It has been a very busy week. I am tired!

Natasha stayed with us for a few days after New Years. We had a lot of fun with her, playing Settlers and dragging her around to different parts of the city to buy shelves, and cooking a lot of delicious vegetarian asian food.

Our New Years Eve was very low key. Natasha, Parry, and his fiancee came over. The last time I saw Parry was like 4 years ago… on New Years Eve in Toronto! Anyway it was really good to see him again, he’s pretty much the only one I still keep in contact with from Maastricht.

At about 1:00 AM Nat, Scott and I decided that doing the New Years Day Polar Bear Swim in English Bay was actually the greatest idea of all time. We got pretty pumped about that, and then went to bed. But we followed through! There were SOOOOOOO many people there. Apparently there were something like 2,300 swimmers, and probably just as many spectators. It was insanity.

I reckon I was only in the water for about 5 seconds. We had decided that you had to dunk your head to make it ‘official’ so I ran two steps in, ducked under, and then ran out. Wrapped up in our giant towels and then got dressed up in the massive amount of winter clothing we packed. It actually wasn’t that bad! The sun shining definitely helped. The only bad part was our feet… the beach was painfully cold.

After the swim we walked up and got hot chocolate and by that time we were all pretty much back to normal! If I’m here next year I would do it again. Unless it was raining.

After the long weekend Scott and I were back to work, Natasha headed off to New Zealand, and then Rosemarie came back (bearing gifts and snowboarding equipment)! Of course we squeezed in another game of Settlers.

Both Scott and I feel pretty run down after all this activity. I need a long weekend after that long weekend. :/ Which I do not get, at all, because I’m going in tomorrow to do overtime at work! The money will help though… a lot of snowboarding in our near future!!

Mount Seymour on Monday for a practice session. We are renting a car because it is actually cheaper than paying 4 one-way shuttle tickets and 2 add-fares, plus then we don’t have to leave work early. Girls are free on Monday nights too, which is awesome! Then Whistler next weekend!! We originally planned on just going for the weekend, but Scott suggested I stay Monday too with his friends, which I am now very much considering (Scott can’t stay because he actually must be at work that Monday). We shall see. I am excited!!

About time for another food post soon. I’ve had some successes lately. Mmmmm.