A Whistler Winter

So it’s almost the end of April and it seems like we’re counting down the days to the end of the season. It feels like yesterday we were buying our snow gear, training for our new jobs and remembering how to snowboard! It’s all gone so quickly. 

We haven’t posted as much as we would have liked to over the season as we have been super busy working, riding and celebrating life so I thought I would take the time to recap on the things we haven’t posted about while we've been living the dream in Whistler! 

 We’ve been lucky enough to have friends visit from home while we’ve been in town. I’m sure they came to visit the mountain and it was just a co-incidence that we had made Whistler our home but it was nice to see some familiar faces and show them around town!

Adam Ward was the first to visit and although his visit was cut short by our trip to Seattle we had a few good days on the mountain, one where we hiked to the top of Flute Bowl and rode the knee deep powder all the way to the bottom; and in particular; one memorable meal at Mongolie Grill. Adam also visited during Gay Pride Week so he and Rhys got a few interesting stares when the two of them shared a few après beers at the pub!! 

Hiking to the top of Flute Bowl

Ryan Buckley was the next to grace us with his presence. Rhys took the week of work to hang out with Ryan and make sure he had a full tour of Whistler; from waffles at the Crystal Hut, Fresh Tacks breakfast, a visit to Creekbread and our first Cross country skiing adventure (more on that later). We were also lucky enough to take part in the Grocery Store’s rendition of the harlem shake where we all got dressed up in costume and headed into the store at about 1130pm after it had closed and filmed ‘the shake’ on the security camera! Check out the conclusion of our shenanigans.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhHYU0BAdM

 

Ryan spent a few days in Vancouver before heading back to reality so we to made the trip out of the Whistler bubble down to Van for the night. We’d timed it perfectly too to see the Canucks play the Predators! After decking ourselves out in Canucks merchandise it was off to the game.

We were sitting in about the third tier but it was perfect viewing location as we could see all the action on the ice! The Canucks took out the game in style, winning 7-4 and even included a few fights and a penalty shot! The atmosphere at the game was like nothing we’d ever experienced at a game before; the stadium was full and at least 70% of the crowd was wearing jerseys, there was entertainment between each period and during the game and I got a visit from the Canucks mascot Fin!

 

While we were in Van we also did a bit of exploring and headed over to Granville Island to show Ryan around. We ended up at the Granville markets and after a hearty hangover breakfast we made our way out side to watch the street performer. Somehow Rhys became part of the show and the next thing we knew he was throwing knives, being called "Australia" and helping the guy up onto a 6 foot unicycle! Ryan was the DJ for the show and half way through the show answered a phone call from the performers father.. funny stuff in the end and a great way to spend a miserable day in Van! 

Just before Ryan left for Vancouver the sun came out for the day so we decided to trade our snow boards for skinny skis and take a chance at Cross Country Skiing..None of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into but the shoes were surprisingly comfy and we were ready for the challenge. 

We managed to stay on our feet for the most of the time and luckily had the go pro on for one of our major stacks! Its hard to avoid collision when the person in front of you is following in the same tracks as you and travelling at a different pace! The boys thought it was a lot of hard work for not getting to go very fast, but I loved it. It was almost like going for a run in that you were getting a good all round cardio workout but it wasn’t as hard on your joints or anything so it was enjoyable and totally different! I can definitely see how it’s considered the toughest sport around though! We were even lucky enough to have our maiden voyage caught on film as they were shooting an advertisement while we were there and Rhys knew the guy filming it! Check it out ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAeKUbE9hjY

All in all it was fun spending time and sharing Whistler with a few friends from back home.. I wonder who will be next?! 

The end of February came around (in between Ryan and Adam's visits) and I celebrated my quarter century in style.

While I spent my actual birthday working from 815am to 730pm, I made sure to drag out the celebrations! A few days before the big day a few friends took me up for fresh tracks breakfast on a SUPER busy powder day and a few days later Rhys and I had a day on the big kid skis (ie. not the beginner ones) which ended with me falling in the powder and hurting my knee on the last run – typical! We had a delicious dinner (and ended up eating a little too much cake!) and had a few celebration drinks with friends at Merlins.

But the celebrations didn’t end there as Rhys treated us to a day at the Scandinave spa where we had very relaxing Swedish massages followed by relaxing in the hot / cold baths, sauna, steam and relaxation room for a few hours! Perfect way to spend the day and celebrate old age! 

In late March Whistler was host to the Nordic Ski Festival, where a bunch of guys from around the world all came to battle it out on the skinny ski's and the ski jumping! We went down one beautiful sunny day to watch the ski jumping and were in awe of the size of the jump and what the guys were able to do! The skis seemed to be almost twice their size and the jump looked daunting from the bottom.. I don't know where they get the courage to jump but I certainly wouldn't be doing it any time soon!

We also ventured to the 'train wreck' down at Function Junction where..as the name says it.. a train had de-railed a fair few years ago and the abandoned carriages have been graffitied and turned into a bike / skate park. It was kind of cool to see but apparently we narrowly missed a fine from the cops for walking along the train line!

Then came the time for shopping and getting prepped for our ‘dead season’ road trip! Our first major purchase was ‘Jimmy’, a gold GMC SUV with (hopefully) plenty of room in the back and more than ready to take us where we want to go! And where is that you ask? Well.. we’re a little ambitious and want to see everything while we’re over here (kind of so we don’t have to come back!) so we really want to see as much as possible. We’ve done a bit of research and have come up with a basic plan of heading down the west coast of the USA, then coming up through Las Vegas and up through to Calgary and Banff, the back to the west coast of Canada to take us to the Alaska Marine Highway and the ferry that will take us up to Alaska and the Yukon.. and then back to Whistler for the best part of summer! 

We even started prepping for the warmer weather by buying some new summer clothes at various closing down sales in the village and I even turned a few pairs of long pants into shorts! 

There are a few more purchases we need to make before its time to head off, but with the bulk of it already paid for, we’re almost ready to pack our bags and our lives into the back of the car and hit the road!! It will be sad to leave Whistler winter as we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the winter and all that the snow brought with it but we’ve both definitely realized that our bodies (and minds) are tuned to the summer and all that it brings with it! It’s not so much the warmth but the summer activities like hiking, biking and swimming that we are missing the most!  While there will definitely be more snow adventures in the future we can’t wait for the warmer weather or for our new adventure to begin on the road! 

The first border crossing, Fire ball and Giants..

After 4 months in Whistler we and a few friends decided it was time to leave the bubble we'd been in and go on a bit of a road trip! We decided to rent a van, cross over the border and visit Seattle..just for something different.

The road trip begins

After picking up the wheels for the trip, the 7 of us crammed into the people mover and hit the road.The road trip was half the fun of it and even though the 5 hr trip took us about 9hrs by the time we had stopped at just about every fast food place on the way, we did finally make it to Seattle.


The border crossing was also quite eventful..  we weren't entirely sure where we were heading or which lane to get into as we were coming up to the border, there were 3 lanes, two weren't moving anywhere and one was flowing freely.. we must've missed the signs that told us which was which and we jumped into the free flowing lane. It wasn't until we were about 100m from the border that we realised the lane we were in was for Nexus holders (which is like an etoll i guess for the people and lets people who regularly cross the border, cross quicker). We realised our mistake, saw a gap in the bollards seperating the two lanes and jumped across to the correct lane..avoiding about a 2 hour wait. We all felt like the guards were going to come get us or that the people waiting in the queue behind us would jump out with baseball bats.. but the rest of the crossing was uneventful and after surrendering our finger prints, we made it across unscathed!

The weather there was rather depressing to say the least, but we were all so happy to be out doing something different that it definitely didnt damper our spirits.

After arriving and getting all dolled up, we chatted to the concierge and tried to work out what to do on our first night in town. We ended up dining at a little Thai restaurant and ordered a few bottles of wine.. that wasnt enough though appararently so Tim made his way down to the liquor store and bought a bottle of fireball and we were all doing shots at the table... After paying the bill, taking most of the free lollipops from the jar on the front desk and leaving seductive notes on the bill, we left and headed to the bottle shop for another bottle (or two) of fireball.

  

Drunken shenanigans on the way to the bowling alley

We took our paper bag goods and the shot glasses the cashier at the liquor store had so kindly given to us, an started to make our way to the bowling alley. It probably ended up taking us about an hour to wander there due to unexpected events including a pretend 'wedding', car parking assistance, silliness with traffic cones, chin ups, fairy lights and a lot more fireball shots along the way! After we finally made it to the bowling alley, we realised how much fun bowling was and how good it felt to be doing something different! We didn't last very long though as the fire ball shots kinda caught up on us pretty quickly but it was a fun night none-the less.

We woke up the next morning and eagerly went down to free breakfast at the hotel before heading outdoors (with umbrellas this time) and making our way to the EMP music museum. The museum was amazing, there were displays on the history of Nirvana and Jimmy Hendrix, as well as a huge statue of guitars, a room where you could play and record music on guitar, keyboard and drums (and i manage to work out the riff to Jump by Van Halen which was awesome!) It sadly reminded us how much we missed playing music at home.. the piano and guitars that we left behind..

After the music museum we caught the monorail over the Pike Place market and the first ever Starbucks! The Starbucks was packed but we managed to get a photo outside it.. just to show that we'd been there! The Market was also pretty cool and had lots of arts and craft stands as well as a huge food section with lots of fresh fish and seafood. There were some MASSIVE crabs and fish and the guys entertained us by throwing the fish around between all of us, barely missing our faces!

The 'gum wall'

After walking around town for the day and making our mark on the 'bubble gum wall', we headed back to the hotel and chilled out in the hot tub and pool area for the night!


Then it was time to start the journey back to the north.. We jumped back in the van and headed down to the water front for a walk before the long  trip home..

We stopped in Vancouver to pick up some groceries and other goods and then headed to the Giants game.
We had decided to get dressed up for the game, so after buying our painting onsies and spray painting letters on them in the car park, we headed into the stadium.

We were sitting directly behind one of the goals and made a big effort to make it onto the big screen as much as possible!! We looked cool.. so cool that one of the organises came up to us just before the 2nd intermission and asked if we wanted to be park of the entertainment and ride around the ice on a ute! We were stoked so ..but sadly there was only enough space for the girls. We realised that without the boys; we spelled "GAS!" so made sure we sat on the back of the van this way! We met one of the teams managers, who offered us free tickets to the next game if we promised to dress up, and Jack, the team mascot, before our 5 minutes of fame on the ice!

After the game, we all jumped back in the van and it was back to 'reality'.

BUNGEEE!!!

Those of you that know me would know how exctied I was when I saw this sign posted in our staff room at work..

Bungee would have to be one of those things I’ve always wanted to do but never really had the chance to do and what an opportunity it was at $10!

So it was real, I was going to jump off a bridge, the only thing I needed to figure out was how to best  capture the moment! The GoPro was the obvious choice, but I had to work out how to hold it to get the best angle and of course, not drop it into the river below!  One of the guys from work though had set up a pretty sweet pole, so after hed jumped and his go-pro had survived,  we swapped our go-pros over, I strapped it to my hand (although i think strapped is probably a bit of an understatement) and I was so ready to go.

We were a pretty big group so I stood around for what felt like hours watching the rest of the crew jump before it was finally my turn and the harness and bungee were attached to me! The nerves didn't really kick in until the guy told me to walk out to the edge and put my toes on the edge.. it was then that I realized what I was actually doing!  I looked down, said a few choice words and jumped..

To say i liked it is a bit of an understatement; it was the biggest adrenalin rush I think i've ever had and was definitely one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I was totally buzzing when I got to the top and asked if I could jump again; sadly there was a group after us so we didn't have time, but I think I'm hooked so there will defiantely be a next time... apparently if you jump naked you get the jump for free!.. something to think about!

Rhys made me a cool video too, which you can check out at https://vimeo.com/60214252

Yes we are still alive..and a little recap of the last month

Okay, so it has been a long time since our last post and we apologise sincerely, so we will attempt to catch you up on the fun and games over the last few weeks in as much detail as we can remember and without making the post too long! We are now up to day 95 of our trip and day 80 in Whistler! We are definitely still loving life here, our extended vacation and are still making the most of what the town has to offer.


  
       

First event to recap on was my birthday which rolled around in the middle of December like it does each year! This year it fell on a Friday; one of my days off and a Giants hockey game! We had a pretty big night the night before so the day started off a little rusty. Turns out the crisp mountain air, fresh powder and being strapped to my snowboard is the best hangover cure yet! 



After an epic day on the mountain Em and I headed down to Vancouver for the Giants game.. Just so happened that night at the hockey was ‘Teddy Bear Toss’, which was a charity event for kids where everyone in the stadium bought a teddy bear and tossed it onto the ice after the Giants had scored their first goal. It was kind of annoying that the Giants scored after the first 2 minutes of play as it meant the game was paused for a while to clean up the bears of the ice. The Giants are in the WHL league so the fights during the game weren’t as impressive or as eventful as I would expect in an NHL game, it was still a pretty good introduction to hockey and a good night out for my birthday! 

Rhys

If this guys last name was any longer i don't think it would fit on his jersey! 

Dinner, provided by Whistler Blackcomb ($20 ticket for game, dinner and transport to and from the game!)

                                        

Rhys's birthday celebrations were not long followed by the arrival of my long lost family! The boys arrived first and we had a ball showing them around the mountain, through the village,  hosting them in our massive unit and of course sharing their hot tub ;) ! 

The first day on the mountain with my little brothers!! 

A few days before Christmas mum and dad arrived and everything started to feel real! our first white christmas!  It was so nice to spend Christmas with some familiar faces as Christmas doesn’t feel the same without family around! 

At the 'fire and ice' show

I had a more than memorable Christmas Eve with mum and dad as I took them both on a 'site seeing' tour of Whistler and we went up on the Whistler Gondola and across the peak to peak. We had picked an incredible day as the weather was perfect. There wasnt a cloud in the sky, it was beautiful, perfect photography day for dad and I! Even had to pull out the sunglasses! ! 

Ice skating 

Unfortunately, work decided the arrival of family to be honoured by finally giving me 40 hours of work in a week so family events had to be scheduled around work; but we had such a ball, thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas (or Boxing day) dinner with Turkey from Vancouver, salmon from Whistler and the gluten free Christmas ‘pud’ imported all the way from Australia! 

In action

Dad of course, enjoyed taking photos of the different landscape and we marked the occasion with a father daughter excursion where I got some much needed tips and tricks off him! Taking photos in sub zero temperatures is tough though; one has to take gloves off to set camera and take photo resulting in not being able to use your fingers! I don't think I lasted very long..

Photos from our 'evening lights' excursion

My hero! 

We managed to convince mum that she had to go skiing at least once while in Whistler, so we all decided it would be fun to ditch the boards and try skiing for a day. It turned out to be probably one of the most fun (and funniest) days on the mountain! There were many falls and spills and I think we are still trying to work out how to get out of the inevitable ‘death position’, when you are flat on your back but still clipped into the skis! Rhys also had a bit of a run in with a tree after getting a little too much speed … but by the end of the day, those left standing (that’s right; you know who you are!) made it down blue runs and moguls and came off the mountain for a well-deserved hot tub with the biggest smiles on our faces! I think there is also some video footage of the day, so it may be aired at a later date after editing!  

We had ordered ‘ugly Christmas sweaters’ for Christmas, but due to the incompetence of the staff at the post office, our sweaters didn’t arrive in time for our boxing day dinner! Luckily they arrived before everyone left though so we were able to show off our attire at our farewell dinner!

It was so nice to spend some quality time with the family over the break. Mum and I rekindled our love for shopping (of course), I enjoyed my photo excursions with dad and we had a great time on the mountain with the boys! I also survived the whole 2 weeks riding with them without joey knocking me off the chair lift too so I spose I could say it was all a success! It was sad to see everyone leave, especially not knowing when we were all going to be together again, but at least we parted knowing we’d had an awesome time together and there is still skype time!

The bestest parents a girl could ask for.. xxx

(photography effects courtesy of Dr. (tba) A.J.M Douglas)

After Christmas came New Years;  the boys were still around as they’d decided to postpone their arrival in Vancouver. We were pretty stumped for things to do that night and Rhys had to work at 6am on New Years day so we didn’t really have a massive night, but it was nice to welcome the new year in with some familiar faces and a glass of Bailieys! 

On top of the world..

All in all the family visit was a blast. It was exhausting to squeeze in work and making sure everyone saw as much of Whistler as possible but in the end I think we exceeded expectations and I could've asked for a better week (or 2 ) with my family. I discovered a new way to spend time with my brothers (one which i do hope rolls around at least every couple of years now that we all have the gear there are minimal excuses!) and I was reminded how amazing my parents are and all the little things that I miss about them every day (from the 'arguments' and shopping with mum, to the photos with dad and the general 'silly buggers' with the boys!) ! 

Emma x

Then life went back to normal; the holidays ended, people disappeared from the village and all the Aussie tourists arrived! The holiday period was not as busy on the mountain as predicted, but at the peak period the mountain held 26,000 people per day and people were EVERYWHERE! I managed to pick up a few extra shifts and was ready for some time off by the time the majority of the crowds had left. We still manage to have fun at work and have time to build inukshuks, make time lapse videos of the lifts and sunrises and kidnap dinosaurs from the childrens learning centre!

A few of the other lifties and I have start doing some hiking as part of our days off in search of some nice snow and we managed to build a little jump into the powder recently which was a bunch of fun! Definitely need to work on the moves…

Hiking flute bowl and our awesome home made jump! 

Em's riding days

As the village got quieter, Emma’s work dropped off again as quickly as it had become busy for the holidays which meant she was back to only getting a few shifts a week. Being the nut that she is and that she goes crazy when she’s not busy, she started the search for a second job. On Monday evening, she sent her CV to the local grocery store; Tuesday at 10am she had an interview and on Wednesday at 1130am she started her first shift as their newest check out chick!  Pretty good effort really, especially when everyone complains about how hard it is to find work in Whistler! And working at the grocery has its perks too, with decent hours, steady work and of course; discounted groceries!

As we said, life has pretty much gone back to normal.. or as normal as it is in Whistler! With Em’s new job just starting our hours have sort of clashed but they’ll settled down next week so we’ll get to spend a bit more time together.. Hopefully that means more time to sit down and write posts!! x