My Canadian adventure 2011-2012

Soooooooooo end of the season, and it was definatly topped off with a bang. 2 weeks nearly of parites, hockey nights and craming as much skiing in as possible made for a fun yet tiring finish. So as the snow began to melt, i began to prepare for my next 2 months of sun, sea and travel.

Iv set up a place to live for the summer, job is sorted, all my winter gear is on its way home and I am currently enjoying staying with my big bro alec in fantastic Vancouver.

I arrived Monday ( I am now on Wednesday) and so far Iv managed to catch up with a couple of friends, hit up the shops, run round stanly park in the rain, enjoy a denies breakfast, made a random person laugh in the liquor store by saying bysies when I was on the phone (its the little things that brighten peoples days), and I am currently enjoying a rather tense vancouver vs L.A playoff game. Canucks are currently leading, heres hopeing they keep it up as if they loose they are knocked out of the tournament!!

So a short and sweet update for you people, but at least Iv finally written one again. Watch this space to find out where I will end up next (I head to my next destination on Saturday, any guesses as to where Im headed :-))

So its been a while since my last update (again!!) Its safe to say that the ski bum lifestyle is definatly more work then skiing. So, I shall wrap up the whole month of febuary in neat, cheeky little update for you.

So, to start it was a fairly standered month. Lots of working, lots of snow, a few social nights out. Just to mix things up my little sister lucy flew out for a visit yay!!! Thus began 2 weeks of Muir madness!!.
We had a few fantastic adventures. Her first day on skis the power went out on the hill so no lifts were running. So we went in for lunch with Trishy, Mikey and Tanya, chilled for a little bit then decided to give snow shoeing a bash. It was a gorgeous day out and very powdery. We were out for around 3 hours, finding Christmas tress with decorations still on them, a little snow cave and spending 20 minutes falling over and being unable to get up as we were laughing too much. Ah it was fun. We both slept very very well that night.
We had a trip into town to do some shopping. We made a visit to hello toast, caught the bus for free as we looked so lost, raided la senza (we get far to excited by the prospect of new underwear) and enjoyed a chi tea latte at blenz. We had a fantastic 3 days skiing together. With the first day just being myself and lucy hitting up the green runs, and the wednesday we were joined with a number of my friends. We decided to try her out on blues and she was bombing it down the runs. Considering she was a skiing newb she did amazingly well. We also got to si with mikey later in the day and must have worn the boys out as they were very quiet when we got back to the day lodge (they normaly dont do full day ski sessions the pansy's). We had a rive round the village and then headed round marcs for a hot tub. Here we ended up discusing sweedish saunas so what do me and lucy do?? We jumped into the snow, rolled around then jumped back in the hot tub. It felt amazing, very cold and tingly but was awsum!!! Another thing off the bucket list. On the 9th (my birthday) we had another town trip. We went swimming and then for lunch with trishy followed by a cheky bit of shopping. Then back up the mountain for birthday dinner followed by a rather drunken night out. Never go into bottoms on your birthday when u know everyone at the bar. You dont spend a penny, end up forgeting half the night and doing a load of crazy stuff that you wouldnt normally do. Needless to say I was feling a bit worse for wear the next day.
Sadly all good things must come to an end and lucy left 2 weeks ago :-( and I have been working solidly every since.
I did have a rather good ski day with aaron and mikey 2 weeks ago though. They took me back country skiing. I was so scared but absoloutly luved it. hopeing to go again next week.
I gave up my house keeping job last week. Burn out was setting in and decided I wanted more time to play in the snow, so I just need to get through my last shift there then Im free!!!

Yesterday was a rather fab day. I spoke to a number of people back home who I miss terribly, had a chat with the big sis, got to hang out with gemma for a bit and then ended the day with a rather fun outing to powder hounds with mikey and tanya. A large ceaser salad was consumed, many laughs shared, I met some new people (1 of whom holds the world record in a ski event that I forget the name of lol) and I discovered that no matter what your age, burning corks at the dinner table then painting your face black never loses its appeal.

(as always, apologies for poor spelling)

So a whole month has passed without a single entry from me. Thats not to say Iv had nothing interesting to write, I have just literally been snowed under with work and other life related things.

Last week we had our first big cold snap. Day time temperatures plumated to -30 and I dont even want to think how cold it was at night . Its safe to say my normal I feal cold description of Im turning into an ice cube could have very nearly come true. But thankfully I have an indoors kind of job which means I got to be all snuggled up under blankets while waiting for clients to arrive. Myself and the other spa girls kept ourselves topped up with warm drinks to fend off frostbite while we weren't massaging. Though I was not impressed that the floors were so cold I had to keep my shoes on while I massaged and nearly slipped over a number of times. Not fun.

I have managed to get a few days out on the slopes the past few weeks, and magically managed to get a day off which coincided with a couple of my friends. Normally I get out for 3 hours 2 mornings a week so most people are working. I just head out, plug in my ipod and ski from 8.30 until 11.30 then head to work. Very good for a bit of sole searching but its nice to have people to challenge you once in a while.
So I started out at 9.30, meet up with a couple of my friends who took me down a few blue runs I had never done before. We were meet by Claire an hour or so later. These guys took me down my first tree run which was amazing. It would have been fair easier to have been boarding though I think, 4 items of equipment to control whilst trying to dodge multiple trees as they wiz towards you is no easy task.
Next this luvly group decided that we needed to do some harder runs. cue the choice to take me down bluff, a black diamond run. Considering I hadnt even done a black at this point this was a questionable decision from the start. So I followed claire down the first section which was suprisingly easy and rather enjoyable. Then we came to it. The steepest flipping slope I have ever stood in front of (with the aim to go down it any way) on a set of skis. Claire, who I should mention has been riding for a far shorter period of time then me, zipped down with out a second thought,while I remained glued to the spot thinking F**ing hell how am I going to get off this mountain. After a few minutes of shouting at claire who was waiting at the bottom, she directed me into the trees where it was softer. This was far easier. I was no longer worried about the steepness of it and was now more concerned about not crashing into one of these tree trunks. After about 10 minutes of swearing and a few scary moments where I felt like I was going to loose control, I made it safely to the bottom alive and in one peace. I think its safe to say Im not quit ready for something like that yet.
Our second mini adventure came when we decided to head over to mount morrisy for the afternoon only to get there and find the lift was shut. boo. Back to the other side we trudged to round up our 6 hour ski day with one last run from the top of the world. I slept rather well that night.

I got my wish!!! While I was at work today it began to snow and hasn't stopped yet. Looks like we'r headed for a powder day tomorrow which means lots of ski style fun. Yay!! Happy days.

I spent christmas eve with my Sunpeaks family who cooked up a storm! We had a luvly evening catching up with each other (as everyone has been working non stop the past few weeks), swapping stories and getting to know people I have only met in passing. Drinks were had, laughter and presents shared. All in all it was a fairly relaxed but very enjoyable way to see in Christmas day.

Christmas morning (so this morning) I had a luvly walk in the snow from my house to the Garnhams place. I was greeted with a big hug from my big bro Alec, and a stocking made a filled by his amazing mum. We opened our prezzies, enjoyed a bacon sarni style breki, and I skyped my family to wish them a happy Christmas. I have to admit I am always home sick around this time of year and seeing and talking to my parents and sisters made it worse, but my friends have made this Christmas very special and equally memorable so its a bit of a win lose situation.

Im now chilling on the sofa, enjoying the evenig before my day off. Today has been a good day

As predicted I have not up held my promise of one entry a week :-(. I have a valid excuse though!! Work has finally picked up and I have been working 8am untill 9 pm most days. So recently I have either been working, sleeping or skiing. Its a hard old life

Christmas is just round the corner and Im getting rather excited. All I want for christmas is more snow so all this ice will go away. Bring on a powder day please :-)

Short and sweet, that is my update for now. A longer one will follow shortly with much more exciting info packed inside.