it won't stop!

i wish wish wish that i had a camera so i could take one of those rare pictures of vancouver encased in snow.
it's been snowing for 2 days and shows no sign of stopping.
it's incredible.

in other big news, my brother won his moot court competition on thursday and i am so proud of him. and he did it for my grandad which is also amazing (no wonder he won).

and in less earth-shattering, but equally exciting news, my gingerbread team at work won the gingerbread competition. hands down, greatest gingerbread of all time - the gingerbread pirate ship, the "canker sore".
pics will be posted tomorrow (hopefully of snow as well).

and even more importantly, i'm home! i feel like i've been away for ages, and yesterday, had such a good hang out day at home. i did laundry, ran errands, went to the gym and totally pumped iron in the meat locker area, as opposed to the women's only gym and felt really powerful. then i walked home and tried to catch snowflakes on my tongue.

today - hopefully some snowshoeing and playing around in this white gold.

guess my nationality

in honour of valentine's day, the bestest holiday in the world, i am going to post about my trip this weekend which has nothing at all to do with valentine's day. still, feel free to eat chocolate and cinnamon hearts until your tastebuds fall off.

this weekend julia, jason and i went to vernon, julia's homeland. we went to drop off the cats before mr. and mrs. payqueck saunter off to bangladesh in march. so we drove up on friday, stopped in chilliwack to see the greatest invention of all time...

and shove some doughnuts in our mouths before getting our snow tires retorqued. this is us at our dougnut stop:
x
then we blasted up the coquihalla in my pizza car and even got passed by a truck on the way up. we were just keepin' it real.... really real.... at about 55 km per hour at our lowest. maybe life is a little better, if not faster in an SUV. naaaaaahhhhh....

anyhoo, we made it to vernon blasting cat stevens ("c'mon ride the peace train!!!") and dragging along a caravan of folks who were regular commuters along the scary road between kamloops and vernon. we saw rod and jan and tried to integrate the kittens into hazel's empire. let's just say that hazel still has firm control of the upstairs, but zak and loki are quietly repatriating downstairs for themselves. at least, loki has repatriated the glass cabinet by sitting on the second shelf. anyhoo, we sat around, had a yummy dinner and went to sleep on friday night.

had a carefree morning on saturday and then off to silver star for most of the afternoon. we cross-country skied at sovereign lakes which was SO GREAT. i could finally almost reach my dream of being beckie scott on these trails and both julia and i regained our false confidence in our x-country skiing ability which had been shattered by cypress. i have to add some caveats now to my usual "i hate cross-country skiing" speech / harangue.
#1) i only hate cross-country skiing on hills that are supposed to be downhills (e.g. cypress). given a real cross-country ski trail, i happen to be quite competent and will enjoy myself very much.
#2) i also only hate cross-country skiing with goggles, hats and gloves. in high school, and growing up, i used to have to bundle up a lot before going which consequently made me a very sweaty mess - and a very sweaty mess with really foggy glasses. without all the gear, again, i am quite a happy camper. and i can also see properly which helps with the whole happiness thing.

here are the pics from our sunny day... warning: i like trees. and mom, don't worry, julia will post some pictures with me in them so you can stop the nagging voice from saying, "but where are you??"




that night we had a great dinner with julia's grandparents and her uncle ray and i got my very own jar of grandma's applesauce, which i have already finished. i actually finished it yesterday morning. yummers. then i slept like a baby, or a comatose patient in the room with no windows.

on sunday, jason and i drove back and left julia in vernon for another week. and now i will never drive my car again without a butt transplant since vernon is a little long for a three day journey.

thus ends my rant.
one note about the photos, though... god i miss the sun and summer. all of the photos i've posted on this thing so far feel and look like the dead of winter. maybe i will insert a photo of a papaya tree to try to spice it up with something tropical.


aaaah. much better.

My thighs are shakin'...

from much cross-country skiing.

Today was an amazing day up at cypress with 2 of my laydees: miss julia and miss jackie. after driving up (all the way!) after picking up some snow tires from my famille in west van, we hit the hills for about 4 1/2 hours (that includes lunch) of cross-country skiing and sight-seeing.

it was one of those days where you feel great, proud, even cocky about how beautiful vancouver is. on the drive up we ripped through the fog and it was sunny skies from there on in. english bay was covered in clouds so the whole thing looked like a big cotton blanket with mountains springing out.

and now i am pooped.

so how to recap with some semblance of a sense of humour?
well, julia rediscovered her inner 4 year old with some serious snow plow, jess rediscovered her inner 84 year old with some serious side stepping on the steep parts and jackie, well, jackie just bombed the hills with no fear (and then waited a lot for the inner 4 and 84 year olds). and we ran into our friend, ken, from ubc who spent a fortuitous night once at our place in 3rd year university when julia and i lived together. and we also met his mom. ha!

it was an amazing day. but i said that already. whatever - i'll say it again. it was an amazing day.

and we have the pictures to prove it...