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1. FAMJAM/#jornapalooza2015

April helping Uncle Scotty use the computer.


An extremely cute Easter bunny.

I love that the whole family likes games. Simultaneous Wits & Wagers and My First Carcassonne.


Cutest dinosaur ever (Seth).

Jemma and April.

The entire Jorna family together! This hasn’t happened in a long time. It made Pat (Scott’s dad) so happy. :’)

2. SPORTS

We went to a rugby union game. I learned all about weird things like BORING IN THE SCRUM.

Scott’s cousin hooked us up with ultra cheap tickets to the footy. The Hawks demolished the Cats. It’s one of my life goals to go to a full house AFL game at the MCG (100,000 people) (happens about a dozen times a season according to Scott), and this was close, but not quite. There were 72,000 people there, for a FIRST ROUND GAME! Melbournites love their sports.

Hawthorne cheer squad.

We even caught a Canada vs. Fiji Rugby Sevens game on TV, which made me laugh, and made Scott run to his room to put his jersey on. Canada was even winning for most of the game! But then Fiji smashed us. They seemed like they could run twice as fast as the Canadians.

3. AUSSIE FOODS

I ate 5 meat pies in 2 weeks. :D

We went out for dumplings, but they weren’t great. Should have researched a bit more about where is good these days.

At one of the spots on our impromptu pub crawl. We also went to a bar that was a little house right in the middle of the CBD, and Transport, and possibly somewhere else. Hmm.

Really expensive fancy margarita and really expensive piece of pork something. Too tipsy to remember the name of the restaurant. The pork was mega delicious though.

– we also ate lots of lamb, vanilla slices, parmas, flathead, Freddo Frogs, etc etc. And brought back an entire suitcase filled with Savoys, Tim Tams and BBQ Shapes.

 

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After more than 24 hours of travel we finally arrived in Melbourne. Brett and Beau picked us up with packages of Tim Tams, Savoys and BBQ Shapes in hand. They dropped us off in Boronia, and then we headed off with Vicky (Scott’s mum!) to Shannon Bennett’s Piggery Café for lunch in the hills. We had barramundi burgers, pork belly BLT, and lots of salad. It was lovely.

We had a night to adjust and then the next day we drove to Phillip Island to join the rest of the family at the holiday house they rented. Brett, Michelle, Noah, Beau, and Seth were all there, along with Jemma, Damien, and April, and then Scott and I and Vicky. FAMJAM!

Scott and I meet April for the first time! She was pretty aloof with us at the beginning. Lots of side-eye, haha. It was also my first time meeting Seth, who seemed pretty excited to see me, especially since I was carrying a big bag of presents.

It was hot the first day so we spent the day at the beach. Scott played a lot of beach cricket with Noah.


We played a lot of games while we were there. Scott and I got the boys kids Carcassonne, kids Wits & Wagers, and Forbidden Island. Kids Carcassonne is fun, even for adults, although it’s best when you play with people around the same strategy level because I had to sort of restrain myself from SMASHING 4 year olds. Kids Wits & Wagers is pretty much the same as the adult version, except slightly easier questions, and an easier betting system. Everyone liked it, we even played it after the kids went to bed. And Forbidden Island is a cooperative game, similar to Pandemic.

We all went out for dinner at the Cowes RSL.

I think Scott took this picture when he was waking April up from her nap? Pretty dang adorable.

One afternoon Scott and I went for a drive around the island. We ate pies and went out to the Nobbies. We didn’t see any penguins (not the right time of day) but we did see the blowhole blow. And got so blown around by the wind that we felt sick afterwards. It didn’t feel bad as we were walking around but when we got back in the car we both felt awful. So weird, it was like a wind concussion. I do love those pictures though. I look like a troll!

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I originally planned to do separate posts on all of these topics but now I’m sitting here in YVR airport about to leave for 2.5 weeks thinking I’d better just write a big post to catch up instead.

Scott and I are on our way to Melbourne for #jornapalooza via Guangzhou, China. Apparently we are allowed to leave the airport in China (thanks 72 hour transit visa) so we may explore a bit there too which I am pretty excited about. The subway goes right to the airport so it should be pretty easy. Unfortunately they speak mainly Cantonese there so I won’t be able to dazzle everyone with my sweet Mandarin skills though. But it would be fun to get some street food and look around a bit.

Australia is going to be fun too. The whole family has rented a big house on Phillip Island for the first few days, then Jessie comes to Melbourne for Easter and a baby shower, and then I go to Adelaide for a few days to visit Cassia! I am iksidid.

Anyway that’s pretty much all the updates about what’s coming up. And now to catch up on the last month…

Calgary was super good this year. We spent a week at COP training in the icehouse and on the skeleton track and then competed in an Alberta Cup race on the last day. I had a lot more success sliding there compared to last year. I have learned SO MUCH this season and understood the track and sliding so much more. My starts were very very slow compared to everyone else and I would start each run in last place, but I must be ok at driving because I ended up gaining spots every run. I ended up coming 4th in the race (out of 7 competitors). My goal was not to come in last place and I definitely succeeded in that so I was happy.

This year I stayed at Ally’s house the whole time and that was awesome. It’s always great to catch up with old friends and her and Scott are very fun. I was busy a lot of the time I was there but we still squeezed in going to a nice oyster restaurant, going out to the barn for a ride on her horse, and going to watch some of the Brier curling. BTW curling is really fun to watch live!

Sliding in Whistler was going pretty well too. Sliding from the top was getting less and less scary every day. Every session I would try and push just a tiny bit faster. We ended up having quite a big turnout for our last race of the season, BC Champs, including OTHER GIRL SKELETON SLIDERS!! I came in 4th, aka last place, but I was competing against World Cup/ICC level sliders so that was to be expected. I was still pretty happy because I got a huge PB time on the first day of the race, and then another PB on the second day.

BCBSA ended up giving out medals to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places, and then a separate medal for the #1 BC slider. Originally they gave the BC medal to Jane, because she is from North Van (although she hadn’t even been in Whistler all season). But after the awards she came over and put the medal around my neck. She said I should have it because of my two PBs. :’) It meant a lot to me, that was really nice of her. So I now have my first skeleton medal.

I took a pretty big hit on my last run of the race so I decided that was a pretty good time to end the season. It has been nice to have spare time again, tbh. It was such a good season, with our new coach and new friends and new teammates. I learned SO MUCH. And now I have 6ish months to try and get stronger and faster on land before next season and tryouts. My goal for next year: an international race… which should be possible because I should be able to at least do the Whistler NAC race. Fingers crossed.

What else?..

We’ve been going to trivia every couple of weeks. Our team is called Patty O’Lanterns and we rule. We plan on doing a lot of trivia over the summer so let me know if you want to come sometime. We also plan on doing a lot of patio time at our house too.

Once I get back from Australia I am starting weightlifting lessons two times a week (instead of once a week) so next time you see me I’m going to be ripped.

All joking aside, this was actually a really tough week. Wednesday morning at work we all found out that our boss had unexpectedly passed away the day before. It was a huge shock and a huge loss for us all. He and some of my coworkers had worked together for more than 20 years, and his partner also works in our department. So so so sad. He was such a great guy and definitely a lot more than just a boss to us. Our work family lost a good friend. I will miss him.

Well we are getting pretty close to boarding time so I’m going to post this and get ready to go. Until next time (hopefully not for so long).

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The past month of skeleton has been really fun and exciting for me. While many people are really hurting from the unseasonably warm temperatures in Whistler, it has been great for me because I finally moved up to the top of the track a few weeks ago! (My goal for the year!) The warmer weather means the track has been a little soft, and soft and frosty equals slow. Bad for PBs, but excellent for scaredy cats like me. (BTW we are still going 115-120 km/hr on slow days.)

We had our BC Cup races #3 and #4 a couple weeks ago (when I had only done 6 runs from the top before race day). The ice in our OT session was soooooooooooooooooo slow, then the next day the track crew worked their butts off and made the ice 15 km/hr FASTER than the night before. I was TERRIFIED. I dragged my toes (to slow down) so hard. I ended up coming something like +16 seconds behind the leader in a two heat race, which is quite ridiculous in a sport that usually comes down to hundredths of a second, but I figured it was better to challenge myself and get more experience from the top than go back down to corner 3 and have an easy race.

BUT, I’m getting more and more comfortable every day. I’ve even started doing little jogging starts this week, and this weekend it actually was quite fast, and I was nervous, but I forced myself to not drag my toes… and I was fine! 128.6 km/hr!  So I think from here on I can pretty much run as fast as I can.

Tomorrow I am driving to Calgary with a few teammates for a week of training. Similar to last year, but this time for an Alberta Cup race and not for Can-Am week (there was no Can-Am week this year). We will do 3 days of Official Training, 2+ Icehouse sessions, and 2 days of racing. Exciting!! I’m hoping to improve my pushing skills x92398723937823. It will be very interesting to see how I do compared to last year because I understand SO MUCH MORE now. Plus my new sled works way better than my old one. I am very much looking forward to it.

All for now, I have to finish packing.

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Dad came to visit us here in Vancouver at the end of January. We planned the whole trip around what was supposed to be an epic family weekend ski trip to Whistler. And then… it rained… A LOT.

Since everything was all prepaid we still tried to ski. The first day we were drenched by the time we got to the top of the mountain. And not just wet… I mean mittens saturated, puddles in elbows, hair dripping. It was gross. Plus it was hard to see because of the fog and the snow was super heavy and sticky. We only lasted until like 1PM and then we went back to the condo for lunch and showers and dry clothes. Poor Scott had chosen this day to pay for a full day snowboarding lesson, but somehow didn’t have as miserable time as we did. He said he learned lots and even took a few extra runs after the lesson was over. Go Scott!!

The next day we just decided to screw it and not ski. It was still pouring rain and all of our gear was still wet despite laying everything out on the heated bathroom floor and in front of the fireplace. Instead we hung around and played games and watched TV and I went to skeleton practice.

Thankfully the last day was a bit better. We were able to stay above the clouds most of the day and got to ski a bit more of the mountain. Dad helped Lauren with his skiing a bit and Scott showed off his sweet new moves. Rosemarie and I went off to ski a bit alone, and then Rosemarie and dad did a few runs alone too while I hung out with the noobs.

Dad and I ended up driving back on Tuesday to use up his last lift ticket since I had the day off work. It wasn’t raining, but it still wasn’t great because the snow was so heavy and the visibility was really bad. Dad fell on a green run and then we pretty much called it a day.

All in all, not the greatest ski vacation, but we still did manage to have lots of fun times. And at least he didn’t come this past weekend… because it’s way worse now. Man all the BC hills are having a terrible season.

Other things we did:

  • teach dad to play Settlers and Carcassonne
  • play lots of Wizard
  • trivia night at Falconetti’s (we dominated)
  • a tour of TRIUMF (dad nerded out!!! I think he should get a job there… so many employees in sweaters)
  • brought dad to watch me skeleton
  • eat sushi

It was nice hanging out with dad so much. Can’t wait until next time!