Skiing at Sunshine

Is definitely a misdimeaner as I have quickly realized, it is never sunny at Sunshine resort just west of Banff. But despite the cloudy weather, it was still a great time skiing.

About a week ago I went skiing for the first time in about 5 years! When I was getting ready for the trip and getting all my gear ready, I realized that I had a new pair of ski boots that I don't even remember buying! No complaints though, they are new, and very nice!

The weather the first day was really crappy. It was cold, very windy, cloudy, and very bad visibility. I could hardly see the texture of the snow so I went very slowly as there was SO much snow, and lots of places with huge mounds of snow piled up. I didn't want to hit one of those going too fast, I definitely would have wiped out. I did have a bit of a tumble though on my second run, right in front of the chairlift of course, but have managed to stay up since then.

There was so much snow the first time out that on one run where you needed a bit of speed to get up a bit of a hill, with all the fresh powder building up, we where slowed down, and had to cross country ski up the rest of the hill. Fun stuff!

Yesterday we headed out for a second time (for me) and met 3 other friends at the hill. It was also a cloudy day, however a warm cloudy day! It was -13 at the Banff turn off on Highway 1 and by the time we were at the parking lot it was +2!! It was windy at the top of the mountain, but the lower runs were amazing! My friend Val and I had a great time, but unfortunately my friend Dale took a huge tumble on his second run and severely hurt his ankle, and my other friend Lisa woke up with a nasty cold and only lasted a few runs. However despite the low visibility again, we found a couple runs we liked and took in as many runs in as possible until we had to leave at the end of the day!

Here are a few of the photo's taken on those not very sunny days at Sunshine :)

(to be uploaded later, can't seem to get it to work)

New Years 2011!

Bring on the last year before the world comes to an end. Heehee, just kidding, I don't believe in all that.

But I did have a great New Years, and to boot, I even remember it :)

I have a bad reputation of getting very very drunk, and barely making it past midnight :)

But not this year. Laura and Dan hosted a small party, with lots of food and drink. It was a great way to bring in the New Year, apart from Rob not being here to bring in the New Year with me. Instead, I had a fake skull given to me to kiss at New Years, thanks Laura!

It was a pretty quiet evening, lots of foot, the Hockey game, more food and drink, Battle of the Sexes board game which the ladies lost, and more food and wine.

We watched the countdown, had champagne to bring in the New Year and lots of hugs and kisses from my amazing family that I love so much; as well as some people I had just met :)

Christmas

It's a little late, but Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Since I had my days off Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I have been working. I just finished my 9th shift in 9 days, and as you can imagine, I've been extremely exhausted!

But despite the work, Christmas was awesome! Since graduating nursing (2004) and with all my travels I have only been home for 2 Christmas's, and one I ended up working an OT shift Christmas day, evening shift. So it was extremely important that this year I be home, and as it worked out in my schedule, I already had it off! I headed over to mom's pretty early Christmas eve, day and helped out with odds and ends, but of course Mom had most of it done! We had a simple lasagna, caeser salad and garlic bread for supper and played cards for most of the evening, and of course drank! Nothing too exciting happened Friday, but it is always fun to spend time with the family, including a friend of Laura's who's family is all in BC.

Christmas Day was an even better day. Laura, Dan and Rachel came over around 9-10, and we started with breakfast. Then the present opening began! We were all very lucky and spoiled this Christmas, including the dogs! I got a couple things for my computer, a $100 for Evelyn Charles to go with Mom and Laura, a candle set and a nice wine decanter and wine airater/filter! My sister mainly got anything to do with drinking! A ton of wine accessaries, a decanter and an alcohol dispencer! Honestly, she's not an alcohol! The rest of the day was filled with drinking and playing cards, with mom taking breaks to check on the turkey. Rachel also brought the game Scattegories, which my Dad liked us playing as we were quite for the three minutes while trying to answer the questions! Dan kicked all of us and it was incredible some of the answers he would come up with!

Turkey dinner was amazing as always, and of course we munched all day and was extremely stuffed by the end of the day, but what else are the holidays for?!! We were up late-ish playing cards. We had been drinking all day and I had to work at 7 the next day, so by 1130 we finished up our card game and headed for bed.

I have an amazing family and feel so lucky to have each and every one of them in my life. It was an amazing Christmas and will cherish as many of them as possible, as I know I can't have every one of them off :)

Some of the photos from the holidays:

Sarah waiting patiently
Getting the Turkey ready
Hercules looking all cute in is Elf outfit :)
sarah not impressed with the hat!
Post opening presents
And the family picture before we stuff our faces!