Frohliche Weihnachten

Happy Christmas happened for us on Christmas eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing day! First we had a German Christmas on Christmas Eve, celebrating the traditional present swap with our housemates, while carols were sung in the background.

Christmas Eve

We had all worked, and we exchanged prezzies quite late that night - I have more photos, but we all look so tired, I will not be thanked for putting them here!

So, on Christmas day itself, Adam and I were up super early - him for work, and me for stockings!

Christmas Day

Stocking stash!

All presents opened

 So, Adam toddled off to work, and I rang lots of people on skype, which was lovely, and popped by Adam's work to say hello. I then had to go to work myself, which was tiring! However, once I'd finished, I joined Adam and Marie upstairs at the Happy Valley lodge for drinks, and was surprised to find dinner!

Spring rolls, calamari, nachos, dips and various other non-Christmassy foods - perfect!

After food, Adam and I went with some of our colleagues to the pub and had a swift half. We were pooped!

The next day, Adam went off to work early again, and I had the day off. So I slept in - fantastic. I'd had a stinking cold, and having a good lie-in really helped! However, once I was up, it was time for Christmas day mk III! Somehow, I ended up producing roast chicken, roast turkey, roast potatoes and other assorted roast veg! It was a fairly lengthy task, and I required assistance from both Delia and Jamie, and had the laptop displaying several different recipe websites all day! However, only an hour later than planned, all the food was pretty much ready at the same time, and we sat down to eat. Unfortunately, Flo had to work, but we were joined by Choong and Josh, who had provided said turkey.

Marie and Adam keeping busy attaching Adam's stomp pad while waiting for the food

The table

The chef

The gourmands (L-R, Adam, Josh, Choong & Marie)

The drinks

So, it is now New Year's Eve, and we still have turkey and chicken in the fridge...

Yesterday, Adam, Josh and Choong made a day of the "Cruz the Blues" contest, aiming to ski all the (open) blue runs in the resort. They pretty much did it! So, we turned up at Happy Valley where the most raucous prize-giving ceremony ever occurred. We came away with tshirts for all the entrants, a poster showing the ski hill, and a natty waterbottle with a charcoal filter, which I've fancied for ages, having seen one of our Vancouver friends with one.

The hard-won tshirt

In other news, Santa decided to gift us with lots of snow this week - view outside our house yesterday:

And we found another bear:

Over and out folks. Am going to see if I can squeeze a few runs in before starting work later. Have a lovely new year celebration, and we hope that 2012 is as fun for you as 2011 was for us. Here's to the next year!

Videos and pictures

Hello readers! Here be some videos and pictures for you:

We're quite enjoying it here

We're settling into our jobs in the ticket sales department really well - we're getting used to the processes, and getting to know our teammates. (We had good fun at the staff party on Monday!) Our job leaves us with enough time to go skiing and boarding, and I can confirm that Adam is now addicted to snowboarding, as well as all the other pursuits. (He's not yet bought the ice climbing season pass, but it is a matter of time...)
I'm having some trouble with my ski boots, so since a really smashing lesson last week, I've struggled a bit. I had the boots tweaked yesterday, but the snow was a bit iffy when I tried them out afterwards, so I wasn't really carving through the white stuff as well as I'd like. (Hence no snazzy videos of me - yet.)
Adam, on the other hand, is delighted with snowboarding, and had his stance aligned on Monday, so he's developing ridiculously fast. We had a dump of snow overnight (8cm!), the most for weeks, so he really enjoyed surfing the pow today. For someone who has only done it a handful of times, he's really got his technique and confidence sorted. We've only been out together twice, and I was really pleased to see how well he's progressed. And never without a helmet - good boy. A few more lessons, and I'll have my confidence back. (6 years since Jasper, after all! I'm very out of practice!)
I'll leave you with a few updated photos. Click for big!

With mum's help, I turned the heel! Just the long bit and the toe to do!

We have some Christmas decorations now!

Sunset today. (View to the Monashee mountains and the main village area.) Gorgeous orangey skies every day for sunrise and sunset!

Snowboard progress

Hey all, getting there with my boarding, here is a short clip of an easy section of rideing at Big White.

We were papped!

Turn up at enough official events, and your photo gets taken! This was light night on Friday, and we're the ones standing on the right of the picture - Adam in a red coat, and me in a green hat.

Workin' 'n' skiin' 'n' boardin'

We've had a special visitor (my mum) for the last few days, as well as getting to grips with our new jobs, so we have been lovely and busy. There were quite a few people here over the weekend, but now it is very very quiet, which is great, because it means that the runs are quite empty, and the lift queues are short! We did some snowshoeing, which was very good fun, and some knitting, and I had a ski lesson this morning, so busy busy busy. We miss her already! (But she's off having fun in Vancouver before flying home.)
We blazed a trail while snowshoeing - we were wearing the trees by the time we hit the actual trail again! We may have gone off-trail a little... lots of animal tracks everywhere. It was much more interesting to go off piste than to stick to the nordic trails, if challenging!
As usual, click on the photo to see it larger:

Burrrr!

Tiny lady on big big chair

Catalogue man

And... Pose

A gentler bit of our snowshoe path

Deep in the white stuff

Moooooooose

The ice rink with massive chair

Catalogue man reappears

We've started work finally - and here's some photos

Several hours of orientation for our new jobs this morning, followed by slap up lunch in Happy Valley day lodge, followed by introduction to the ticket sales office. All of us quite tired now! We went for a walk yesterday, and took some photos as it was quite sunny. Today it has snowed - yes!!!
As always, click on a pic to make it larger.

And... pose!

This run is the closest to our house - on the right.

View up the hill

Don't ski into the road!

Works on beaches and in snow

This took a few attempts...

Signs that we might be a bit bored

1.) We're a bit poorly. I've got a cough, and Adam has a headache.
2.) I'm putting the knitted socks on hold until the knitting guru arrives next week (yay!), so my 'other' knitted products have increased in number. Two headbands produced yesterday! (I almost have enough different hats for every day of the week...)
3.) Participation in "scientific" experiments... determining the expansion of solid gelatinous objects when suspended in liquid. Gummy bears expand when left in water - who knew?!

Basketweave on top, moss/seed stitch on bottom

Giant gummy bear in water, next to regular-sized gummy bear

The snow can't come soon enough!

We're not doing much except waiting for snow

Well, we've done some sledging, Adam's done a few practice runs on his snowboard (and is doing very well with it) and we've sampled the bits of the village that are open. And then we've returned to our flat because it's cold, or gone to the pub! Adam has today gone to walmart to stock up on food supplies.
We really are just waiting for snow to fall. We still have not heard when the training for our jobs will begin, but it should be this week, as the resort is due to open on the 3rd December. More snow = earlier opening date = earlier start of work for us. It has been snowing all day today, and will hopefully continue.
As this is a ski in/ski out village, there are ski runs that go through the village, and there are chairlifts and a gondola that cross over and through the village. As there has been quite a lot of snow, these runs have enough snow so that you can have a go on them. However, they have not been 'groomed' by piste bashers, so you do tend to sink in the powder snow. (About a foot and a half deep.) The groomers have started to drive up and down these runs, so they have started to get slightly more compacted, but there are still bits of shrub and grasses poking through. And rocks! These are the runs that Adam has been using. (I've refused to use my new skis on this lumpy surface - I'll just sink!) The only problem with this is that none of the lifts are yet running, so as soon as you've got to the bottom of a run, you face a rather bleak and difficult walk back up! And it is hard work because we're at 1300m. (2600m at the top, if I remember correctly.)
So, short adventures out and about at the moment, until the lifts start running! It's not so bad, really!

Our new home (for 5 months)

We have a home! yey. We moved into our new home yesterday and it's great! We are living with another couple and things started well with a roast dinner by yours truly (Adam) I'm still waiting for Daisy to get her act together so i can go out on my new sledge :) I may even take my snowboard out for a play later. Big white is due to open on the 3rd December and we can't wait. Anyway, here are some pics-

We live on the ground floor

The road outside

Big white village

Snowshoe Sam's bar (190 paces from house)

The snow has begun here in Big White!

Well, we had giant leaves in the last post, and we have now fast forwarded into winter, with a few cm of snow here in Big White today! We travelled up to Kelowna on the greyhound on Wednesday, and Adam went for an interview on Thursday morning (and got the job in Ticket Sales), then we got a lift up to the resort arriving at lunchtime. We walked around, looked at a house (saw an amazing sunset from big windows), and visited the local, but went back to the hostel because we were shattered by 7pm! Today we've looked at a few more houses and walked. A lot.
In other news, knitting is going well. The green hat is a bit long but is finished, but I've now started some orange socks. It took 4 goes to cast on properly and join them together, but they seem to be ok now! Adam managed to take a big tumble when he went mountain biking - lots of scrapes and a few bruises - not comfortable for a 7 hour bus journey!
Right - pictures!

It took a very long time to roll this yarn into a ball.

See the fingers at the bottom left? It took 7 hours to travel from one to the other on Wednesday.

Snow! And a lost sailor.

There is going to be much more snow than this soon. But this is fine for now!

Me in snow by gondola. Wearing the hat I knitted!

Things are bigger here

Seriously large leaf!