by ·1 Comment

Quick update from Calgary:

Scott and I had so much fun in Ottawa last week. I made Scott try every winter activity including canal skating, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, fort building, tobogganing, curling, hockey and probably more that I am forgetting right now. It was also awesome seeing lots of friends and family. I wish it didn’t cost so much to come visit so I could come more!

It has also been really fun here in Calgary. I got to ride my friends’ horse! And then Can-Am week started on Tuesday. I thought we were just coming to do some informal sliding but actually it’s like a proper week of training. We’ve done two track walks, 5 runs, running starts, and icehouse practice time. And there are tons of coaches around filming and giving us feedback after every run. Yesterday was quite a long day but today is much shorter. Good thing because my legs are sore.

The track here is much much slower than Whistler but challenging in different ways. It’s bumpier and has a tricky corner and a kreisel (270° corner). Running starts are also an added challenge for Matt and I. I popped the groove yesterday which wasn’t very fun as it took me a few corners and a lot of toe dragging to regain my composure. At least I know what it’s like now.

by ·4 Comments

I did three more runs from corner 3 last night, much more successfully than the other night. Matt and I have been getting times within a few hundredths of a second so the (friendly) competition is fierce. I’m not going again tonight because I’m still getting over a bad cold. I don’t want to be sick for our big trip.

Leslie’s mom is in town so we all went out for brunch this morning. Rosemarie AND Scott were able to come too so it was really nice. We went to the Twisted Fork Bistro and ate lots of eggs benedict and frittata and baked eggs and banana french toast. I love going out for breakfast with people! I miss our monthly brunch club with Zsofi and Jess.

Oh yeah I also have purple hair now??!! Leslie helped me do it yesterday. :D

I’m working tomorrow (ummm better figure out how to put my hair in a bun) and then we’re off to Toronto, so my next post will probably be from Ontario. See ya.

by ·1 Comment

Mint Oreo brownie ice cream cake for Scott’s birthday. This cake was AMAZING. So many different types of sugar, so many different types of delicious. Would have been easier if I had a spring-form pan, instead I had to improvise with bits of cardboard and parchment paper, haha.

Our attempt at chili cheese fries. Good, but needed more liquid cheese…

Rosemarie made us a nice lunch platter one day when she was staying with us. She really was a great house guest. Those little bottles are filled with delicious balsamic reduction that we bought at the apple festival.

Scott’s co-worker gave him about 9 billion key limes, which he promptly turned into key lime pie. One naked key lime pie, and one key lime pie with meringue (above). I liked the naked one more… it was super super limey. He also juiced all the extra limes which I used to make margaritas, and guacamole.


SO LATE. Budget Bytes Crispy Peppermint Bark. I love the addition of rice krispies to the bark. It adds a nice crunch and keeps the costs low. I want to make this again right now, even though it is totally not Christmas. Bark in any season I say!

by ·0 Comments

It’s been an interesting and eventful week of skeleton.


Last weekend I slid on Saturday and Sunday with the regular skeleton school. I wasn’t sliding that well… didn’t even crack 120 km/hr and was mostly coming in last place each run. It was still fun though. Leslie came to watch us and took a few pictures. The best part of the weekend was that our coach said that Matt and I could start coming up to slide on weeknights with the BC team. After 2+ years of skeleton school…. we have graduated!!

Thursday night BCBSA sliding was awesome. We got to do a track walk for the first time. I was surprised how steep it was. One guy almost took out the whole team when he fell down, haha. My first run was wild and not great, but then Ivo reminded me about how I need to keep my toes together the entire time and my second and third run were much better. I even beat Matt on my last run. Ah, everything returning to normal. ;)

I went up again on yesterday too. I did one mediocre run from corner 7, and then Ivo got me to move up. Starting at corner 3 adds about 4 seconds on to your run time and up to 10 km/hr faster. It was scary!! The first run I did from there was ok… I had a couple big bumps, went 126 km/hr. Exhilarating!

My second run from corner 3 was more exciting… I fell off my sled!! I drove up a corner so high my sled tipped me off and I couldn’t get back on. I watched my sled disappear in front of me while I slid down the ice on my stomach. It actually wasn’t that bad though, it didn’t even rip my suit. I walked off the track. I’m a little sore today but not in any particular area. For a first crash, it went pretty smoothly.

So now I’ve got two more days of BCBSA sliding next week before I head to Toronto/Ottawa/Calgary. These team sessions are so much better than the schools because Ivo has so much more time to spend with us. I feel like I’ve learned so much in the past few days. I’m so excited for Calgary too…. a slower track, a new track, running starts, fresh start. YAY!!

And to finish off this post, here is my first One Second Everyday video! My project this year has been to take one second of video each day with the 1 Second Everyday app which stitches all the clips together into a video. Here is the January 2014 instalment:

by ·0 Comments

Rosemarie got Scott (and me) a voucher for EXTREME trampolining for Christmas. It was way harder than we expected. We were there for 1.5 hours and got so tired. It was fun trying to bounce from one side of the room to the other without stopping, and flipping into the foam pit. If I ever go there again I know I need to bring tape to wrap around my socks… they come off soooooo easy in the foam pit!!!

They randomly turned the lights off for about ten minutes. For once I was actually wearing the right clothes for black lights. I felt like I was in a Sia performance.

I donated blood for the first time this week. I always thought people were exaggerating when they talked about how big the needles are there…. they are not!! The needles are like straws!! But anyway it was fine and I enjoyed my juice box and cookies at the end. I will most likely go again in 58 days when I am allowed to come back. Why not?

I also recently signed up to be a bone marrow donor. Did you know that donating bone marrow is a lot less painful than it used to be? Sometimes they can get the stem cells via a vein in your arm. They even give you back the parts of the blood that they don’t need. Sometimes they still have to tap the bone, but if it’s going to change someone’s life then a little bit of pain is worth it, in my opinion. They really need donors, especially young ethnic males. You have to be between the ages of 17 and 35. When you sign up for One Match you do a little online quiz, then they mail you a cheek swab kit, which you mail back with your samples. Pretty easy and pretty cool! I hope some day I get a call.

Leslie, Rosemarie and I went to Ladies Night at Mount Seymour last Monday. In case you haven’t heard: winter here in Vancouver was been extremely mild. The mountains barely have any snow at all. Whistler’s base is about one quarter as deep as it was last year at this point. I guess most people have given up on winter sports because Ladies Night was deserted. There were like 12 people on the whole mountain, haha.

I was a little overdressed in my (new) parka. The snow was more like little balls of ice water. We could take our gloves off no problem. We couldn’t even see our breath. It was still fun-ish, although Leslie was having equiptment issues and my toe was realllllly hurting (more about this later). We stayed a few hours but left early. Still okay for $5 (for charity!).