Thursday, December 31, 2009

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Happy New Year Everyone!!!!
Wes and I have been so busy enjoying ourselves in Fernie that we neglected to let you all know how we're going. So apologies for the massive gap in updates.

(Photo: Fernie above the clouds)
Life has been bumbling along nicely since our last update. We have been alternating between working, skiing/snowboarding and going out with all our mates. The last 2 weeks has been busy as all the holiday makers have arrived in Fernie and so we're both pretty busy at work. I have renamed my job from "Guest Services" to "Customer Complaints" - there are lots of grumpy people on holidays. The weather went from -1 degree with rain back down to -24 degrees, and now we're at a respectable -10 degrees. Apparently the guests thought it was my fault that it was raining last week - at least they complained to me like it was my fault. I don't really know what they wanted me to do about it.
Fortunately it has been dumping snow for the last few days so the whole house is currently up on the mountain making fresh tracks in the powder snow.
(Photo: that's wes if you can't tell).


Wes and I have worked out that if we make it up the hill in time for the opening of the first chair lift at 9am we can have 2 or 3 fantastic hours of "First Tracks", which is much better than skiing for 4 hours in the afternoon.
(Photo: The Orphans at our house for Christmas dinner)
We had a fantastic Christmas day which revolved around food. Lunch was spent with our friends Claudia, Steve, Em, Jez, Molly and Liam (Claudia and Steve's most adorable and incredibly polite little kids) at their house. They put on the whole christmas spread of turkey, ham, vegies and 4 sumptuous desserts!!! Claudia and Steve have a hot tub which we tried out the other night, but we were too stuffed to give it another go on Christmas day. There is nothing quite like running outside in -15 degrees in your swimmers and jumping in the hot tub. It's very hard to get out.
Following our delicious lunch, we then went home to our place and together with our housemates, we put on a dinner for all the Orphans we have met in town. 13 of us got stuck into our 9kilogram turkey and 2 kilo ham. We gave it a good go, but we did manage to salvage some leftovers which lasted this week. I'm a bit over ham now.
(Photo: Our 9 kilo turkey)


Tonight is New Years Eve, but unfortunately Wes and I are working at the crack of dawn tomorrow morning and so we will either head to a bonfire down the road, or have a very low key evening at home. Its no big deal as we've collectively come to the conclusion that we've both been to some amazing New Year's Eve parties over the years, so we're happy to sit this one out.

We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Years and are gearing up for a fantastic year ahead.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Chilli Con Carne

Each day is getting colder and colder!!

We've been assured by the locals that Fernie is currently in a cold snap and it will get warmer, but this morning we woke up to a chilly -27 degrees and its only December. Unfortunately Wes had to face the frost head on and go to work at 6am this morning, for a 7am start. We continue to hitchhike, meaning Wes had to wait in the freezing cold for that nice person to stop and pick him up this morning. There's nothing better than getting into a warm car or coming back to our warm house with the fire raging after a stint outside!

Last weekend was the official opening ski weekend for Fernie. On Saturday Wes went snowboarding with our new housemate Kelly (who conveniently is a snowboard instructor). He managed to keep up with her all day and the report from both of them was that the snow up the top of the mountain was fantastic. Lots of powder (which Fernie is famous for) and overall great conditions.

I have the week off work and have been wanting to ski, but it hasn't snowed for a week or so and the fear of frostbite is scaring me away. I've promised to go up tomorrow with Wes. Excited about testing out my brand new White Nordica Ski Boots which have built in battery powered heaters!

The Ghostriders won on Saturday night so we used that as an excuse to go out and celebrate. Needless to say we didn't end up skiing on Sunday.