Canada Week 10, 11 and 12: The Meat of the Season

Finally a moment to catch my breath.. due to a severe lack of sleep, two and a half weeks continous skiing and a little excessive alcoholling I have crashed in bed for this evening! The past three weeks have been packed with so many different events and stories Im now struggling to remember them all so heres a rundown on the ones that are still fresh in my mind!

Cardboard Sled Derby: This basically a chance to get all the local Banff kids creative and build themselves a cardboard sled to race down the main hill at Norquay.. so naturally our competitive selves set out to beat them, and in all honesty our intentions were fantastic and for about 2 months we collected every piece of cardboard this side of the Atlantic. But for one hangover or another we ended up leaving the actual build until the day of the event. I left Kelly, Iona and Keely to build the sled whislt I hit up the beaver head (oh yeah we themed it to our house) and I guess this picture is the result of 3 hrs of blistering go go go work. The only design flaw ..no eye holes. Without a care in the world and with a few beers in my pocket  I set off towards the bus being 'carefully' guided by Iona, however after about 5 minutes I was so disoreintated that I might as well have been on LSD! These were pretty much my thoughts as I stumbled and crawled my way to the bus!

'I think Im hitting the cross roads, Ioooona where are you?? Arggh so many people talking, hey there's a new voice calling me over there, awesome I'll head that way, ahhh shit I wish all these cars would stop beeping so much, is kinda loud. Hmm wheres the edge of the pavement, ooo i know If i do a circle Ive got to be able to find the edge.. hmm this isn't working, ahhh shut that beeping you dumbass cars, what are they even beeping at?? Iona? Ooo someones laughing a lot, seriosuly where the f******k am I? Okay, time to remove my beaver head, holy s*******t!!!!'

I was stood in the middle of the crossroads on Banff Ave with about 5 or 6 cars stopped on all directions with one white van stopped about 2 inches away from me with all the passengers cracked up laughing and the driver slamming his fist into the horn. Even worse was the 15 or so people watching from the pavement that I thought I had been stood on!

At the moment I am working about 6 days a week, which is awesome financially but it does mean that Im not getting to free ski as much as id like. However the last couple of times I have been with Lindsay (she works at the gym) and we have been able to have some great skiing at Lake Lousie and Sunshine! There is no way that my creativeness could dissappear here... for Jon's (26 well now 27 yr old Aussie in the house) birthday the theme was tight and bright (incidently this was the night I went a little crazy on Absinthe crazzzy craaazzzzy stuff!!), and for Candice's last night yesterday it was a beer drinking competiton with each team of four having a different theme. I went with Kay, Yannik and Iona as the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'. Back to that film, you know ... Chandler and Zac Efron are in it, well yeah so peacocking?! Definately works in Banff, go out in costume... hits the metaphorical nail on the head with an avalanche worthy BOOM!

Everyday something new is thrown up that eclipses the previous, for instance a few days ago, when we came home from the Instructor five-a-side football we realised it had been a little while since we had taken the rubbish to the bins.. it was minus 25 outside and no one was overly keen to step out into the wilderness (oh yeah im sure I saw a wolf the othe day on the way to the gym but everyone else is adamant it was only a fox... they know nothing) but yeah so the game TO THE BINS was formed. The aim; to run with as many bins bags and with as little clothing on the 5 minute round trip gathering as many followers (randomers on the sidewalk) to run with you = FUN TIMES!! :)

And finally the acrobag! This is effectively huge bouncy castle that they put at the end of a ridiculosuly steep jump for you to practise new tricks. However as I was working all weekend I only managed to get one shot at it, not wanting to waste my BIG chance, I went for a backflip.. which could have failed much worse (the previous day Max went for one and hit his head on the top of the jump instantly knocking himself out and loosing all remeberance of that day..smooooth!). The other stuff thats been filling my days... errmm one evening was at avalanche awareness event, fair bit of the gym (I have finally met my match at squash with Lindsay who plays a lot more and kicks my asss), tomorrow there are 250 ski journalists coming to Mt Norquay so hopefully i'm going to get interviewed and put in some ski magazines :), bit more ice skating, meals out for Ed who had to go home... its been pretty much go go go!

I just can't believe how quickly each weeks passes, and its only 2 more weeks until the family get here.. yeaaaah boyyyha!!! Im going to have to start planning the itinery.. so much to do in one week, just make sure you come rested.. my motto at the moment:

'You can always sleep in England..'