12th January

Last night Phil and Josh (best man) agreed to meet in the foyer at 10am to go to Nakiska to try snowboarding. So, despite the late night and the desire to stay in bed a little longer, we got up and got organised to go (I was planning to be a chalet bunny). Unfortunately Josh didn't arrive and was nowhere to be found, so we went by ourselves.

We had breakfast at Nakiska, surrounded by all the serious skiing families who had arrived for some weekend skiing. Phil was feeling a little under the weather with a cold coming on, so decided not to go out on the slopes. We watched the little children, the speed skiers and a cute little chipmunk for a while before heading back to Kananaskis for a late morning nap.

We did little today besides watch a few movies (there is always something on tv here) and pack our bags. We have a big day of travel coming up.

On Thursday night I tired a butternut squash ravioli that turned out to be the best ever ravioli and Phil had a sweet potato chowder to die for; so this evening we returned to the same restraunt and both had the soup and the ravioli for dinner. It was incredible. As it turns out, the ravioli reciepe was on a pamphlet in our room and is now safely tucked into the suitcase.

We check out at 8am tomorrow morning to start our trip home. This will take about 40 hours, I think we will be tired when we eventually arrive home in Adelaide. So I am off to bed now for our last sleep of the trip.

Highlight of the day: Dinner at the Fireweed Grill.

11th January

Wedding day

Well today is the reason that we planned this trip; Peter and Jen's wedding.

We had the morning to ourselves and decided that Phil should give ice skating a go. There is a small pond at Delta Lodge and skates can be hired by the hour. Phil was a little unsure to begin with but soon picked up some technique and speed. Thankfully he was the only person out there and managed to avoid injuring himself or any small children. After about half an hour, Phil had totally exhausted himself and so the skates were returned.

Luckily, we headed back to our room early to have some lunch and shower and dress for the wedding at 2pm. When we got there and tried getting into our room our key jammed in the lock. It took maintenance an hour to drill out the lock and get us back into our room. The guy was lovely though and very apoplogetic. He put a new lock in and even sent up a bottle of wine later in the afternoon.

Just before 2pm we headed over for the wedding ceremony. Jen looked every bit the beautiful, blushing bride and even Pete scrubbed up quite a treat. There were many tears shed with Pete leading the way.

There was 3 hours to kill between the ceremony and the reception, so we headed back to our room to get a head start on the festivities of the evening with some chips and a bottle of wine.

We returned for the reception at 6pm. Dinner was the most awesome beef dish and the speeches, though there were many, were entertaining and made for a very enjoyable evening. I was disappointed to not be able to tear up the dance floor in my usual fashion, but got out there for a little while as wine does a good job at masking the pain.

Phil looked great in his new suit (which complimented my dress with exceptional style) and did the most amazing job to keep it spotless throughout the evening. Unfortuanately tears were nearly shed at the conclusion of the evening with the groom spilling a glass of wine all over Phil. Thankgoodness for dry cleaners!

It was a late night to bed after a long and happy evening.

Highlight of the day: A beautiful bride and a stunning wedding.

10th January

Today has been a good day. We slept in until about 9 this morning as the mountains out our window mean that morning sunlight is not an issue. Phil went on a mission to find washing detergent, milk and bowls, before he headed off to find the slopes of Nakiska. After having a few cross country skiing experiences, he had never had the chance to give downhill skiing a go, so today was the day! He was able to muck around by himself for a while before having his own private lesson. Apparantly he got up speeds fast enough that even this little hot body felt cold!

On the other hand, I stayed in to 'rest my foot'. I got to watch some crap TV, do some more washing and enjoy my own company. As our bags appeared to have exploded when we opened them last night, I also spent a little time straightening the room up again.

News of the day is that an Air Canada flight (the airline we are using in Canada) had to make an emergency landing at Calagary this morning and 10 people were taken to hospital after a rather rough ride. It was strange to see all the emergency vehicles out the front of the building we were at only yesterday!

Phil is currently having a little nap before we head out for dinner.

Highlight of the day: Downhill skiing.

9th January

Today we spent the day in Calgary before heading out of town this evening to Kananaskis. After a slow start this morning we headed out with Phil's aunt and uncle and best man, Josh, into town. Our first stop was the Calgary tower where we went to the lookout at the top. The view from the top was magnificant. Calgary is a similar size to Adelaide but there is an incredible amount of consruction happening all over downtown.

Phil and I decided to make our own way after seeing the tower and investigated the +15; this is a business and shopping complex that covers about 5 blocks on 2 sides of the road. Despite all of the shops there were none with toys. There was however the Devonian Gardens on the top floor with some very big goldfish and some dog statues.

After investigating the length of the +15 we thought we would give the train a go and headed to Wal-Mart at Malborough. The mall was large and in a suburban area similar to that around Tea Tree Plaza. Wal-Mart proved good for Cars and we also grabbed some breakfast and lunch items to take to Kananaskis. We then headed home to pack up our things.

The bus to Kananaskis left from downtown just after 5pm. We stopped at the airport where we had a half hour stop so thought we better have a light meal of soup and a bagel at Tim Horton's; unfortunately they were all out of Tim Bits! This proved somewhat more difficult that it should be as the person serving us couldn't speak English and wanted us to order from the French menu because he couldn't understand what we were saying (Alberta is not a French speaking Province) finally someone with slightly better English came to help out.

The bus connected to a shuttle which got us to Delta Lodge at about 8pm. We had a quite night in ordering chiken wings, a cheese platter and a nice bottle of Penfolds to the room (I know all this way and almost every wine we have bought is Australian) along with the movie, Elizabeth: the golden age.

Highlight for the day: The view 320m above Calgary, overlooking the Rockies, especially over the clear balcony floor.

8th January

Today was a sad day as we had to pack our things and leave Turtle Valley. We certainly wish we had more time to spend there. Mark, Nan, the dogs and the cats have all been great hosts and the fun we had was more than we could have imagined.

Phil had his first waffle experience this morning, but I think he will stick to toast with Vegemite. We left home early in order to stop off at Wal-Mart on the way, where we found the last car we needed for series one.

The airport was an ordeal. All luggage and travellers go through one security check point. There is one conveyerbelt with one xray machine and they are STRICT. I had my carry on bag searched and our laptop case was swabbed for drugs! We did manage to get through without a strip search and make our plane with plenty of time.

Pete, the upcoming groom, picked us up from the airport and we are spending the night at Jen's mum's house in Calgary before heading to Kananaskis tomorrow. Hopefully we will start getting some photos up on the blog again tomorrow. We can not believe that we are on the final leg of our trip and will soon be home.

Highlight of the day: Promises to trade Cherry Ripes and Chicken Chips with Peanutbutter chocolates across the pacific.

7th January

Phil and I wanted to make the most of the limited hours of sunlight today so we got up early and took the snow shoes up the hill for a walk before breakfast. We headed up behind the house and a little way up the hill where we found a nice clearing. From this vantage we were surrounded by the mountains and were able to watch the sun rising above the ridge of the mountain. It was a majestic sight, but cold as it was about -10 degrees. By the time I had made it to our lookout I was hot enough to be stripping layers off at a drastic rate!

After breakfast we headed into Chase as Mark had a physio appointment and so Nan took us on the full guided tour, including the lake. This area gets to around 40 degrees in the Summer and is a busy holiday place during those months. Today the beach was covered in snow and there was ice floating in the water. We walked to the end of the jetty and enjoyed the scenery though. The water looked far too cold to be appealing!

My left foot has been getting increasingly sore (no, I don't know what I did to it) as we have walked our way through the west coast of North America. Mark arranged to have his physio have a look at it, which was very nice of them both. Phil was not suprised to hear the physio agree with his suspicians of a stress fracture. I am now following orders to have it strapped and keep up the ibuprofen. If I am lucky this may get me out of skiing in Kaninaskis. :o)

Back at home in the afternoon, Phil climbed up on the roof to put up the wires that help melt the snow and then the boys bulit a nice camp fire. Dinner was a fantastic Asian spread; Nan has really looked after us well! This was followed by home made Smores made at the fire (biscuit, toasted marshmellow, chocolate).

Highlight of the day: Nan's home made spring roles! I need the reciepe.

6th January

We decided that today was a good day to stay home and enjoy the comforts of Turtle Valley. We started the day quite slowly and enjoyed the colder weather (about -7 in the morning), still no snow, but the snow has stopped melting. We had some jobs/play to do, beginning with plowing the snow out of the driveway. Phil and Mark got the ride-on mower with snow plow on the front working and Phil had a quick lesson on how to use it. He was soon zipping up and down the driveway with a few yahoos for good measure. There was some general excitement before the plowing really began. Nan, Bogey, Annie, Mickey and I were happy enough to enjoy without partaking too much (I did get on for a brief ride).

Once the drive had been plowed we were able to stop for lunch; yummy toasted sandwhiches with egg, onion, bacon, ham and more. I think we called this a 'Belch', but regardless of the name, it was good. I felt pretty sleepy after supervising the plowing, so went for a short nap. Phil on the other hand still hand energy to burn and toys to play with, so he went out and cut up a tree with the chainsaw and then chopped it up in smaller pieces for the fire. The new snow pants proved not to be not just highly attractive, but useful as well as Phil stayed warm well into the evening.

Dinner was chicken on the BBQ, cooked in the snow, and it was delicious. This was followed by Bomb Alaska, with chocolate icecream and Mango gelati on the inside, which was awesome!

We were planning to have a camp fire with some of the hard earned firewood, but after a big day we decided to save it for our last evening. Instead we spent some time playing on the Internet and mucking around with our photos.

Highlight of the day: Phil would love to have his own snow plow and driveway full of snow.

5th January

Today was our first full day with Mark and Nan and the dogs. We got to sleep in this morning and with an early night we ended up with about 10 hours sleep, which was fantastic! We had a slow morning and mostly enjoyed the views of outside from inside where it was warm. Upon venturing out though we discovered that it really wasn't that cold (that and the thermals were worth it). Today got to about 4 degrees and so much of the snow actually melted. There is still a lot on the ground but it has turned quite icy and there is none left on the trees.

Late in the morning we headed off for a drive and as Mark and Nan have been keeping up with our blog they know that we enjoy our shopping and thought they would take us on a shopping tour of Vernon (about an hour away). We did stop in Salmon Arm though to experience Tim Horton's. We had coffee/hot chocolates and a box of Tim Bits. Tim Bits are the holes from the middle of the donuts and come in a variety of flavours in a style much the same as Krispy Kremes. We all enjoyed them, including the dogs who came to help with the shopping.

We went to a variety of stores; Wal-Mart, Zellers, Sportscheck and more. My highlight was finding a clothing store called 'Tabi'. We may have bought a few things. In his rapture over the delights Mountain Equipment Co-op offered in Vancouver, Phil forgot that he needed thermals and gloves. His one long sleeved thermal was not going to make it through 8 days in the cold! Today he did remember to get these items so we will be able to let him back in the house.

It was totally dark by 4:30pm, which really played with our heads as it felt so late. Despite being a Saturday, the shops were open until 6pm, so we shopped all day finding lots of cool things that we don't get back home and being amazed at how cheap things are compared to back home.

We picked up a pizza for dinner on the way home and had a great evening with a great game of Dogopoly. I was excited to land on and buy the Labrador and dominated in the game for quite some time. My lucky streak did run out though towards the end, and although I lasted longer than Nan and Phil, I just couldn't take on the power and might that was the mogul Mark! He won in the end with a lot of money and property!

We are hoping for some snow in the morning, but it is at least supposed to be colder, so hopefully no more melting snow.

Highlight of the day: Tim Bits: when will they come to Australia?

4th January

Had a busy morning this morning as we wanted to get to Stanley Park and have a look around. The weather was very grey and wet so we donned our rainjackets and headed out. We thought we had worked out where to get off the bus but it turns out we were one stop too late; this doesn't sound like a big deal except that the next stop was over the bridge and far away (probably 10kms). So we hopped off and had to go in search of a bus to get us back over the water again. By the time we got to Stanley Park the rain was coming down quite hard and when the map told us that the totem poles were all the way over the other side, we decided we would have to live without seeing them this time and headed back to the hotel.

We had pretty well packed up all our stuff so decided to head off to the airport early. Lucky we did as Vancouver airport was buzzing and there were people everywhere. We decided to leave two of our bags in Vancouver so that we weren't hauling all our worldly goods all over Canada. Besides which, the tiny plane we had to fly on may not have got off the ground if we took them with us! By the time we got through all the lines of people (baggage drop, security etc) we had no time for lunch and had to board almost immediately.

Our plane was late to leave, again, we are getting used to sitting on tarmac. The flight was quite bumpy as there were strong winds and our little plane got thrown around a little. We only flew at about 19000 feet and with little cloud cover the views were magnificent! There was a lot of snow and we got very excited to see it all.

Mark (the one armed, one legged bandit) picked us up at the airport, and whilst his commentary of the drive home really was interesting, the past week had got to both of us and we fell asleep on the drive home. Nan cooked a beautiful meal of cannelloni for dinner; it was so great to have something home cooked and also not deep fried! We got to know all the dogs (Bogey, Annie and Mickey) who are very excited at the prospect of extra tidbits with two extra people around, but the cats remain elusive. Our room is in the basement and the window is at ground level so we look out to a mass of snow, which has got to be the best view for the trip!

The weather has warmed up here and so whilst there is still a good covering of snow, there is no new snowfall, but we keep our fingers crossed!

Highlight for the day: The views of the snow and the mountains.

3rd January

Had our one full day in Vancouver today and tried to make the most of it, but just not enough time to see this beautiful city so we will just have to come back! We began this morning by going shopping (a lot of shopping) we began at the Pacific Centre mall where we found breakfast and some thermals for me. We then found our way back to Mountain Equipment Co-op (where we had been last night) and finished getting just a few other things. Should Australia have the next ice age, we should be set. We then happened to come across a Toys R Us and found a great hall of Cars cars for Shane (I am sure you are all thrilled to hear). We finished our shopping spree with the purchase of a new suitcase to hold said purchases.

This afternoon we wanted to do Stanley Park and Grouse Mountain; however with the sun setting not long after 4:30pm we skipped straight to Grouse Mountain and hope to pop over to Stanley Park in the morning. We may have got a little side tracked on the way though and found ourselves in Staples (think US version of Officeworks) where I picked up a bargain external hard drive to start putting the photos on as the laptop seems to be getting a tad full. We did eventually get to Grouse Mountain though...

Upon arriving we heard all the young, hip looking skiers and snowboarders being told there were 90km winds and minimal vision on the slopes and they were advised not to go up. We were warned upon purchasing our tickets for the gondola that there was at least a 2 hour wait to get back down as there were so many people up there and that with the high winds there was a slight chance that they would shut the gondola and we would have to remain on the mountain for the evening; we decided to take our chances. We loaded onto the gondola and were then hearded off again to be told that no one was allowed up to go skiing or boarding and so most people were told to go home. We were allowed to stay as we were just visiting the chalet. The ride up was reminiscent of the Disneyland attractions with the wind throwing us around quite significantly at times, but we got there in one piece.

The objective of the trip was to see the beautiful view of Vancouver in the early evening but the visibility status meant we lost Vancouver half way up the hill. We enjoyed a film on the history of Grouse Mountain (well... Phil may have been testing his eye lids for light leaks) a viewing of the gift shop and some time in the cafe until the line for the return gondola trip went from 2 hours to 20 mins. By the time we returned the winds had slowed and people were heading up the hill again for a night ski. We did have to share our gondola with an injured skier on a stretcher, which did add to some of the excitement of the trip. Visibility had also improved and so we were able to enjoy the lights of Vancouver the whole way down.

We actually managed to get in by 9:30pm this evening, but alas, after having dinner, sorting through and repacking our stuff and updating the blog it is now after midnight again. We are looking forward to getting to Mark's tomorrow and hopefully having a rest.

Highlight of the day: not having to sleep on the floor of the chalet at Grouse Mountain with several hundred others!

2nd January

A big day of travel today so not much news. We were on the suttle at 8:10am to be at the airport early (just in case) and lucky too as it was very busy. Had to fly Alaska Airlines. Our flight was due out at 12:21 but we were still on the tarmac at 1:00. We were also expecting lunch but didn't find out until mid way that you had to pay for it, and of course we spent all but a few dollars in the shop on jerky, chocolate and magazines before we got on the plane. Oh well we managed to share a snack box with cheese and biscuits etc (we could only afford 1). The bonus was that we arrived early enough to get an exit seat, which had awesome leg room and we even got to sit same row but opposite sides of the plane and so we both had a window!

Getting out of the US proved harder than getting in as we practically had to remove all but our underwear to get though the security gates to the boarding lounge (we only used 4 boxes to hold everything). This seems to be in line with the news story this morning where illegal Mexican immigrants have been recognised for their contributions to America.

Got to our hotel about 5ish and already dark. The next challenge was to find the outdoor shop we wanted to go to and find out if we could get there in time. It ended up being the fastest shopping experience ever before closing, but at least we got down jackets and even down slippers: mmm toasty feet!

We were home by half past nine, but after a phone call to Uncle Mark for some hot tips for Vancouver and mucking around on the blog, email and msn (I don't think there are too many other ways to communicate across the globe!) it happens to be after 12:30 AGAIN!!!

Highlight of the day: Clothes purchased for Tabitha in under 20 minutes with minmal tears and screaming!

PS the bear in the photo is for auction in our hotel if anyone is interested :o)

1st January

Well I began the year absolutely exhausted and decided to have a quiet morning at the hotel. I washed some clothes, booked the shuttle bus to the airport, downloaded the photos, updated the blog and watched a little of the Rose Bowl Parade (which is apparantly quite big here in LA). Phil, on the other hand, battled his heavy eyelids and pounded the pavement in search for thrills and adventure! He arrived at the park and managed to do all the rides he had in mind at Disneyland that we had missed out on yesterday. We met up late in the morning and took a bus out to a local shopping mall. This was a Westfield and turned out to be much like the sort of shopping experience we had been looking for (ie, there were 6 toy stores and a food court). It was only half way down the road that I considered that January 1st in Australia is a public holiday and the shops are closed; have no fear, nothing shuts in LA (as long as you don't arrive before 10am)!

I should explain the story of the toy shops: Before Christmas we visited Phil's sister and discovered that her husband, Shane, is collecting the cars from the movie Cars. Phil got excited and decided to help out as Shane was having trouble searching for some of the collection in Tumby and Lincoln. We did manage to find 10 in Adelaide and have been on a hunt to find any others here in the States. We have so far had minimal luck.

By the middle of the afternoon we were still to make our way to California Adventure Park. Phil got there by 3pm and I wasn't far behind. We confirmed that California is much smaller than Disneyland, with about a third of the rides and about a third of the crowd! We managed to get through everything we wanted to do by the time the park was shutting down at half past 8. We then wandered back to Disneyland to do the Nemo submarine ride. This ride is the newest, and consequently the busiest; until this point, we hadn't seen it with less than a 90 minute wait. In the end we only had to wait about 45 minutes and it was worth it. From there, instead of going home, we found a few more rides. :o)

So it turned out to be another long and exhausting day, Phil walked for about 16 hours, but it was good and we were glad that we got through as much as we did considering the New Year's Eve crowds. Unfortunately another night to bed around 1am with an early start to pack up and be on the bus by 8am in the morning. We are looking forward to a quiet day tomorrow.

Highlight of the day: Phil's day of rides! #1 was definately the Californian Screamer! 22 rides today!!!

31st December

Disneyland: "The happiest place on Earth" Well almost, if it weren't for all the people!!

We had our first day at Disneyland today. We have the 2 day hopper pass so that we can access both parks, but decided to start with the big one. We had to get here first though, which was a 2 hour bus drive from Downtown LA. We decided to skip the shuttles that run for anywhere between $20 and $4o pp and use the buses and trains as we were quite confident and it only cost $3.70 each. By the time we did the bus, the train and the half hour walk we got into the hotel about 11am. I stayed in and had a rest for an hour and Phil went adventuring down the road at Walmart.

Whilst Phil was out adventuring he discovered that Disneyland tickets were sold out. Luckily we had purchased ours ahead of time! Looking at our paperwork though we discovered that flight centre had issued the tickets to begin on the 1st of Jan, not the 31st of December. Luckily, the ticket office issued them anyway and we did get in. Other people who had driven into the park for the day were unable to purchase day passes and had to buy an annual pass if they wanted to enter as the numbers in the park were at capacity.

Once we got in there were people everywhere! You could not join a line that had less than a 75 min wait, most were longer, to get on any ride or attraction. As the night wore on, the lines got shorter, especially during meal times, parades and whilst people were waiting for fireworks. The fireworks show for 9:45 was cancelled due to wind conditions, but we managed still to have some at midnight. The fireworks spectacular was disappointing though with only one big bang. Although the park was open til 2am, we had had enough by midnight and Phil wanted to be up early to get on the rides before they got busy in the morning. Took another detour on the way home, Phil must stop listening to my opinion on direction; I might sound confident but anyone can see I really have no idea.

The rides and attractions in Disneyland are very well done, they look spectacular and there is a good variety. Most are fairly tame, although the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was certainly scary enough for me. I think Phil is looking forward to the rides with bigger thrills in the adventure park tomorrow. We did most rides including Dumbo, Winnie-the-pooh, Toad Hall, the Storybook Canal and Pinnochio's Daring Journey

There is much still to do, including the whole of the California Adventure Park, some parts we missed in Disneyland and a better look at the shops, including the large Lego store.

Highlight of the day: Getting Phil in Happy New Year Mickey Ears with his name on the back. ;o)