2015 Holiday – Part 2 (Skiing Days)

When we woke this morning it was snowing!!  The view from our condo balcony was amazing – it felt so surreal to be in Whistler – almost like we were in a dream. 

Today was day one of skiing for Wade and I.  We had arranged a half day private ski lesson, and given we could have up to four people, Trav came along as well.  We met up with our instructor Myrna and headed up Whistler Mountain on the gondola to  Olympic “Mid” Station.  Our lesson went for 3 hours and by the end of it we were all pros!!!  Well pros in the learning section anyway!!

After three hours with Myrna, I’d had a bigger workout in that time than I’d had all year combined, so I called it quits and headed back down the mountain with Mum, Bel, Milly and Harry to get warm.  Trav and Wade continued on for the afternoon and we met up with them at the end of the day.

Our condo had a hot tub on the balcony off our bedroom, so at that point Wade and I headed back for a soak and a well deserved drink!

Tonight we had all arranged to meet up with Jason, Emma, Lucy, Josh and Holly for dinner at El Furniture Warehouse.  This was a restaurant where all meals cost $4.95 and we had a great night catching up (even if the music was a bit loud for us "old" ones!!).  After dinner we went for a wander through the upper village before heading home to bed for the night.

Christmas Eve and we woke to 13cm of snow having fallen overnight and it was still snowing!  Walking through the village this morning with snow falling on the way to the Gondola, it felt like we were in a snow globe!! 

Wade and I jumped on the Whistler Gondola again and got off at Olympic “Mid” Station.  It was then further up the mountain on Olympic Chair where we did my first run down Upper Fantastic (Wade had been there the day before).  I managed to not only make it off the chair lift without stacking it, but made it all the way down the mountain without falling over either!  Halfway down the mountain, we could hear our names being called out – it was Trav and Harry were on the chair lift above us!!  We met up with them and did few more runs on Upper Fantastic.   Harry killed it – although he told us he didn’t like turning, so he basically just went full pelt down the mountain straight on and eventually snow-plowed to a stop!!

After a few runs it was almost lunch time so we jumped back on the Whistler Gondola to the Roundhouse Lodge.  Not long after we got up there we ran into Mum and decided to jump on the Peak to Peak Gondola and head across to Blackcomb Mountain where we had some lunch.  Deciding we weren’t up to some of the runs on Blackcomb, we took the Peak to Peak Gondola back across to Whistler Mountain.

From here we had all the best intentions of skiing all the way down the mountain from the top.  For me – given how long we had been out for the day – I soon realised I had definitely bitten off more than I could chew.  We went down Upper Whiskey Jack into Lower Whiskey Jack.  After falling over more times than I can remember and with my legs burning, I eventually called it quits and decided to meet the boys back at Olympic “Mid” Station via a chair lift and a Gondola.

By the time we got back to the village, it was about 3.30pm and we had been out for nearly 6 hours!  Wade and I headed back to our condo for a much needed soak in the hot tub!  We then met up with the McMains and went to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

After another wander through the village it was then home to bed to get ready for Santa’s arrival!

Here are some photos from these few days:

More amazing views from our Condo

All set for our first day of skiing:

Killing it at our ski lesson!!

Day 2 skiing - on Olympic Chair with Harry

Harry outside Roundhouse Lodge

Which ones are mine???!!!

Awesome views from the mountain

Views from the Peak 2 Peak Gondola (I think photo credit goes to you Mum!)

2015 Holiday – Part 1 (Arrival & Surprise)!!

Well what a blur the last few weeks have been.  After considering it for months, we only decided to book this trip at the beginning of December.  Being the (everything well in advance) planner that I am, this made for a very stressful few weeks not only organising everything from home (including winter clothing during Summer in Brisbane) but also co-ordinating with mum who was already in the US and on a completely different time zone!  And the biggest part of all – keeping everything a secret from the McMains!!!

We finally made it to Vancouver on December 21 after two flights and basically no sleep, checked into our hotel and reunited with mum (who came in on a later flight).  It starts to get dark here from around 4pm so by the time mum arrived, we decided to wander up towards the shops, grab an early dinner and catch up before our big day the next day.  Wade and I had been awake for around 32 hours by the time we went to bed, and thankfully both got a pretty good night sleep so we could hit the ground running the next day.

Day 2 and we picked up our hire car for the drive up to Whistler – and what a beautiful drive it was!  We started seeing snow on the ground not long into the drive and about half way up it actually started snowing (it was tiny but we were definitely counting it)!

Guessing that the McMains were in ski school for the day, we had a few hours to kill.  We didn’t really know how we were going to be able to surprise, them, but we did know where they were staying.  So we went by their hotel just to double check if they were in their room or not, which of course they were not!  So we decided to take a walk through the village towards the ski fields, just in case we happened to run into them (which was how we were hoping it would happen).  Well we didn’t and by this stage our Condo (which was amazing by the way) was ready for us to check into so we went and did this and then waited……….

Not long after I got a message from Bel saying “You won’t believe who the other couple in our lesson are – Jason & Emma Croston!!” I used to work for Jason at SRJ and they were staying at the same hotel as the McMains!! It sure is a small world!! 

What was also great about getting the message was that this was our cue!! The fact that she messaged me meant we knew they were finished skiing for the day and it was go time!!  We quickly got ourselves sorted and wandered across to their hotel.  Thinking they would be in their room by the time we got there we went to the reception desk and got a great Aussie girl who was going to help us out with our surprise – except that when she tried to call up – they weren’t in their room!! 

She took our details and told us as soon as she heard from them, she would call us and help us pull it off!!  So we headed back out into the village and just as we were about to turn the corner from the hotel – who do we happen to run into…….. the McMains and we got to surprise them in the way we had been hoping to!!!

Bel screamed so loud when she saw us – the people around us were staring and wondering what was going on.  To say they were all surprised to see us was an understatement!! It was awesome and I’m so glad we were able to pull it off.

Once the excitement had died down and we had all caught up, we headed down to pick up our ski gear ready for the next day.  We then all headed back to our condo for a dinner of pizza in front of the fire place.

Here are some photos from the first few days:

On our way to Vancouver (we were very tired at this point)!

On the road to Whistler (Lions Gate Bridge - Vancouver)

Quick stop in Squamish where there was lots of snow on the ground

View from the balcony of our Whistler condo

Wandering through Whistler Village on our first day

Surprise McMains!  We are crashing your Christmas!!

Wandering around the Village at night

Link to Surprise Video!