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I had a really awesome weekend. I said that already.

We all met at Rosemarie’s house. She fed us homemade sushi. It was snowing a bit so we were a little concerned about the drive up to Whistler, but it ended up being totally fine, we just drove a little slower than usual. We arrived at our first hotel and were pleasantly surprised at the size of the room, and the free extra parking spot. We ate and drank and played Wits and Wagers. An excellent way to get to know new people! Rosemarie was the only one who had met everyone else before.

I can’t even remember who won. Doesn’t matter, it was fun!

Next morning was a bit frantic. The Facebook page had said that our skeleton session was from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM. At 8:30 AM I got a text from the organizer saying ‘WHERE ARE YOUUUUU’ and ‘YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE AN HOUR EARLY!’ which was pretty annoying. I don’t know how we were supposed to know that. Also the session was actually until 11:00 AM. Anyway we rushed rushed rushed and got up to the sliding centre where we quickly filled out paperwork, grabbed our helmets and sleds, and got driven up to the start.

I don’t have any pictures of the actual skeleton session this time because Tink was taking about 9 million pictures of each of us, so I left it up to her. Hopefully she posts some soon!!


I didn’t do my best on the first day, but I still had lots of fun. My speeds were between 98.40 km/hr and 99.42 km/hr. I REALLY wanted to get more than 100 km/hr but it didn’t happen that day. We swapped sleds around a lot to try them out. Each sled is really quite different than the next, in responsiveness and weight etc etc. Actually I placed first in that 98.40 km/hr run so I’m not sure what was happening there.

Brian (Scott’s friend!) did awesome both days of sliding. He’s a natural! The coach really liked him a lot. Brian had many runs over 100 km/hr. He is now addicted, which is good, because this ‘club’ really needs all the members it can get.

After skeleton I went snowboarding. The conditions were great (TONS O’ POWDER) but I suck at snowboarding. Really I have been snowboarding since middle school and I have not improved much. I found it extremely tiring and actually not that much fun. I am seriously considering switching back to skiing or snowblading because I miss being able to explore more of a mountain. Plus at the moment I don’t have a snowboard or boots so it’s a pretty good time to switch.


Anyway I did a few runs with Rob and then one really long one with David, and then the day was over. We moved into our next hotel (Westin!!) and spent many hours in the hot tub, playing Settlers, and eating dinner. Then back to the hot tub. Good times!

OK I’m going to leave day 2 for another entry.

Scott is home! He is sleeping on the couch. He made tea, put on a tv show, then fell asleep. I turned off the show because I was doing school work, then he woke up, drank some tea, turned the TV on again, and he is now asleep. Yeesh.

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Busy day but just thought I’d write a quick post that lets you know what we’re up to this weekend.

In a couple minutes I’ll be leaving for Rosemarie’s place where everyone is meeting. We’ll pack up the cars and drive to Whistler. It’s a bit yuck out but not too bad. Saturday and Sunday morning we have skeleton and then I’m not sure if I’m going to go snowboarding after that. I’ve packed my snowboard but I’m going to wait and see if there are half day tickets available or if I can get up the hill in any other kind of way, even if it’s just for one long run because it’s really expensive. We’re staying in a different hotel each night, thanks to some cheap deals. Both have hot tubs though! And then we’ll come home Sunday after the ski day is over.

It’s actually a great weekend for me to get away, because I DO NOT HAVE ANY MIDTERMS NEXT WEEK. WHATTT???! And I’ve done a whole bunch of my work early so I can have a pretty relaxed weekend with nearly no school stress. It will feel nice after the past couple weeks.

Lots of laughs, games, food and winter fun ahead! I only wish Scott could have come up with us too. (He’s having a pretty good time in hot hot hot Melbourne though…)

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Gahhhhhhhhhhh.

This morning I woke up to an email that said that the other dude that replied before me would go bobsledding with another person, and that I would go bobsledding with the original girl. Of course I was happy to read that and got really excited again.

I get to school, tell all my friends, and we postponed our class skating trip that we were planning on doing after school tomorrow. Then an hour later I check my email again and turns out the girl actually had someone all along. :((

As of 6:35 PM, I am not going bobsledding. We unpostponed (preponed?) the skating trip. Who knows what is going to happen though, everything is seriously up in the air still.

Skeleton and bobsledding is a ROLLER COASTER OF EMOTIONS.

ON THE PLUS SIDE: last nights dinner was extremely tasty!!


Pulled pork sandwiches and Greek salad. I cooked the pork shoulder with onions and a cup of ginger ale for 9 hours on low, then drained off all the fat and shredded the pork. Then I mixed in the BBQ sauce (Kraft Garlic BBQ Sauce) and cooked it for another 4 hours on low. It was suuuuuper tender.

Mmmmm. I thought the sandwiches needed vegetables but we didn’t have cabbage so I decided to just put a few cucumber slices. I had a slice of cheese on mine. The salad had spinach, tomato, cucumber, black olives and feta. No dressing was necessary.

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I’m bummed.

Skeleton keeps getting cancelled. They need to have at least six committed people a week before the date to be able to book the time. So far the highest we’ve gotten to is FOUR.

I feel like I am never going to get to do skeleton again (Grandma, I think I can hear you cheering!), which makes me think that paying the $100 for a sliding membership was a colossal waste. Sigh. So many turned down ski trips because I thought I needed to save every penny for skeleton.

Then yesterday there was a posting looking for another body for three bobsled sessions this weekend. I asked Scott what he thought about me doing it and he said ‘Go for it!’ so I emailed the girl. But I just got a reply back saying another guy already volunteered. :((((( I am very sad.

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Impromptu lunch time post.

So my last post about skeleton ended at the end of the first session. We had lunch at a diner (I just had soup, since I packed a thousand sandwiches) and then headed to Rob’s cabin. I studied for a while since I had a chemistry midterm on Monday morning. Was a bit stressed out about that.

After study time the boys bought food for dinner (I had another sandwich) and wine and they cooked and we drank and ate. It was fun! We also played cribbage. And laughed a lot.

It is kinda funny that I was hanging out with these two strangers basically but they were really friendly and we got along well. I’m glad it was so fun, it could have been an awkward weekend.

I woke up on Sunday morning with very very sore thighs. I think it must have been from lifting the sled. The sled weighs about 60 lbs and the way I was picking it up was basically doing squats with the 60 lbs. My body is sooo not used to doing that kind of exercise. The boys had sore necks, but mine was ok.

Noon: time for session number 2!!

In the truck going up to the top. We are all laughing because Rob got into the truck without his sled and then had to jump out and get the driver to stop. It was funny at the time.

This is my favourite picture! Thanks to Rob for taking all the action shots with his nice camera. They are so cool!

Coming out of a corner.

At the end there is an uphill bit to slow down. Once you’ve gotten as high as you’re going to go the track workers jump in and stop your sled from sliding back. Then you climb over the edge and they pass it to you and you carry it back to the truck.

Second day I had a top speed of 98.1 km/h! Sam improved a lot the second day and beat me by 0.1 km/h, dang. I did have two runs over 98 km/h though and I am very pleased with that.

I really wish I could go more. The coach emailed us and said we could come back for more sessions this weekend but I simply cannot afford the money or the time. Sigh. It’s a little sucky that we probably will not really improve because we all can’t go very often. We probably will not be able to move up to the higher starting point this year. I feel like if I actually was able to go a lot I could actually get good. I really like skeleton and wish I could pursue it.

It is totally totally awesome though that we get this opportunity at all though! When the next winter Olympics roll around we’ll all be like ‘oh yeah, I’VE DONE THAT!’. Pretty cool.