Make Up Snow

The weather is trying to compensate us for last winter and it's snowing again, we had about 25cm's overnight. Sadly not enough for the kids to earn another Snow Day but enough to make me nervous about driving down the 403 to the office so I'm working from my study instead. The timing is great for Jo however, she's arranged to go skiing today with some girlfriends so when she gets back from escorting the kids to school (our neighbour Trish is giving them a lift in her 4WD) she's off to Glen Eden about 30 minutes away for a day of shushing in the powder. Frankly I'm a bit jealous, I haven't made it out once yet, but it's my fault of course it's not like I haven't had opportunities. When there's snow all around you it's easy to say 'next weekend'... might have done my dash.

We had a fairly quiet weekend, Jo's got herself a head cold and had a tissue stuffed up her nose most of the time (seriously, it's attractive I can tell you). I guess we might have gotten out for a skate or ski but we had a heap of shopping to get done and lots of errands to finish.

Andy, out.

Down for the Count

Jo and I both have a cold and it sucks. It's meant that rather than a decent weekend of skiing we're pretty much confined indoors. The kids have been out and about a bit, they found a big pile of snow at the school across the road. The pile was pushed there when they cleared the schools big car park so you can imagine how big it is. Some other kids had dug a fairly long tunnel into it and our kids were enjoying playing in it, but frankly it just made Jo and I nervous. Especially since they were over there alone and there was no one else around, so we're party poopers and told them not to go back without us. Today is beautiful and sunny but here I am at my laptop typing to you, doing some work and blowing my brains out through my nose [sigh, violin music please maestro].

On another note I moved the old website journal entries to the Blog here. So if you missed any of the old posts and you care to see em then go to the links to 2005 and 2006 on the right of the page.

Andy, out.

Snow Day

The kids were told that if you wear your PJ's inside out when you go to bed it's good luck towards a snow day, looks like that's right on the money. So this morning we got the word and every kids dream occured... no school due to a big snow storm last night... SNOW DAY! We had about 40cm or so of snow overnight and you can see for yourself in the photos exactly how much shovelling that is. I've been working from home myself, only taking a break to clear the driveway, that took over an hour of hand digging [sheesh!].

It's worth it though, and I know it sounds weird but it is fun, this is the biggest dump and certainly the most amount of snow we've had in two winters. Normally it doesn't snow when the temp goes much below -5C but it was -13 this morning and it was still coming down. The snow is light fluffy powder of course and doesn't stick together into snow balls, it needs to get a little wetter first, maybe tomorrow. I think we have enough depth now to get a couple of snow forts happening in the backyard, nice!The kids were disappointed that I had cleared the drive and path to our front door. They had got it into their heads that if the path remained blocked then it'd be a snow day tomorrow too, kid-logic is funny. Sadly for them I think all wil be cleared away by the evening and school is back on the cards tomorrow. But enough of that, today is a SNOW DAY! That's just awesome!

Andy, out.

Best School Trip Ever!

I was lucky enough to go on a ski trip with Jasmine's grade, now that's an excursion:) We headed off at 6.30am to Mt Louis Moonstone Ski Resort, two hours away. Thank goodness there were TVs and a DVD player in the bus otherwise i don't think i could have lasted with the noise of all the kids.

We arrived and it was a beautiful day, blue sky, no wind and lots of powdery snow. Last week another grade level had gone skiing and it was -15 i think it was a mere -7 when we were there. After being fitted with new ski boots and skis Jas and i went to the compulsary Skiing for Dummies session, there a lady with a stick who whacked the snow off our boots so we could put them into the skis 1st lesson done. Next,off to do the snow plough, turn left and then right and left and up a slope to navigate around cones and stop in control infront of an instructor. Finally getting instructions to get on and off a lift and we were standing on the top of the Gentle Ben (not unlike Bourke Street at Mt Buller) me thinks!!!! It certainly was a well organised ski lesson, with maybe a few going through when they should have repeated a few steps but luckily for Jas and i we got through with out any hassles.I should say that i was very proud of Jasmine as she did find it hard at first, and as other Mums know, when you are there sometimes it's easier to give in and cry. Well her face was red with frustration but also determination, and she began to keep herself upright and her skis straight. I got to go down the slope once before she did and that gave me the chance to find my skiing legs; we then went up together and snow ploughed from side to side all the way down.

This is pretty much how our day went, and as other kids got more confident they left the easy slope to stand in huge queues at the other slope's lifts. Jasmine and a friend were quite happy where we were, getting faster and basically skiing down straight onto the chair lift and back up again. So we probably got more skiing done than the others who waited. Jasmines new favourite sport is skiing, liking it more than skating which Andy (yet to ski) found interesting.We are hoping in the next couple of weeks taking a day off to go to Glen Eden which is only half an hour away and the whole family giving it a go. I've just spoken to a friend who has reminded me that there is also night skiing so we could even go after work!!! Jasmine and i have definately caught the bug and are keen to keep trying out other gentle slopes:)

Just a quickie

Posted a handful of photos from the Texas trip, these were taken by Ram when we went to Fort Worth. I had my first ever chicken-fried steak and I hope it's not my last. Think tender steak, dipped in KFC-style batter and deep-fried, then smothered in pepper gravy. My mouths watering just writting about it. Other options on the menu at Reata, a sensational FW resturant, included Calve Fries... also known as Rocky Mountain Oysters... aka cow balls, I gave them a miss. There's a lot of things I'll put in my mouth, a set of cojones aint on that list.From there Ram took us down to the stockyards where we had hoped to go to the rodeo. Sadly we were one day late but we had a nice walk in the sun, saw a longhorn up close (those horns are around 80cm long, each) and Shyam and I tried out luck on a mechanical bull. The saddle on the bull was polished up and very slippery, no stirups and only one hand hold, again not designed to keep you on the bugger. It was $5 for as long as you could stay on, which frankly wasn't that long, but I'm reliably told I passed the 8 second mark so all was good.

SuperBowl Monday

There's a 16 hour time difference between Toronto and the east coast of Australia, and we're a day behind in North America. So 6pm Sunday night here in TO is 10am Monday morning at home. The biggest sporting event on the US calendar, and the highest rating TV event of every year, is about to kick off. To me the SuperBowl, aka grid-iron/NFL 'grand final', used to mean -

1. Australia Day - 'cos the game is usually played on the last weekend of January, not this year though.
2. Half understood rules, incompletes, touch backs, pass interference and illegal formations, wtf?
3. Stop-start gameplay that frustrates the Aussie rules fanatic more used to frenetic, non-stop action. Geez can they just get on with it?
4. More hype around the half-time show and the TV ads ($1,000,000 for a 30 second spot) than surrounds the game. Sadly in Aus we usually don't get to see either, so we only have the game and as previously stated that's just confusing.
5. One sided games that hardly recommend the sport to the uninitiated, just like AFL Grand Final blowouts.

Grid-iron, or in North America just 'football', is a great sport. I've come to love it from having 50 games a week to watch. The college games, which are university teams playing each other, are at least as popular as the serious NFL games. They are awesome specticles with heaps of cheer-leaders, huge matching bands and standiums packed with 100,000 uni-students, trust me it's a party.

In the height of autumn (fall) there are more games to watch than there are hours in the week and it's infectious. Like any game it's hard to like if you don't 'get it'. Anyone seeing AFL for the first time is likely to be fascinated but also confused and after a quarter bemused, just what the hell is going on? You have to immerse yourself in it : watch the post-game post-mortums, listen to the chat on radio the next day, read about the players, watch the games and lots of them. This Sunday, Monday back home, the Chicago Bears play the Indianapolis Colts in the 41st SuperBowl (SuperBowl XLI, doesn't have the ring that last years SuperBowl XL had but whatever).The Colts are the Cinderella story, not because no one thought that they'd make it but because they've got one of the best cubies (cubie = QB = quarterback) of recent time, Peyton Manning, and have never made a SuperBowl until now. Peyton has a history of playing great in the regular season and choking like Greg Norman in the playoffs (playoffs = finals). This year he made it for the first time, and after a huge win against the New England Patriots (winners of several SuperBowls in recent years with their awesome cubie Tom Brady (great american name huh?)). I saw that game in Dallas and what a game it was, the Colts were down and out, basically toast at half time and they came back in the biggest comeback in semi-final history to storm home. Sadly I was backing the Pat's and lost a few bets, but losing to mates isn't really losing right? I think most of America will be cheering for Peyton and his Colts come Sunday.The Bears on the other hand haven't been to a SuperBowl since 1985, their only appearance was a winning one against the NE Patriots, total blowout. They are definitely the other side of the ledger with a cubie, Rex Grossman, who is considered by many to be two people in a single body. He had 10 games out of the regular season 16 where he was considered to be the best cubie in the NFL, but 5 of the other 6 where he sucked like a Hoover. Truely a Jeckle and Hyde reputation and perhaps not completely deserved, you don't get to a SuperBowl by sucking at the wrong time. But the question on everyones lips is 'which Rex will appear on the field this Sunday?'

Either way there'll be beer to drink, the most outrangeous TV ads of the year, Prince doing the half time show and, hopefully, a fairly close game. What does the SuperBowl mean to me now? Hype and hyperbole, grit and glamour, more BS than you can handle and more drama than 5 Oscar winners. Like a game of chess there's some delays between moves but when the moves happen they unfold like a war zone, no wonder a popular defensive play is called The Blitz. Most SuperBowls don't live up to the hype, but this one has a real chance to be a great game. My Monday will be a little hazy no matter the result. And no matter what happens I'll be bringing a love for this style of football back down-under with me.

Andy, out. (Go Colts!)

Evel Camievel

It's a boy thing. If you're not doing it at 100kph with your eyes closed and no safety net then you just shouldn't bother. On reflection it was pretty sureal, we had only been watching the kids tobogan for about 5 minutes when Jo gave Cam a little push and sent him off down a big hill just around the corner from home. He headed off slightly left and initially looked okay but as he gathered some speed the solitary tree at the bottom of the hill started to apply it's magnetic pull. Kent, a good friend and father of one of Abbies best friends Jacqui, said 'he's gunna hit that tree' and a good prediction it was. Kent's Canadian practiced eye was making a good call. Jo and I were saying 'No, he's oka.. oh oh, maybe he'll... I think... CAM!' Cam, Cam, Cam of the jungle watch out for that tree! Jo felt terrible given she pushed him but it wasn't her fault, that tree was hell-bent on having our kid.

The other thing about boys is that we don't listen to good advice. We need to hurt ourselves, sometimes several times, before thinking that preventing the pain might be a sensible plan. Cam had already had some minor injuries sliding on the snow, mostly face plants into the ground, or another kid or that kids board/sled ending in some brief tears and a split lip. The common link behind most of these mishaps was Cam's failure to maintain his Situational Awareness. In other words, 'Where am I and where is everyone else?' I think it's fair to say that now he might start looking around a bit more when he's speeding down a hill on ice at 40kph without a helmet (actually next time he does it he will have a helmet, his hockey one that also has a face grill). Anyway our calls to him were too little, too late and we watched him, in slow motion of course, smash into the tree pretty much head/face first, roll onto his back and stop moving. This is the point where, as a parent, your heart stops but somehow you start running. We were soooo lucky, the tree in question had branches all the way to the ground and some were broken off from previous impacts fashioning them into nasty looking daggers. Cam missed these with his face and so avoided a fate worse than a trip to the emergency room and a mild-concussion diagnosis.

Now you'd think that after this we'd put sliding around on the white stuff on the back-burner, at least for a while. Well you'd be wrong, I'm a boy, we have to do this a few more times until we work it out, let pain be your friend! This weekends plan is to head for Chicopee and do some tubing. Apparently they have 4 groomed tubing runs, shaped like large water slides, and a lift, just for sliding downhill on inner-tubes. Nice! We'll keep you up to date on further head injuries as breaking news comes to hand.

Andy, out.