder albeiten up. add a little bit of red food coloring, stir that up and see how it tints it? oh, that s good. and that s edible food coloring. and you just make a pretty, pretty color, pink, mauve, deeper purple. the more you add, the darker. of course, yeah, yeah. then put this into your pastry bag. and you can all practice making hearts. it takes a little bit of practice to do the piping. let s see how you do this. then fold this up. there, you each have a bag. okay. i would suggest piping it on to parchment paper. so, how do you make the heart? only squeeze with one hand, the top hand, and then point with your other hand. and this has to be pulled down a little bit, so okay. then just to form the heart, you go one direction like that, and then the other direction and then pull up. looks easy enough. oh, you re doing a good job. i was. you were. and then it all went downhill. no, that s not good, al. what about perfect! look at mine. look how beautiful. no, no, watch, watch. go one way like that and then start at the top again and come down the other way. should it all be filled in? yeah, it should be all filled in. you can make any hearts you want and then bake these that s terrible. that s like a meredith heart. that is awful, awful! i hope meredith isn t watching. so, here is your tart. look how gorgeous. that is beautiful. you turn that out on to a platter like this and then you decorate. here, al, you can do this. i can do that. these are all baked in a turned-off oven, overnight. how long does it take to get like this to this? overnight in a turned-off oven. she just said that! oh, here you can taste and tell me if you like it. that s the small tart. okay. then another we have all kinds of valentine s recipes. meringue hearts filled with passion fruit of kurd and raspberries. cupcakes? cupcakes with the little red hot. and then these are beautiful. oh, al, look what i made for you. aww. it says al. am i your valentine? you bet. today. today. tomorrow all bets are off. today s not valentine s day, but before valentine s day, you are indeed. that s for you. martha stewart which one s for me? that s fine. don t worry about me. then we have cloud nine. yeah, there you go! thank you. and let me see. ooh, we have cutie. that s for meredith. meredith. there you go. and just ahead my sugar, that s for matt. i keep trying to get out of here, but i can t. martha, thank you. just ahead, we ll get a look at the place you ll get to know very well during the vancouver games, whistler mounta back with more of today s countdown to vancouver. the final preparations for tomorrow night s openg ceremony here in vancouver are nearly complete, but many of the events will take place about 70 miles north of the city at whistler mountain. natalie is there for us. hey, nat. reporter: good morning, again, meredith. olympic fever has hit hard here at whistler, of course, the host mountain for thealpine, cross-country skiing and sliding events. and starting tomorrow night, they re expecting about 17,000 visitors here a day. just over 70 miles north of vancouver, nestled in the picturesque coast mountains of british columbia lies whistler mountain, one of the premier ski resorts in the world. oh, i love whistler, love it. we ve been coming here for ten years. the food, the mountain, everything, it s great. it s just the winter olympics. that s everything. the competitiveness, everything. it s obvious, it s the best place in the world. reporter: and whistler is ready to host the world. in fact, it was ready two years ago when construction there was completed. the first time that venues have been finished so far in advance of a winter games. we had two years to test these courses and two years for the athletes to get to know them a little better. so, the competition is really exceptional. cross country tickets, two of them. reporter: competition that will take place at three different venues within whistler. looking forward to it. reporter: including creekside, with aewly designed downhill course for alpine skiing. whistler olympic park, which will hold the nordic events like cross-country and ski jumping, and the whistler sliding centre for events like bobsled and luge that fture the tracks with a larger vertical drop than any other track in the world. of the 86 events over the 17 days, 57 of them will take place here in whistler, and the winning athletes will receive their medals right behind me here at medals plaza in the heart of whistler village, a village that actually heats up when the sun goes down. with cocktails and the fire and ice show, a spectacle that will take place every night of these games at the base of the mountain. so, anyone here to revel in the thrill of competition and celebrate these winter games will find a very ready whistler mountain. 3 billion eyes are going to be watching these games. athletes are thrilled with the courses and venu, and i know the visitors are going to be thrilled with what they find here. reporter: so, meredith, as you can see, they have a lot planned here over the next 17 days, including some pretty big concert acts, including usher. meredith? you ve got a front-row seat, nat. thank you so much. and we re back in a moment. this is today on nbc. valentine s day is this sunday, and if you re looking for a great movie to see with your sweetie, this weekend, gene shalit says valentine s day should be the one. good morning and welcome to the critic s corner. we re in the mountains of western massachusetts, trying to keep up with our today show pals up in vancouver for the winter olympics. meanwhile, back on earth, gary marshall, the ace director says hooray for valentine s day, and i second the emotion. i d like to send a dozen of those to the best girl at my school for your wife? i m 10 years old. i m sorry. i didn t realize. reporter: in valentine s day, they wing hither and tither, the only archer in the world who can hit himself in the foot, as he does occasionally around these characters, but when cupid s arrows score, lovers quiver. you are the most special valentine i have ever had, but just don t tell the other kids we had a date in the bar. it s just a little inappropriate. the story stars stars beyond counting! okay, 18, but many are oscar winners, spinning in and out of love in this ronday of full hearts and empty hearts, broken hearts and open hearts and candy hearts and randy hearts and hearts of gold and hearts of cold. well, it s valentine s day. you don t think, you just do. it all stems from ashton kutcher s flower shop and then branches out. julia roberts, on a very secret journey, and her seatmate bradley cooper. why don t you go for the steward yes? she seems to like you. i think she likes everybody. that s her job. she looks over here every five seconds. no. five, four, three, two oh, there it is. when taylor lautner falls for taylor swift, it s a tailor-made romance! oh, my god, are you okay? yore still hot, baby. you re still hot! the highly polished shirley maclaine and equally polished nostalgic. it s not like i m going to sleep with one person for the rest of my life. that s just crazy. who does that? well, crazy people like us. we did. no. it s vivacious, smart, with verve and a little nerve. valentine s day is a smile riot. take someby you like to see it. come on, have a heart. and that s the critic s corner for today. al are you going to go? i really want to go. al, you ve got to get gene s hat. absolutely. i m going to get his hair, too. our time right now is 8:56, 31 degrees, just below freezing here in the nation s capital. good morning, i m joe krebs. you can see we have a lot of sunshine out there. another day, another day of cleanup here in the nation s capital. the federal government is running closed for the fourth day in a row. all local governments are closed as well. all local schools are closed. metro rail is not running today. dulles and bwi have reopened. many flights are still canceled reagan national remains closed. we re going to take a look at boss: hey, those gecko ringtones you put on our website are wonderful. people love em! gecko: yeah, thank you sir. turned out nice. boss: got another one for you. anncr: at geico.com, it s easy to get a free rate quote, manage your policy, make payments or even file a claim! boss: now that s a ringtone. gecko: uh yeah.it s interesting.. certainly not the worst ringtone i ve ever heard. ringtone lyrics: a-ringedy- ding-ding-dingy-dong, ringedy-dong-ding-ding. gecko (to himself): yeah, that might be the worst. anncr: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. temperatures are still below freezing, the latest wind gusts have been up around 30 miles an hour. later on today, it will diminish even more and then we ll have a few clouds around on friday. we reach mid 30s today and similar weather for saturday and sunday. for presidents day, it appears we may have some light snow late in the day with just light accumulation amounts the way it appears now. jerry how s the traffic? sunshine, a few chemicals and a lot of hard work, we re getting much improved. upper maryland county, up around all any, we re still see m zero some snow pack. we re still dealing with back now with more of today on this thursday morning, february 11th, 2010. welcome back to vancouver, where the olympic winter games will get under way with a spectacular opening ceremony tomorrow night. i m meredith vieira along with ann curry. matt is off today, getting ready to anchor the opening ceremony. al and hoda taking care of business back in new york. and natalie morales is about two hours north of our location, up on whistle whistler mountain. that will become one of the busiest olympic venues over the next 2 1/2 weeks. natalie, what do you have coming up? reporter: well, of course, meredith, the talk here is lindsey vo. everybody wondering whether or not she s going to be able to get out and practice today, and in fact, be able to compete this weekend when her events start. she, of course, is in contention for a possible five gold medals here. and due to that shin injury, she said it s one of the most painful injuries she has experienced in her career as a skier. so, we ll be giving you the very latest on her condition as well as checking out some of the action with some of the other athletes who have arrived here in whistler as well. meredith? all right, talie. i ll take it, and thanks so much. of course, one of the crowning moments of the opening ceremonies, the lighting of the olympic cauldron. the olympic torch is now inching its way closer to its destination with shania twain. even today our matt lauer is carrying it part of the way. and also part of that relay is canada s own ed robertson from the barenaked ladies. they ve been busy, too, with a new album called all in good time. ed, good morning. congratulations. nice to be here. thank you. you must have had a nice reaction when you hea you would be carrying well, you re not competing, so you thought maybe i should go ahead and do this. well, it was a double-edged sword, because it was nice to hear i was carrying the torch but a huge disappointment to find out i wasn t competing. you thought you were. yeah. i had been lobbying pretty heavily. i ve done a few demonstrations for it. what were you thinking about? well, i m trying to add shooting to more of the sports, because the biathlon is a big favorite of mine, so i m trying to add shooting to curling and figure skating. that s a nice touch. because you re a multipurpose kind of guy. you can do it all. i thought there wou be less subjective judging with guns around. i was going to ask you what people should know about canadians, but now i m afraid to. i think i got a taste of it. i m not happy this morning, meredith. canadians are aierce and fiery bunch. tempers will flair no, i m thinking of the italians. sorry. we re a very polite people. i think we re very welcoming, and i think it s in transition north of the border, you won t see much difference between canadians and people from minnesota or upstate new york. do you have a real sense of pride to have the olympics here? absolutely. yeah? you know, i grew up in canada and still call it my home, and we re all very proud to be hosting the world here. you said earlier before we started that this is such a nice place to live. it really is. it s a great place to live and it s a vast country. i don t know if you know, but victoria, just to the west of us, is further from st. johns, newfoundland, our east coast, than st. johns is from paris, france. oh, my goodness. so, that s how big this country is. and believe it or not, it s even taller than it is wide. he s good for facts, which is nice. absolutely. i ve got facts for days. you re also performing at a medals ceremonhere. you did that in salt lake as well. yes. meaningful, obviously. yeah, it s great. i mean, the salt lake games were a blast. we had such a good time there. oh, there i am in our canadian speed skating uniform, actually. so, you want to add that to the competition you want to do. do you want to do that? i haven t scoped out what the best uniforms at this olympic games are, but i hope be wearing whatever it is. needless to say, you ll be in a costume of sorts. we ll see. okay. something to look forward to. i really like the vancouver games mascots. oh, the sasquatch guy. maybe i ll be one of them, the sasquatch people. don t turn these games into that, really. so nice to have you here. congratulations. thank you for joining us this morning. thanks. now back to al and hoda in new york. thanks, guys. we ve got a lot coming up here in new york. we don t even have time to tell you how much we have, because hoda s got a check of the news for us. yes, i certainly do. all right, monumental snowfall is pushing people and plows to the limit today all along the east coast. schools reopened this morning in new york city, where children enjoyed their rare snow day on wednesday. snow squirreled through the canyons of manhattan with nearly a foot on the streets and sidewalks. they plowed that pretty quick. in philly, they broke the mark for a single winner. tom costello is in washington, d.c., where they re getting hit hard with a record-breaking blizzard ther how are you, tom? good morning, hoada. schools are still closed through this metro area. we have now broken the record for all-time snow in washington with more than 55 inches. baltimore did the same thing. and now, we ve got to dig out from all of this stuff. they called it snowpocalypse for a reason. from virginia through the mid-atlantic, up the east coast and into new york, a ferocious winter storm and a record-breaker along the way. for hours wednesday, d.c., maryland and virginia were blasted with one of the biggest winter storms in the region s history. i m kind of used to snow, but not this fast and not this quick. it s a lot of snow. reporter: washington s historic landmarks disappeared into a sea of white. midblizzard, the d.c. police chief went on tv, urging area residents to stay inside. the roads are treacherous, really. it s not even just the road conditions. it is the blowing, driving snow. reporter: even before this latest storm, roads, highways and bridges were crusted and glazed over with layers of ice from the weekend storm. now the national guard has brought out heavy equipment just to help emergency personnel get to work. in maryland, which got hammered with 30 inches of snow last weekend, another 10 to 20 inches have piled up. right now what we re most concerned about are roof collapses, power outages, public safety, vulnerable citizens, senior citizens and making sure that we save lives, protect lives. reporter: today, area airports are hoping to dig out and reopen after being closed and deserted wednesday, while state and federal government offices remain closed. digging out won t be easy. the snow has been piling up since friday night. trees are down, cars are buried, entire neighborhoods snowed in. it will take some time, but we will work as hard as humanly possible to have the city back up and running as quickly as humanly possible. all right, this is the walk to the subway, about half a mile. game on. reporter: the best way to get anywhere is to walk or use mass transit. and after two back-to-back storms i love it! this is the best. reporter: a lot of folks have developed a serious case of cabin fever. woo! reporter: which led to this massive snowball fight in the heart of d.c., a little city football, snow surfing and a hunt for the bare essentials. we realized we were missing two essentials this morning when we woke up, toilet paper and beer, so we ventured out down the street to the cvs here, which is open. reporter: now, the dig-out begins. you know you ve got your priorities straight when you re going for toilet paper and beer. listen, one other note. they re very concerned about roofs collapsing because of the weight of this snow. we ve had dozens of reports already, and i don t know if you can tell, but we ve already got 20, 30-mile-per-hour winds here that are blowing. hoda, back to you. all right, tom. stay warm. thanks. reports of protest in nuclear defiance today in iran. opposition websites said security forces clashed with protesters during a massive pro-government rally in tehran. president mahmoud ahmadinejad told the crowd iran is now a nuclear state because it produced its first batch of higher-grade atomic fuel. actor alec baldwin was taken by ambulance to a new york city hospital overnight, according to wnbc, after a relative called 911. the 30 rock star was examined, then released. a spokesman called it a misunderstanding and said baldwin is completely fine. officials in brazil said the pilot of a news helicopter performed heroically when his crippled aircraft spiraled to the ground wednesday. the pilot managed to steer away from homes and a busy highway and crash in a grassy area. he did not survive and his photographer was seriously injured. in new mexico, a suspected drunk driver tried to get away from police by going in reverse. the driver of this pickup truck apparently decided he had no chance in a high-speed chase, so he stopped and then backed up into a police suv three times, causing $8,000 in damage. the suspect was eventually caught and hit with his third dwi charge. it is now nine minutes after the hour. what kind of a moron does that? that s not good. anyway. oh, boy. you ve got a check of the weather. yes, i do. and as we talk about what s been going on with this big blizzard, this snowpocalypse, we re talking about travel still being affected. at least 1,300 canceled flights expected today. airports are going to be a mess. they scaled back amtrak service to basically weekend or holiday service. as far as the schools are concerned, we re talking about schools that are closed in baltimore,philadelphia, washington, d.c. they re open in new york and boston, the public schools, but some parochial schools and private schools are closed, or at least there are school delays. and talk about the cost of all of this. just getting rid of the snow in new york city, 1,600 plows, 4,200 workers. it costs an estimated $1 million to clear every inch of snow that falls. now, let s see what s going on down south. we ve got another snowstorm to talk about for our friendsn the south, from texas all the way to montgomery, alabama. we have winter weather advisories, winter storm warnings and winter storm watches, as a big low pressure system gets itself together. you can see snow in dallas right now. that s going to cause problems for airport delays. as you look at the path of the storm, comes out over the gulf, bringing rain and snow as far south as atlanta. we re talking about snow today. on into tonight. and the snowfall amounts generally going to be about one to three inches, but dallas could see anywhere from three to six inches of snow, and and thankfully that storm will n be affecting us, we ll have settled weather all the way through the weekend. and we have temperatures a little bit below freezing to near freezing 32 in washington, latest wind gusts are at 30 to 35, the peak gusts are way down from yesterday. and we ll have highs today reaching mid 30s. then tonight down into the teens by dawn tomorrow. diminished winds on friday, morning lows teens. could get some light accumulating snow on monday. announcer: today s countdown to vancouver is brought to you by walmart. save money. live better. walmart. this morning on today s countdown to vancouver, just one day to go. thousands of athletes from around the countries are gathering along with millions of fans with the eyes of the world upon them. absolutely. and all eyes are on american champion skier lindsey vonn and whether her shin injury will keep her from competing for five olympic gold medals. today national correspondent natalie morales is at whistler mountain with the latest on that and some of the other athletes we ll be watching. good morning, nat. hey, nat. reporter: good morning, again, al and hoda. yeah, i got to check out the action on the men s downhill as they were practicing yesterday. today s the women s turn, and the question is whether or not lindsey vonn will be able to put on those skis today. it s definitely not the place that i want to be. reporter: lindsey vonn is trying to keep her spirits up after the startling announcement that she hurt her leg while training last week, putting her shot at a possible five gold medals in jeopardy. i don t know how it s going to feel. i ve tried just putting my boot on in m hotel room and i can tell you it s excruciatingly painful. reporter: the 25-year-old skiing sensation says she s not giving up. i m just trying to focus on skiing well and skiing one day at a time, trying to win or get one medal of any color. reporter: vonn says she will try to practice later today. that could determine her future here in vancouver. while vonn recovers, other olympic hopefuls are hitting the slopes at whistler, including bode miller, looking for redemption from the disappointment of the 2006 olympics in torino. somehow manages to stay up and he is off the course. reporter: how are you feeling? are you feeling pretty confident? uh, all right. reporter: how does it feel this time around versus torino to be back? uh, it feels all right. you know, they re all ski races. i thought bode miller did pretty well. you could see that he was standing up and he was gliding into turns that he would probably be tucking into. he was only about a second behind, so i mean, he s right in the game. reporter: on the ice, apolo ohno is gearing up for his third olympics. the 27-year-old speed skater could become the most decorated american in the history of the winter games. as athletes like snowboarding star shaun white continue to arrive in vancouver, weather conditions on the east coast are keeping other olympians from getting to the games. u.s. olympic ice dancers tanith belbin and ben agosto are stuck in philadelphia, their flight canceled. they hope to make it to vancouver tomorrow night for the opening ceremony, now in its final run-through at bc place stadium. it s such a special thing. it only happens every four years for us, and being out there as a huge team unit, it s a lot of fun. reporter: and again, back here at whistler now, weather conditions could be a factor later on today. they re expecting a little bit of rain and even some snow, especially on that downhill course. so, that might determine whether or not lindsey vonn will even choose to take a chance at getting out there and making a run of it today. meantime, overnight, team usa also announced who the flag bearer will be. he is mark grimmette, a luger. it is his fifth olympics and it is only the fourth time that an american will be the flag bearer here. so, a great honor for him. al? that s pretty impressive. all right, natalie, thanks a lot. coming up, we re going to head back to vancouver to meet three high-flying legends. they re known as the golden girls of the halfpipe. but up next, an annual checkup for your relationship. we ll tell you about the six questions every couple should ask. [music playing] when you take away all the canned chicken broth that adds msg, one stands alone. the secret is swanson 100% natural chicken broth. i love hosting the holidays. but after all the rich, heavy food, i was irregular, so my friend recommended the activia challenge. and it worked. i don t know what i like better how it makes me feel. or the great taste. activia! whatcha doing, little bite? trying to be big like you, dad. you re so good at keeping everne full and focused with your fiber. but you already are great at doing that. really? sure! you re made with fiber just like me. but best of all, you re the perfect size for smaller kids. give your little ones kellogg s® frosted mini-wheats little bites™ cereal. in chocolate and now original flavor. they re an excellent source of fiber packed in a smaller size. oh, it s original little bite. we re off to practice keeping em full and focused. yeah, we ve got big shoes to fill. announcer: today s relationships is brought to you by hershey s bliss. it s not just chocolate, it s bliss. and this morning on today s relationships, is your marriage in good condition? just like going to the doctor or getting your car tuned up, valentine s day may be a good time to perform an annual checkup on your committed relationship. and according to a new study, there are six questions every couple should ask. dr. janet taylor is a psychiatrist and robi ludwig is a psychotherapist and contributor for care.com. good morning to both of you. good morning. good morning, al. tell us about this survey. 217 married couples. right. it was a rather small study, but it looked at an intervention as opposed to therapy, and essentially had an assessment where they talked to a therapist, but more importantly, looked at their strengths and weaknesses and learned some questions that can help. and what it proved was that the couples who did it versus couples that didn t participate in the intervention had increased intimacy, support and really felt like they had the capacity to improve. so, these questions, there are six questions. this is supposed to be news you can use. yes. and supposedly. well, if it s true feeling hopeful already! the first one, you re supposed to ask a basic, general question like how are we doing. mm-hmm. okay, what answer is that going to elicit that s going to help you? well, i guess you re checking in with your partner to find out how they feel about the relationship. and i think, too, it s a very loving thing to do, because when you re in a long-term relationship, it is very normal and common to say what about me, what have you done for me lately and to feel like the victim. so, when you ask this question, how are we doing, you re basically saying i m aware that i may have things i need to do in order to make the relationship stronger and it s telling your partner i want to hear what your thoughts are. and i like to call it a checkup from the neck up, because we forget how important communication is. we kind of take it for granted that couples naturally do it. now, i like this next question, because it s a positive, which is, what s good about our relationship now? yes. it s important to focus on positives, because as we know, it s that 5-1 rule one negative comment by a partner to another one or a spouse to a spouse can wipe out five positives. so, it s important to have a base where at least you can say, listen, honey, thanks for taking the trash out. now let s talk about why you didn t do it last week. is there a right time and also, our words are so important. and if you want to encourage your partner to behave correctly or continue doing the right things, the way to do that is to say i really love it when you bring me coffee. i really appreciate you for that. some guys just have a weird like, when you start asking these kinds of questions, there are a lot of men who immediately sort of a switch goes off. how are we doing, they go, oh, no, and they don t want to go there. can we talk? yeah, how do you keep that door open? it s important to understand this is not just a ra-ra time. it s hard for men and women sometimes to face hard questions, but you have to figure out the right time to do it. you don t want to do it right when the big game s coming on. right. and pay attention to when you communicate the best. so, pick your times. also, you say how can we work together on fill in the blank. mm-hmm. it s important to remember that marriage or any long-term relationship is a partnership. so, you have to work together towards your common goals, and you re not going to get to your final goals or your goals if you re not working together. so, it s highlighting that aspect. we re in this together. what can we do to make our dreams happen? really, if you don t work towards your dreams or don t believe in your dreams, you re going to lose hope, and that s when people g upset. i like the next one, too, guys. this is what do you need more of from me? that s a very generous question, i think. it is. it s creating this space saying i can accept your emotions, and again, really preparing each individual forhe fact that you may say something hard. you may say something hurtful, but we need to take it so that we can move on to something better. i think, too, when you re asking that kind of question, don t expect to hear nothing, you re perfect. right. you need to toughen up and say you know what, i m imperfect and i have to hear these things. this is an important one. when we disagree, how can we understand each other better? so, being able to resolve conflict and fight fair is critical, which means listening, being able to understand even when you may feel like you re not being understood, and just focusing on making sure that it s a two-way street. yeah. don t hit below the belt. here s the last one, an important one how satisfied are you with our physical intimacy? yes. which doesn t just include sexual activity, but it also means do we touch each other, do we cuddle and understanding that there are other aspects of intimacy. there s emotional intimacy. but certainly having that kind of physical intimacy is a critical part of a successful relationship. okay. all right, guys. yeah. when you have a good sex life, too, that s something unique to a marriage. so that s why it s so important to keep it healthy. thank you, robi, thank you, janet. this is based on a study commissioned by the national stud for health led b dr. james car dova. coming up, i have a special co-host with me. ms. kim kardashian will be in the house. she s a reality star, an entrepreneur. she s got perfume, shoes. she s got it all. and when they re laughing. you re laughing. be kind to your eyes. with transitions lenses. transitions adapt to changing light so you see your whole day comfortably. and conveniently while protecting your eyes from the sun. ask your eyecare professional which transitions lenses are right for you. so you ate lots of decadent rich food during the holidays. and i got irregular and sluggish. then you took the activia challenge. activia! honestly, i had my doubts. but activia really works, i can feel the difference! oh, good! help get your system back on track! activia with bifidus regularis helps regulate your digestive system in two weeks. you re convinced! i ll be treating myself to activia every morning. mmmm! take the activia challenge now. it works, or your money back! activia the sparkly flakes. the honey-baked bunches! the magic s in the mix. my favorite part? eating it. honey bunches of oats. taste the joy we put in every spoonful. coming up, we re going to head back to vancouver and meet three close friends who are also fierce snowboarding competitors. plus, cupcakes for your cupcake this valentine s day. we ll get decorating. it s this new wish yourself thin program. i just wish it and it happens. it s probably those fiber one bars you re eating. i know they help me stick to my diet. the bars are 90 calories and the fiber helps you feel full. 90 calories and high fiber. so that s why this diet thing is working. but it s weird because my wish for lorenzo came true. [ male announcer ] new fiber one 90 calorie bars. hungry no. results yes. good morning, it s the day after the big storm that pounded our region yesterday. i m meteorologist tom kiron. a live picture of reagan national airport that received almost 11 inches of snow there yesterday, and now time to dig out and finally a respite from the really terrible winter weather we have had in the last few days. right now it s near freezing in washington. we re in the upper 20s to near 30 degrees. the winds are still a bit blustery, but not nearly those howling winds we had yesterday. but we re seeing gusts at 30 to 35 miles an hour. later on today, lots of sunshine, just maybe a few clouds in the shenandoah valley and in the mountains. partly cloudy friday, saturday and sunday. we re going to take a quick break and we ll have your all the left over snow is still making it rough on the roads. the sunshine and tell kls and a lot of hard work, things are improving, but a long way to go. this is new york avenue, capitol street, things are clearly sloppy and we have a lot of people walking on the sidewalk when they re out and about. elsewhere over in virginia, this is interstate 66, much, much better, the shaded areas have the potential to be very, very slick. watch out for work crews, they are keeping busy. we ll be back for another you re looking ativan coffer and the bc place, the stadium that will be home to the opening ceremony of the 21st olympic winter games tomorrow night. 2 1/2-hour extravaganza will be the first one held inside with a reported 4,500 performers and will feature a moving parade of nations, when all the athletes march in beh in behind their fl. we re going to have a preview tomorrow on today. of course, along with matt lauer, along with bob costas, who will be hosting. i m al roker along with hoda kotb and our good pal kevin tibbles is in vancouver, where competition is about to heat up, especially for three snowboarding icons, right, kev? reporter: absolutely right. now, got a little bit of good news. it s actually snowing here, which is a bit of a shocker for the people who have been putting up with all the rain and fog out here. good notes for those people who want to be doing the snowboarding on nearby cypress mountain as well. you know, we spent quite a bit of time with the golden girls of the halfpipe over the past few weeks, gretchen bleiler, kelly clark and hannah teter, and you know, when they get to the top of that halfpipe, they are the fiercest competitors you d ever want to meet, but off the halfpipe, they happen to be very good friends. some have even been bridesmaids in the others weddings. and they re good friends, good competitors and great supporters of one another and we re going to be meeting them in just a little bit, al and hoda. all right, kevin. thank you so much. speaking of women who are really good at what they do, back here in new york we have a champion baker in the house, bobbie lloyd from the terrific famous bakery called magnolia bakery, known for its cupcakes. they re in new york and they just opened a branch in dubai, and soon in l.a. this morning she ll give us some valentine s decorating tips. those are the best those look like red velvet. with the cream cheese frosting. oh, bring it here. okay, before all that, how about a check of the weather? okay, thanks, hoda. as we look as far as the weekend is concerned, we ve got sunshine through the gulf coast, windy conditions in the northeast. we re going to have rain in the pacific northwest, sunny and mild in the southwest, frigid conditions in the plains. then sunday, sunday, we re looking at clouds and wind in the northeast. expect mild conditions in the southwest. more rain and wet weather, windy weather in the pacific northwest, snow showers through we can relish our reprieve from the big snow. today s temperatures should make it into the mid 30s. we have lots of sunshine, a few clouds over the mountains. friday, saturday and sunday, we ll have clouds in and out each day, highs in the low 30s. presidents day, there s a chance of some light snow accumulating later in the day. and that s your latest weather. all right, al, thank you so much. coming up next, three fierce women who are flying high at the olympics, right after this. are you sure? definitely, it s my treat. whatever you want grandpa, as much as you want. grandpa (chuckling): ok. vo: try our new handmade pansottis. pyramid ravioli with chicken in a portobello alfredo sauce. or with grilled sausage in tomato alfredo. starting at $10.95. at olive garden. 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yeah. reporter: hey, well, i spent a lot of time with them, and that s a good thing for me, because these three women are among the fiercest competitors at the olympics, but off the halfpi halfpipe, they are the best of friends and each other s biggest supporters. they are the high fliers, that s for sure. three american snowboarding icons as familiar with the podium as the daunting halfpipes they dominate. unbelievable! reporter: for gretchen bleiler, kelly clark and hannah teter, success comes from friendship, not in spite of it. i think what s cool about snowboarding is it s a very supportive sport, where we travel around the world together, compete together, train together, we eat together. reporter: at just 23, vermont s hannah teter hails from a maple syrup-making family of snowboarding fanatics. teter won gold in torino. four older brothers, always trying to keep up with them, always on their tail. i m always like, yeah, yeah, you know, go play with your barbies, and i was like, no, i want to go, too! kelly clark goes big. rorter: kelly clark won gold at just 18 years of age at salt lake in 2002. kelly clark has done it! reporter: just ten years after starting up a snowboarding club at her elementary school. a momentous occasion for clark and america. it s been fun to be part of the spor that s progressing. you know, i really hope that wherever i leave off in the sport, that my ceiling is really next generation floor. reporter: gretchen bleiler is one of the most accomplished riders in the world, taking the x games title for the fourth time just last month, edging out kelly clark. she won silver in torino and she is the sport s covergirl. her big trick, something called the combo crippler 720, whatever that means. it s sothin that combo crippler 720 to cab 720 is what i ve been working on all summer and fall, and just perfecting it, making sure that it s big and fluid, strong. bleiler goe ballistic! reporter: when you nail it, what do you say? i mean, do you say i nailed it ? you must say something other than i nailed it, right? i don t say anything because i m not done with my run yet. oh, you still have to do a couple more? yeah. reporter: that whole notion of all for one and one for all certainly works for the three musketeers, so why not for this american trio of halfpipe golden girls? when i see these girls land great runs it makes me want to be a better snowboarder. it s just a really unique thing that i don t think happens in a lot of sports, and it s a really wonderful thing to be part of. reporter: such close friends that gretchen asked kelly, her roommate on the road, to be a bride s maid at her 2008 wedding. off the slopes, gretchen bleiler adds her artistic flair to a design of outerwear. it s feminine, it s bold, it s flattering, it s sophisticated, but it s also edgy and fun. reporter: but it s on the mountain where this trio s real artistry comes alive. hannah teter lands that clean with the grab! reporter: so, they say you re big on amplitude. what the heck does that mean? what the heck does amplitude mean? reporter: is that an electric thing? what is that? no, amplitude is just going high and up in the sky, you know, like up there. reporter: up there. up there, where you have to look up to see where they are. so, that s what i like to do is reporter: way up. is make people go, oh, there she is, oh! that s kind of my thing. there goes my hero reporter: what s it like to fly? it feels so good. you know, the mind s quiet, everything just seems so amazing, you know, because you re just up in the air. reporter: taking a high-flying sport to brand new heights together, and who knows, maybe sweeping the podium along the way. so, they had gretchen s jump there, the cripple tripler 720 720. like the 3,000. reporter: yeah, i went up there, too, i invented my own. it was called the cripple tibbler. hey, kevin, do they call you tibbs? is that what they call you outside reporter: yeah. i ve never heard it before. they call him mr. tibbs. reporter: they do. kevin tibbles, thanks so much. bye. hey, i like the vancouver swag you re sporting. very nice. coming up, valentine s cupcak decorations from one of the country s top bakers, right after these messages. my family, while i was building my life, my high cholesterol was contributing to plaque buildup in my arteries. that s why my doctor prescribed crestor. she said plaque buildup in arteries is a real reason to lower cholesterol. and that along with diet, crestor does more an lower bad cholesterol, it raises good. crestor is also proven to slow the buildup of plaque in arteries. crestor isn t for everyone, like people with liver disease, or women who are nursing, pregnant, or may become pregnant. simple blood tests will check for liver problems. you should tell your doctor about other medicines you are taking, or if you have muscle pain or weakness. that could be a sign of serious side effects. while you ve been building your life, plaque may have been building in your arteries. find out more about slowing the buildup of plaque at crestor.com. then ask your doctor if it s time for crestor. announcer: if you can t afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. 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[ female announcer ] ask your rheumatologist about simponi™. just one dose, once a month. fact: your child could pick up the flu virus from surfaces. lysol disinfectant spray kills cold & flu viruses, including h1n1. lysol is the number one pediatrician recommended brand. lysol. disinfectant to protect. i love hosting the holidays. but after all the rich, heavy food, i was irregular, so my friend recommended the activia challenge. and it worked. i don t know what i like better how it makes me feel. or the great taste. activia! and they can without even trying. caprisun 100% juice is a full serving of fruit and no added sugar. so your kids get 100% goodness in the pouch they love. caprisun 100% juice. i can respect that. i said, daddy, of course. he said, no, no, no. day doesn t count. you know, your valentine is who you want to sit by, who you get in trouble with, who you tell your secrets to, who you play with at recess. i said, well, that s daddy, too. this valentine s day, wouldn t your valentine. like to know how you feel? give them a refreshingly real card from hallmark. this mning on today s kitchen, nothing says i love you like a cupcake, and you want to make sure they are perfect for your valentine. so, here with creator decorating tips, hot chef bobbie lloyd, president and chief baking officer for magnolia bakery here in new york. bobbie, good to see you. hey, bobbie! hey, hoda and al. nice to see you again. these are such famous cupcakes. are you going to give up the recipe? well, we ll give up the buttercream recipe. this is one of the recipes you cannot mess up, as long as you follow the basic ingredients, but you can kind of play around with the consistency. so, you start out with two sticks of butter and you whip it probably for three or four minutes, until it gets light and fluffy. then you start adding your sugar. confectionary sugar. do you want us to put that in there? carefully. carefully, though. very gently, al, d t you worry. we generally do one cup at a time. there are a couple of tricks that at home that s good! good job. to avoid the burst of sugar cloud, i put paper towels over my mixer. so, once you get all your sugar in there and you mix it up, you add a little bit of milk. oh, milk, okay. this is where you have the opportunity to change the texture as you please. if you like it smoother, you can add more milk. if you like it a little drier. and of course is that it? vanilla. that s it. that s it! butter sugar, and you mix it like crazy for about five minutes and there is your end product. to me, frosting s the best part of the product. it s like the dessert of the dessert. you know, there are people who come in just for the icing. really? they don t want the cupcake. they want a little icing shot. i m going to come on the other side of you. this is the finished product. we refer to it as icing, but frosting. so, today, the first one we re going to do is the cupcake for your significant other. oh, look at our cupcake. a. aww, cute. like in high school. hoda and al. so, pastry technique. this is really fun. filling up your pastry bag. you take a little scoop and push it down to the bottom. i ve already set up your bags for you, so i ll give you a quick demo. al, there s yours. there s your cupcake. okay. so, it s a good idea to practice on your counter before doing ur cupcake. you want to have firm pressure are you righties, lefties? righty. righty. firm pressure on your right hand, press it tight and squeeze with your left hand. it s not a bad idea to practice on the bottom. xo, maybe. look how cute. aww, that s cute. we re ready. let s do it. you can do anything from simple to sassy. you know, get creative. not a bad technique, al. you ve got the pssure down. martha stewart told us to squeeze with only one hand. exactly. hold firmly with the right hand, squeeze with the left. that was easy! look, al, i heart you. perfect. you ve got that technique down. and these are for your significant other. and you can put sprinkles or whatever you like on them? we kind of leave these plain. this is chocolate chocolate because who doesn t like chocolate? and it s an aphrodisiac. is this red velvet? this is the best ever. this is butter cream icing. there are a couple ways to do this and i decided to simplify it. we re going to try it with a pastry bag today. i m going to grab this one. okay. it s much easier just to sort of take that in your firm right hand and squeeze with your left hand and you just kind of plop it a few times. that sind of the mister softee version. that s mister softee. then what do you do? then you get to finish it with your icing, and it s so much easier to do that than to start with the icing one. and just tap it down and give it a little twirl at the end. ooh. that s cute. so much easier. so, let s try. and you can get crazy with the icing. good technique, al. all right. ooh, beautiful. okay. then you can try your icing wand. there s one over here. okay, thank you. we ve got about a minute, so i think we re doing all right, right? now, these are the cupcakes for friends. the red velvet is probably one of the most elegant cupcakes i think you can serve. and w try to keep it simple. terrible. this is a spackling mood. you can hide your mistakes with sprinkles. kids, cupcakes, it s all about the fun. al s got the technique down. kids love sprinkles. do anything on them. just go crazy. just go nuts. we have picks. there s your finished product. we have the sugar decons. kids love icing. the more the better. a couple things they could do there. many options for icing cupcakes. bobbie, you have the best cupcakes. you just opened in dubai and you said it was a huge hit, right? huge hit in dubai. they went crazy. screaming fans. and l.a., too. grand central next week. oh, all right! choo-choo. bobbie, happy valentine s day. all right, so, all this sw has kept you kind of trapped in new york, and i know they re dying for you to come out to vancouver, so what are your travel plans? i m going to try to get out this afternoon. we ll see what happens. because the airports are still snarly, right? i mean, the airports are open, but a lot of the airlines have canceled flights. as we said earlier, 1,300 flights canceled just for today alone. so, we ll see what happens. okay. the opening ceremony is one of the most important parts of the olympics. we have athletes from 80 countries. tomorrow, the world premier of the we are the world video to raise money for victims of haiti s earthquake. it was recorded earlier this month in the same studio used for the original song 25 years ago. wow. i can t wait to hear the song and i can t wait to see the opening. wouldn t you be intimidated? i know. because after beijing, you re probably wringing your hands thinking what can we do? unbelievable. you have a special co-host today? i do. kim kardashian is on the way as we speak. i think she ll make it in time for the opening of the show. she d better. our time right now is 9:56, we have 31 degrees out there on this february 11, 2010. the blizzard is gone, but the mess it left behind is pretstil with us. flights in and out of both airports have been canceled. you re seeing a live picture of reagan. they do hope to open it up a little later on today. if you have a flight out of town from washington, you should definitely call your airline before you head to the aport today. here s meteorologist tom kiron. we re getting a breather between now and the weekend. temperatures right near the freezing mark and now near 32 and now just getting near freezing. latest wind gusts around peak from 30 to 32. they will continue to diminish as the day progresses. perhaps farther to our west, partly cloudy tomorrow, saturday and sunday. yes on monday, there is a chance for so accumulating snow, here the early indications are there will just be some light accumulati accumulations. the scene that s been played out all over the area, snow removal operations with only one lane getting by. more shaded areas like the districts like 21st and kay, it will take some time for the chemicals to get to work. m captions paid for by nbc-universal television hey, everybody, it is thursday, february 11th, 2010. guess who s with me, kim kardashian. it s not kathie lee today. no, kathie lee is in florida. i m sure she s bummed because she s missing the show with you because she s close with your family. how are you doing? good. i keep missing her. this keeps happening and we re concerned. i think it s on purpose. we re doing this for our okay, not okay segment. kim, are you in this one? i don t know. where is it? where did it go? seem to find it first. it s on right here, t cover. we can go over that. she s on the cover. there it is. kim is en here with our boyfriend, reggiebush, and the caption on the front is kim s big wedding news. so, why don t we just address that while we re here? what wedding news? what is that? i ve never once spoken about it. i think there s some weird bet, they asked me what i wanted in 2010, what my dreams were and i couldn t think anything and they said what about a super bowl what about a ring for you? and i said no, i would love a super bowl ring for reggie and they said after he gets that we can talk about yours and you laughed. and i said sure. and it turned into this. now that he has the ring, everyone s asking. how serious is the thing with you and reggie? we ve been together for over three years. it s very serious. we re very much in love and but we re taking our time, you know. good. we re in our 2s. i ve been married before. i don t want to make any more mistakes. it s always like this pressure of, okay, kim is pressuring him or this all these stories and rumors. i think we ve been engaged maybe 65 times. is there pressure because one of your sisters is married, the other one has a baby, is there a pressure to like get moving in that department? not really. i think we all kind of do things, you know, at our own pace. and we just have the best relationship. worry having so much fun. i think we re just going to have a real fun off-season. this season for him, i was in new orleans the majority of the time, being with him, supporting him. now it s his off season. i m going back to work. he s going to travel with me, support me. it s just we re having fun. that super bowl, i saw you in the box with your mom. yes. cheering for your honey. yes. what was it like because i know you were on the field together, and that s where that photo was taken. what was it like being with him after the super bowl? we had made plans every player got a certain amount of passes for their friends and family to get on the field. so, fourth quarter came and me and one of the wives, we were like, okay, should we go down? the game s getting close. we head down. we re in the little tunnel and we couldn t see the game and we thought, okay, we might tie this. we were in the lead. then we got that interception. that was unbelievable. we heard everyone screaming and we started jumping and screaming. it was so cool. we ran out on the field and reggie s parents came out. it s just it was just such a surreal moment. reggie is so beloved in new orleans. i don t know if everyone we all know you and i think we kind of know reggie, but his personality, he is such like a gentleuy, too, isn t he? he is really is. he s really quiet. i was looking at some of these obviously they re tabloid magazines and some of them said reggie was so upset after the super bowl, kim stole his shine because she was out there. i was like every other wife was out there, too, his family, every family. he was more of a shy person. he was exhausted later that night, had to do interview after interview and some pictures, they saw us going in somewhere and he wasn t smiling. i was like, if you only knew, that s just reggie. we had the time of our lives. i m glad that people are getting to know him and he s opening up a bit. even on my show, people see him. he s quiet. he s so quiet. that s just his personality. do you like doing that show? i love it. come on. getting paid to wake up and work with my family every day. there are nine of you. you re one of nine tent? bruce has four, my mom had has four and they have two together. so ten. what s it like to be part of that family? it s all we know. i couldn t imagine a holiday, christmas, thanksgiving without having so many siblings. i m excited that kourtney got started in giving my mom her first grandbaby. mom s been bugging everyone else. is everything oohing and ahhing? yes. mason is the best baby, never cries. sleeps like he s just the best baby so i m obsessed with him. i make kourtney send me pictures every single day of him when i m gone. i just hate being away from him. he really lis me, i think, the best. does he? i m not going to tell that to the rest of the other nine. i was on my twitter page and people were asking a lot of questions about things they wanted to ask you. a lot of them want to know about your diet. what do you eat you stay in good shape. you know, you look good. what is it that you eat and do to maintain? eating is definitely a little more tricky for me. i have spent a lot of time in new orleans. the food there is so good, it drives me crazy. what s your favorite? calfy dumond. it s so hard. thank god i have quick trim and stay on some kind of balance and not overeat. i do loveood so much. is that you in the quick trim picture? yes. that is you? do they air brush or anything? probably for color tones or stuff but i definitely put up some pictures from that shoot when i wasn t not retouched. i work out really hard, too. i m working on the eating better. that s the last thing that will kick in. what does the quick trim do? what is it? it s a pill or it s a supplement. there is a liquid that s a 48-hour cleanse. it s harder for me to take, you know do a cleanse that s all liquid. i love food. so, i do leak to eat. there is a supplement you take rning and night and gives you energy and just kind of suppresses your appetite and helps you, definitely, tone up and just for me, it curbs my cravings. you have a sweet tooth. i do. what s your thing? anything from orios to bignettes to anything. the best cupcakes upstairs. and it s valentine s day. i know. i heard krispy kreme has heart-shaped donuts. oh, no. yeah. you have a shoe line. what don t you do? tell us about these shoes. wind pump, a special shoe we re featuring this month where the proceeds go for women and heart disease. every month we had a breast cancer shoe and shoedazzle.com is an online site like a shoe society. you join. it s $39.95 a month. you get your own personal shoe stylist every month. i have a pair of shoes for you. you ? these are too small for me. we definitely have your size right here. adorable. those are cute. those are cute. there s that red dress fashion so i m walking in tonight and so i mean, these are a perfect fit for that. i love these. are they comfortable? valentine s day. they re so comfortable, yeah. i want to get to some ofhe other stuff. my fragrance, sephora. i pride myself on never missing anything. and i was snowed in, my flight was canceled. i drove from i flew from new orleans to atlanta to boston, drove here from boston. i missed my sephora in-store appearance but i will be there monday the 15th here in new york city. will you squirt me? yeah. ooh, this bottle is tight. there we go! these are brand new, so thank you. okay. did you pick the fragrance? i completely made this fragrance. from top to bottom. ooh. oh. i tortured the perfume house here in new york city. i wanted it perfect. i made 35 different changes. that smells terrific. i designed the bottle. we have a little roller bottle that s really good for your purse to have a little roller. really convenient. i love it. you have the shoes, perfume and a clothing line. there s a lot going on. what s the clothing line story? here, have a sip just because we re here. i m not a big drinker. just a tiny sip. mmm. tell me about your clothing line. nice. kourtney, khlo e and i are designing for five seasons, the line is so cool. it s like edgy, but feminine and sexy. i m so proud of it. i m so excited that it s finally out. it seems like everything in your life you re doing so many big things. is there some stuff you keep private? of course. yeah. i definitely think that i m taking other steps. like i just my first show that i m executive producing a special on e called the spindestry. i m behind the scenes and get to executive produce. i m finding projects that i can do and be attached to that i m not front and center. i love designing. i love i m the chief stylist of the site for shoe dazzle and i love working so hard on these projects and then seeing them come to light and just letting other people enjoy them. cool. i know some of our facebook fans have questions for miss kardashian. one of the questions was the exercise. what exactly do you do? do you work out with a trainer or do you yeah, i work out working out to me, i actually really enjoy it. it s something i love to do, even with my boyfriend. we love to i just love working out. i work out with a trainer. when you re on the road, it s really tough. for my fitness dvds, fit in your jeans by friday, they taught me different exercises you can do in your hotel room, squats, lunges using chairs. have you done yoga? no. i did that once, it was so hot and i fell asleep. i haven t been back since kim will be with us through the entire hour. we ll take more questions a little later. up next do you have the millionaire matchmaker? yes. she s here, she ll talk to us and answer some of your le questions and she ll tell us all about it after this. as a third generation matchmaker, patty steinger can be called a four-star general in cupid s army. patty has no problem telling it like it is to their big-buck clients as she transforms them from ego maniacs to best dates. let s take a look. i looked at the video, the first thing that popped out at me is that you have ageism. did i just hit a nerve? no, not at all. what age was your last girlfriend? my last girlfriend was almost 25. 25, 47. rupert goes out and picks a 25-year-old? how l.a. cliche can you get? patty, it s so good to see you again. hi. you tell it like it is. you don t mess around with these clients, do you? i don t have time. you have to get to the point. they re paying me big buck, they expect service. why is it that some of these people seem so difficult? you re trying to help them and they don t want to change at all. rich or poor, it doesn t really matter right now. there s 110 million single people in the united states. and everybody has become kind of picky and narcissistic. it s a disposable society right now. it really is. it s really tough to, you know, once you find the one to you recently got engaged. yes, thank you. congratulations. you re next. you re next. yeah. so, i know you were getting criticism earlier, how can you help me fix it when you haven t even been able to set it up yourself? tell us, that s all changed. i was like kim. it will happen when it happens. i was with him six years. the first year was like i want to get engaged and i kind of let it go, worked on my business and let my business explode and he sidedoored me. it happens when you least expect it. totally agree with her on that. we have people that have questions for you. let s go to our very first question. let s take a listen. hi, patti. my name is holly from long island. my question for you is, what do you suggest is a good way to meet somebodyif you re not really into the bar scene, kind of over it, and i m not really into online dating. i tried it but i m looking to et somebody compatible with me and someone that s fun. that s a good question. where do you go? you don t have to do online dating though it s a great way to meet somebody outside your little pool of people. i m a big fan of hobbies, interest. you like to ski, go skiing. i agree. online dating freaks me out a little bit. why? i don t know. i ve never done it, but you re a private person. you probably wouldn t want everyone knowing all your information. if you re a private person and you want t meet them on the down low, find hobbies and interests that float your boat. wine tastings. guys love wine. golf, guys love golf. find what makes you happy and then join an organization. where do you think is a great place to meet people? first of all i meet so many girls who meet a guy when they re not even looking for one at the grocery store, book store, running out to go get coffee. i think those - even airplanes. airplanes are good. the best way. you ve got to smile. look at that smile. you do. that s true. that s your calling card. or you look cranky. we ve got another question. let s listen, patti. hi. my name is ed from melbourne, australia. my question for you, patti, is when a date has goneell, how long should i wait before i call the girl for a second date? love australia, those men are hunter types, not like here in l.a. find it if there s interest. at the end of the date, if she s leaning in, very interested in conversation, if she wants to extend the date, now you got the cue call. you call the next day. the next day? the next day or ask at the end of the date also for the next date. we don t like to play games. no. call us, asap. your show is awesome. thank you. i wish you best of luck with this next season. thank you. catch the mill air matchmaker tuesday nights 10:00 central on bravo. foods that enhance the romance. find out what s sexy and what s not, right after this. and we are back with food that is put you in the mood just in time for valentine s day. we re talking about those incredible edibles, no matter what you re putting them on, like whipped cream and honey. oh, lord. madelyn fernstrom is here to test us. we ve got a game. i heard you re very competitive. i am. press your buzzers. everyone gets one answer. i will let somebody else answer if the answer is wrong. pay attention to these questions. we re ready. first one, we all love chocolate on valentine s day. two popular kinds of things, chocolate truffles and chocolate-covered strawberries. here is the issue, how many chocolate-covered strawberries could you eat for the amount of fat in these four truffles? is it seven, 13 or 17 strawberries? they worked a minute ago. buzz. hoda seven, 13 or 17? 13. you re right. nice! oh, my gosh. all these strawberries are the same fat of those truffles. can i split them with you? those are my favorite things. we ll save these for you at the end. eating oysters is often recommend ed to put you in the mood. while nutrient rich they also have a slippery texture. we re not sure whether it s biology or behavior that makes you like them. here is a plate of fried oysters and a plate of raw oysters. how many calories would you save if you ate the raw oysters instead of the fried? are you saving 150, 200 or 250 calories? kim? 250. you are right. oh. and 19 grams of fat. okay. she can play. raw oysters it is, this valentine s day. on red wine. everybody s favorite, whether it s the antioxidants or something else, who cares? it s a popular after row deesh yack food. five ounces of wine. how far would you have to walk to burn off this glass of wine? one mile, two miles or three miles? hoda? i m going to go with two miles. ooh, wrong answer. do it. kim, you get a chance. one or three? i ll say one. okay. i m not a big drinker. what s happening, hoda? i don t know. what s happening? this one is tough. honey and sugar. funny, honey, in the word honeymoon, an aphrodesiac for centuries. if you had a tablespoon of honey and tablespoon of sugar, does a tablespoon of honey have less, the same or more calories than a tablespoon of table sugar? hoda? honey has more than sugar. honey does have more. 2-2, we re tied. sugar has 44. good for you. okay, we re tied. now on to fruit, a suggestive shape, taste or texture, who cares but here are three popular aphrodesiac fruits. medium banana, half an avocado and five dry small figs. one of these has 100 calories. which one is it? kim? the figs. nope. hoda, you get an answer. the banana. you re right. oh, man. good guess. you win. 150, 160 for the two others. now we re on to some smells that women like, okay? this is sothing that in a study, we took a look at a couple of things. we didn t. other studies did. was it licorice or raspberries that was a romantic smell for women? which one? kim. do it. licorice. that s right. we only have time for one more. here it is. smells for men, butter, popcorn or pizza? pizza. no. ahh. butter popcorn. let s do one more quick. we ve got time. last one. fat free or regular whipped cream and this whole can, how many calories would you save, 600, 900 or 1,200 if you use the fat free? hoda? 600. you re right. you won. you ll have a more sexy valentine s than me. what do i get? we re back on this thursday with more of today and our friend, kim kardashian, is filling in for kathie lee, who is enjoying a romantic valentine s getaway with her husband, frank. according to kathie, valentine s and romance doesn t always go together when it comes to frank and his gift-giving skills. exactly. she decided to turn to victoria s secrets so frank could pick out a good gift. i m not leaving anything to chance this year. oh, good, your ears were burning. i m not going to leave anything to chance this year. what do you mean by that? i had to take them back and never wanted to hurt your feelings. the best thing to do, these two ladies are fabulous and they re going to help you. two old ladies? i didn t say they re old ladies. they re ladies that know what other women like. i just think you need a little help, honey. hello. hello, frank. how are you? i m doutzen. you ve got to be kidding me. candice. you re my personal shoppers? we spoke with kathie and heard you need a little help with valentine s day. here we are. i m sure you can help. she likes chocolate, i know that. how about one of these? maybe we should personalize it a little tle bit. that s why we re here. that s good. that is ne. she really likes wine. she and hoda drink wine all the time. we have chocolates with champagne. cheers, my darling friend. sounds great to me. chocolate and champagne, perfect. she will be a happy woman. oh, bubbles. i think everyone should try. yeah, good. it looks great. i think she ll be very happy. with a little vodka on it. oh, she loves roses. every woman loves roses for valentine s day. but look at all the beautiful flowers in the store. come up with something more creative. what does kathie lee like? exotic? i wouldn t call her exotic. is she more shy and demure? shy, demure, forget it. losing it! losing it! she s special. what a great halloween theme. let s go for or kids. every or k every orchid is special. how much is it? welcome to our home away from home. this is where the fun begins, frank. wow! andhis is where we ll find the best present, i think, for kathie. the best way to figure out what you like is to have a fashion show, frank. my own personal fashion show? yes. let s get it on! this is our temptress look. would kathie lee like this, do you think? i would like her in it. this is more of a romantic look. it s more like an around the house look. this bra actually adds two cup sizes it. i ll take a few dozen of those. so, frank, we ve made a decision for you. it seemed like you liked everything, so we decided you have to take it all. oh, thank you. and it s a whole new world for me. thank you. thank you, frank. thank you. i ve got my flowers, my chocolates and i got my lingerie, my little guy. i think it s miller time. oh, and look who s here with us, the lovebirds who figured out skype. hi, kath, hi, frank. hi. and hi, kim. believe me, i don t mean to be gone every time you re there, honey. but you are. i don t know what i did. i miss you. miss you, too, honey. you look gorgeous. hoda, how are you, darling? i m great. we are just laughing at that piece. that was hilarious. did frank really bring all that stuff home to you? uh, no. i got nothing. he gave me a cold. that s what i have. stop. what are you guys going to do for valentine s day. what? what are you guys going to do for valentine s day? we re going to be flying back to new york that day, so we ll probably have to celebrate the night before. we re down here to do a fund-raising gala and cody flew in from california, and he sick as a dog. i could have stayed home in a blizzard, you know. after looking at that piece, i may walk home. you are genius in that piece. it was hysterical. he has never been happier. kath, hurry home. we miss you. bye, frank. kim, congratulations to reggie on such a spectacular win on super bowl sunday. thank you. everybody sends their love to you both. bye. bye! we also wan to thank those sexy shoppers from victoria s secret, do utzen and candice swanepole. coming up next, how to deal with those awkward situations when you really want to return your husband s gift. if the dead of winter has you snow blowing your way into a fight with your neighbor, you are not alone. filled with awkward situations, whether a spat with a girlfriend or a co-worker. philip galonos is here with help. you guys were so good together last time. we needed an encore performance. happy to be back. this is that time of year when things can get tricky. dicey. why is that? people have such high expectations, i think. and we ve been indoors for like eight weeks solid and we re getting on each other s nerves. it s time. we have questions people want to ask. the first one comes from this woman and she says how no, from a guy. how soon after valentine s day can i dump my longtime girlfriend? that is not nice. that is not nice. that guy is what a question. he is confusing valentine s day with like groundhog s day, like if your girlfriend comes outdoors and sees her shadow he has to stick with her for six weeks or something like that. the respectful way to end a relationship, especially with a long-term partner, is to when it s not working, you have to start being honest. don t do it on the day she s going in to have her gallbladder removed but otherwise probably should have happened already is the thing. totally. at least there s a conscious awareness that i won t do it on valentine s day because that s a marker for life. don t do it that day. maybe not the next day, but more for me, it is don t lie on valentine s day like you re the best thing in my life. still get something? be friendly. this guy has already decided to dump. dump is the word. dump, it s done. it s over. yeah. so, pick a day soon after, not that day. and don t overdo it on valentine s day. be honest and loving. you don t have to be mean. especially with the long-timers. we have another one, i think. coming from anonymous. i m getting ready to return to a job in which i had issues with a co-worker. how should i handle the situation when i go back? should i shrug it off or go talk to the person about it? that can can get tricky. line them up and shoot them between the eyes. of course, you know that i don t mean that. yes, you do. i don t mean that. yes, you do. the best thing to do is be on the offensive. go back with strength. so, go back, approach the person, say, let s start over. i m starting over here, let s start over. let s put whatever our issues were aside and decide that we can be professional together. don t think so? depending on what the issue is. well, yeah. if somebody has taken someone s yogurt from the communicatal fridge, fine. if the issue is something really serious, i think to keep maybe a little respectful distance, but to try extra hard to be nice around this person. i m terrible at conflic me, too. i m terrible at confrontation. you re hiding under the desk? that s why i like it. most people are terrible at confrontation. if you think of it as approaching rather than confronting, you know you had an issue. i don t care what the if it s the yogurt, put your name on the yogurt. if it s a bigger issue, you don t necessarily have to address what the issue is, but you address the fact that you re back together. we don t have to love each other but let s be respectful. when you have a conflict with somebody, do you go up and say let s discuss this or do you try to let it die on the vine and go away? i typically try to let it go away. i don t like confrontation. i used to get very nervous just bringing up an uncomfortable situation but now i think that after, you know, thinking it through, i would definitely say something and say, hey, look, we re going to not agree on this. it s very awkward for us both to be here but let s just get over it. especially in situations where we spend more time with our co-workers. exactly. than we do with our husbands anwives and friends. you ve got to find a way to coexist. and you want to be in a point of strength. if you don t say anything, you could be walking by the person, holding your breath. eggshells. you don t want to be like that. you want to be strong in this. which is true for this gal, too. she s not back at the job and is already worried about going back and what it s going to be like with this lady. do we have time for one more? we ve got to . oh, no. well, you know you ll be back. valentine s day we re a team but for valentine s day for all of your viewers, do something nice and honest for your partner. if you don t do anything, it backfires. it s not worth doing nothing. do it today. do it today. do it now. happy valentine s day. you too. one hot meal guaranteed to heat up more than just the kitchen right after this. what ihe doing in the back? we are back with today s kitchen and we are gettin saucy with gavin cason who is about to cook up something sexy full of hidden aphrodisiacs, i hear. and since there s two of us, cameron bode is a mixologist. you re going to cook up an aphrodisiac meal for us? yes, it has four aphrodisiacs in it. cameron is doing drinks. we ll start with this. a fennel puree. roast off a little fennel in the pan. kim, do you like cooking? i do. what s your dish? what do you like to make? my dish is very unhealthy like fried chicken, macaroni and cheese. that s healthy. very healthy. you have a little fennel in there. we ll caramelize that. basically once it s caramelized we ll add some chicken stock and cream, also very healthy. heavy cream or heavy cream. the real deal. walk down here. i ll show you how to plate the dish. lobster. you just steamed it? blanched it in a little bit of water. we ll take the fennel puree. i didn t know this before this segment but fennel is a bido enhancer. is that true? one aphrodisiac. give me some. and we ll go like that and dress the lobster on. is that the only aprodisiac? no, ahmads. isn t lobster, too? lobster, almonds, oil and basil produce passion and fertility as well. there s a lot going on into this dish. if you want to bring a date to the cafe, and get a guaranteed aphrodisiac, come see me. bib lettuce, fennel and vanilla oil, another aphrodisiac, vanilla, just the scent alone. you can eat that? smells so good. okay. we ll go with cameron. go ahead. we re going to cook some or do some drinks with cameron now. okay, cool. he has a whole set of aphrodisiacs. using aftphrodisiacs to stimulate your partner on valentine s day. first we ll use hang one. we should take one of these? big one. what is up with thatname? that s mine. to that we add saffron because it s an aphrodisiac that boosts your orgasms. is that true? can i have a double shot? did you just say that out loud? i m just kidding. top it with ginger beer in the bottles there. grab the spoon. give it a little stir for us. okay. is ginger beer just gingerale or is it beer? very similar to gingerale but it has a lot stronger ginger note. it s nonalcoholic and ginger is a bit of an aphrodisiac, stimulates the circulatory system to get your man s blood flowing. wait, you have to look someone in the eye when you say cheers. bad sex for seven years. is that true? yes. gavin, are you ready for ours? that s good. that is good. we re going to start out doing two ounces of beef eater engine, one ounce of quantro. wait, this is the boy drink? okay. next, we re going to add one ounce of stop. carrot juice. okay. carrot juice? it s also an aphrodisiac that aids in seduction. is that true? i ve heard it s true, but i don t think there s enough carrot juice in manhattan to seduce you ladies, lemon juice for acidity. basil. you have to spank your basil. it releases the aphrodisiac. you have to let the aroma come out. so you spank the basil and put it in. what are these guys talking about? who are these guys and how did they get on the show? we ll have to run. shake it up. shake. whoo. did you get it in the eye? yeah. you re losing points over there. cheers, guys. we ve got to run. all right. and voila. cheers, boys. look in the eye. look in the eye. you didn t do it. i did it. i did it. bring me your eyes. scaring me a little bit. we ll be back with more of today on nbc. we have had such a fun show with miss kim kardashian. before we head out, we do this thing every week with okay magazine that you re in. and we are doing an is it okay or not okay ? the question is it okay or not okay to perform in your undies? important question. i said as long as your underwear is clean, the sky is the limit. kathie lee says it sure beats performing not in your underwear. sara, you have giveaways. facebook wall shoe dazzle me and we ll pick at random at the end of the day. thank you. perfect. you are apro. thank you so much for co-hosting with me today. come back. will you come back and see us? for sure. hopefully, kathie will be here. yes, she will celina gomes will be with us tomorrow. have a great day, everyone. take care.