Dan & I have been skiing every day since Christmas! We went up to Hollyburn (Cypress) on Christmas day for a couple of hours. What a great way to spend Christmas! The next two days we skied at the new Whistler Olympic Park - I was practicing the runs just in case they need me in 2010... We were up at Hollyburn again today. I think my legs might want a break tomorrow.
Any way, I've had a great Christmas! I love hanging out at home and having an easy going day! We might have to do this again. I did visit family and friends the week before Christmas. I spent about 8 days on the Island. I didn't take the car which made it really relaxing - I let the train and bus folks do all the work.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Monday, December 17, 2007
Christmas Joe
Joe would like to wish everyone a very
Merry Christmas
&
Happy New Year
filled with lots of shortbread, love, pie, peace, fruit cake, happiness, and gingerbread!
filled with lots of shortbread, love, pie, peace, fruit cake, happiness, and gingerbread!
Updates
Thought I'd do some catching up...
At the beginning of December, I went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. What an amazing and fun concert!! I first heard of them about 3 years ago. They do mostly Christmas music, but they also have some other stuff that appears to be based on classical music. They make music with classical, rock, Broadway and R & B twists to it. Their first set was like a rock opera - there was a story to the music they played. The second set was a variety of Christmas music and the band was having a great time playing! They played here with members of the Vancouver String Choir. I think they use local string musicians for all of their concerts. There are samples of their music on-line, check 'em out.
I've been volunteering at a couple of places. I help out in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life office. (This is the event Rene and I put together a team for each year, and then we come around asking you for money.) I asked them if they ever need help around the office doing odd jobs and, boy, did they ever jump on that. So far, I've done stuff like binding sponsorship packages, installing software, mapping out addresses, looking for postal codes, etc. There is a great group of people in the office and I love going there.
I also just started with the David Suzuki Foundation. I'm the assistant to the volunteer coordinator. So far I've helped with a name tag template and entering volunteer info into the database. I'm excited to see what else I end up doing and to learn as much as I can while I'm at the Foundation.
I'll also be working at Cypress Mountain a bit. I think I'm going to be a Host in the downhill area - checking to make sure everyone has the right lift pass. I'm doing it mostly to get myself up the mountain more to do some cross-country skiing.
Happy holidays to everyone!
At the beginning of December, I went to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra. What an amazing and fun concert!! I first heard of them about 3 years ago. They do mostly Christmas music, but they also have some other stuff that appears to be based on classical music. They make music with classical, rock, Broadway and R & B twists to it. Their first set was like a rock opera - there was a story to the music they played. The second set was a variety of Christmas music and the band was having a great time playing! They played here with members of the Vancouver String Choir. I think they use local string musicians for all of their concerts. There are samples of their music on-line, check 'em out.
I've been volunteering at a couple of places. I help out in the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life office. (This is the event Rene and I put together a team for each year, and then we come around asking you for money.) I asked them if they ever need help around the office doing odd jobs and, boy, did they ever jump on that. So far, I've done stuff like binding sponsorship packages, installing software, mapping out addresses, looking for postal codes, etc. There is a great group of people in the office and I love going there.
I also just started with the David Suzuki Foundation. I'm the assistant to the volunteer coordinator. So far I've helped with a name tag template and entering volunteer info into the database. I'm excited to see what else I end up doing and to learn as much as I can while I'm at the Foundation.
I'll also be working at Cypress Mountain a bit. I think I'm going to be a Host in the downhill area - checking to make sure everyone has the right lift pass. I'm doing it mostly to get myself up the mountain more to do some cross-country skiing.
Happy holidays to everyone!
Christmas traveling
Having all this time off does take a lot of the pressure off of Christmas! I am enjoying Christmas much more this year than usual. Shopping was easy. Although, don't think that the malls are empty while you're all at 9-5 jobs. No way! That's one thing I've noticed the whole time I've been off - an awful lot of people are off during the day! I thought I'd have the stores to myself, be able to make dentist and doctor appointments with ease, drop in for a physio session... Nope. Everything is still packed. Physios and other health professionals have full schedules even during the day. Stores are crowded. Parking lots are zoos. Timmy's has a line up all the time.
Any way, back to Christmas. I had time to do lots of baking. Which also means I had time to do lots of testing of the baking... Uh oh. Not a good thing since I can't do as much running as I would like. Apparently, I've now got exercise induced asthma. I've had mild asthma since I was a kid, but it's been flaring up a bit in the last couple of years. Along with that is this EIA. Not sure where it came from, but I sure wish it'd go away. Any where from 20 to 40 minutes into a run, I start to feel like I'm getting motion sick - makes it a bit tough to run. Definitely not a good thing when I've got a half-marathon in Phoenix in a month and a full marathon in Vancouver in May. This was going to be the year I properly trained for a marathon and ran it pain free. So much for getting any training in... The specialist wants to do a bunch of tests and get me on some drugs that will help, but I can't see him again until after the half-marathon. And who knows when I'll get appointments for the tests knowing the lineups in our health care system. I sure hope the drugs work fast when I eventually get them so that I can jump into marathon training with both feet even though I won't be ready for it.
Ooops, off topic again. I'm writing this in Victoria at my sister Karen's place. Instead of visiting my family over Christmas, I decided to visit them this week. I came over to the Island on Friday and stayed with my brother Greg in Nanoose. We went to visit my aunt and uncle on Thetis Island on Saturday. I don't see them too much. It's hard enough to get over to one island, never mind going to another one once I'm here. (Lazy excuse, I know...) I love going over there - Auntie Joan is a great cook and usually has something for me to take home. I love care packages! I caught the bus to Victoria Saturday evening. I'll be heading up to Courtenay on the train tomorrow. I haven't taken the train since I was a kid. I'm looking forward to it. I checked out the bus as well. The train is $13 more for the same trip!! I really should be taking the bus, but the train just sounds so much nicer. I'm going to splurge. I'll hang out with my sister Janet in Courtenay until Saturday and then it's back to Vancouver. It'll be my first ever Christmas in my own home!! It'll be so nice to not be traveling! Well, almost no traveling. We will be driving up to Squamish on Boxing Day to see Dan's mom and to do some cross-country skiing. Guess I can't hang up the car keys for as long as I'd have liked, but at least I'll be waking up in my own bed on Christmas morning.
One nice thing about traveling right now is that the buses and ferries aren't that busy. The ferry on Friday night was pretty empty! I haven't seen it like that for ages on a Friday night. It was great! Same with the bus ride to Victoria. I'm hoping for more of the same tomorrow on the train. I'm sure it'll be quiet since it's a Tuesday. The bus from Courtenay back to the ferry (on Saturday, 22 Dec) is probably going to be PACKED! Yuck! I'd have left a bit earlier, but a woman I grew up with is singing in Courtenay on Friday night. I've never heard her sing professionally (high school musicals don't count...), so I'm staying for that.
I'll quit babbling on. I think this is getting pretty long, so I'll save some stories for later. I'm getting hungry too, so I think I'll go shower and wander over to Cook St. village to find a nice little coffee shop. Yep, I sure do like this lifestyle...
Any way, back to Christmas. I had time to do lots of baking. Which also means I had time to do lots of testing of the baking... Uh oh. Not a good thing since I can't do as much running as I would like. Apparently, I've now got exercise induced asthma. I've had mild asthma since I was a kid, but it's been flaring up a bit in the last couple of years. Along with that is this EIA. Not sure where it came from, but I sure wish it'd go away. Any where from 20 to 40 minutes into a run, I start to feel like I'm getting motion sick - makes it a bit tough to run. Definitely not a good thing when I've got a half-marathon in Phoenix in a month and a full marathon in Vancouver in May. This was going to be the year I properly trained for a marathon and ran it pain free. So much for getting any training in... The specialist wants to do a bunch of tests and get me on some drugs that will help, but I can't see him again until after the half-marathon. And who knows when I'll get appointments for the tests knowing the lineups in our health care system. I sure hope the drugs work fast when I eventually get them so that I can jump into marathon training with both feet even though I won't be ready for it.
Ooops, off topic again. I'm writing this in Victoria at my sister Karen's place. Instead of visiting my family over Christmas, I decided to visit them this week. I came over to the Island on Friday and stayed with my brother Greg in Nanoose. We went to visit my aunt and uncle on Thetis Island on Saturday. I don't see them too much. It's hard enough to get over to one island, never mind going to another one once I'm here. (Lazy excuse, I know...) I love going over there - Auntie Joan is a great cook and usually has something for me to take home. I love care packages! I caught the bus to Victoria Saturday evening. I'll be heading up to Courtenay on the train tomorrow. I haven't taken the train since I was a kid. I'm looking forward to it. I checked out the bus as well. The train is $13 more for the same trip!! I really should be taking the bus, but the train just sounds so much nicer. I'm going to splurge. I'll hang out with my sister Janet in Courtenay until Saturday and then it's back to Vancouver. It'll be my first ever Christmas in my own home!! It'll be so nice to not be traveling! Well, almost no traveling. We will be driving up to Squamish on Boxing Day to see Dan's mom and to do some cross-country skiing. Guess I can't hang up the car keys for as long as I'd have liked, but at least I'll be waking up in my own bed on Christmas morning.
One nice thing about traveling right now is that the buses and ferries aren't that busy. The ferry on Friday night was pretty empty! I haven't seen it like that for ages on a Friday night. It was great! Same with the bus ride to Victoria. I'm hoping for more of the same tomorrow on the train. I'm sure it'll be quiet since it's a Tuesday. The bus from Courtenay back to the ferry (on Saturday, 22 Dec) is probably going to be PACKED! Yuck! I'd have left a bit earlier, but a woman I grew up with is singing in Courtenay on Friday night. I've never heard her sing professionally (high school musicals don't count...), so I'm staying for that.
I'll quit babbling on. I think this is getting pretty long, so I'll save some stories for later. I'm getting hungry too, so I think I'll go shower and wander over to Cook St. village to find a nice little coffee shop. Yep, I sure do like this lifestyle...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Only 14 more days!
Wow! It's December already! The eleventh of December to be exact! I can't believe it's been two weeks since I last wrote anything. This won't be much - I'm just writing to say that I'm still here and things are still amazing!!
A few things I will elaborate on in a later post... the two places I'm volunteering with, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, The Cat's visit to the vet, 1st annual Oh Run All Ye Faithful, and anything else I might have missed mentioning.
It's late and I'd better be off to bed.
A few things I will elaborate on in a later post... the two places I'm volunteering with, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, The Cat's visit to the vet, 1st annual Oh Run All Ye Faithful, and anything else I might have missed mentioning.
It's late and I'd better be off to bed.
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