Skiing in Kimberley BC

We have just returned from a wonderful holiday at Kimberley BC. Kimberley is about 7 hours drive from Edmonton (plus stops) so it takes about 8 hours to get there.

We took Will's school friend Ross along with us. The drive there was completely uneventful and the kids were great the whole way. They did have their i-Pod touchs to keep them entertained (music, video and podcasts) and also had the DVD player to watch their new DVDs from Christmas. Will has converted Ross to appreciate both Hamish and Andy and Thank God You're Here. We couldn't hear a word of what was being said of course as they had earphones on, but the laughter in the back seat of the car was great. Ross also made sure that he practised his very best Aussie accent while with us. He is determined to pick it up. I also got him to explain a few Canadian-isms to me. Ross is an expert!

So, skiing was of course the primary objective of the trip and Kimberley did not let us down. There are only three chair lifts on the mountain, but they are so well positioned that they provide access to about 70 different runs of varying difficulty. Interestingly even the green runs were what we would call blue-ish in Australia (Sam said they are probably aqua). There was always a difficult section on each run, but the main runs are wide and well groomed, so being a bit steep was not a problem.Unfortunately Ross had a pretty serious stack on his very first run and the binding on the ski actually broke! He was taken down the hill by ski patrol and they watched him for a while. His symptoms did not point to anything clearly as his pain reactions were quite severe, so they sent him by ambulance to Cranbrook for further assessment. Of course it is your worst nightmare to have to ring the parents of the child you have taken on holidays when you've just packed their kid off to hospital. I'm sure every parent relates to this feeling. Sandy and Mark (Ross' parents) were fine about it and we all had a feeling that it was going to be fine. We got ourselves down to the apartment, changed and followed the ambulance to Cranbrook to Emergency. Fortunately Ross' leg started to feel miraculously better just as the doctor arrived to examine him. This seemed somewhat like a spiritual healing... or the shock of the very big fall and breaking ski had evened out and Ross was able to sense that it was safe now to walk. Whatever happened... he was perfectly fine and after a day off with a bruised thigh Ross rejoined us for skiing on day 3 and day 4. He improved very quickly and skied in control the whole time! That fall reminded him that skiing is dangerous!The village at Kimberley is just delightful. It was a mining town up until 2001, with the richest lead and zinc mine in the world and generating one of the highest per capita community incomes in Canada. The town was built with a Bavarian theme some time back, but it is now trying to shake that image with more people arriving in the town to create a new haven for Post-Materialist movement groups such as "Cultural Creatives", "Simple Living/Voluntary Simplicity Movement" and "Nowtopians". Somewhat like the culture in Jan Juc and parts of Torquay in Australia. The trend is to move away from the work, career, financial and consumerism focus to living with sustainable growth and a focus on ecosystems that support life on earth.

With this change in focus the Kimberley and Cranbrook district has seen growth in new industries and the Kootenay Knitting Company recently won the bid to supply the official garments to the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. Or as the Canadians see it... THE Olympics, the other one is the Summer Olympics and not really their event!

Skiing in Kimberley is a completely different experience to Sunshine (near Banff) or even Marmot basin (near Jasper) as the locals run the ski hill, they are the instructors, the tow operators and the food store managers. It is run for the town, by the town. There are very few foreign workers (like in Banff) and the feeling is comfortable and homely. There is a sense of pride in their town.

The final trip home was long as we had about 15cm of snow overnight, the car had some engine trouble which needed to be attended to before leaving. So after trying to leave at about 10 we left at 11 and we arrived back in Edmonton at about 9:00pm, dropped Ross off and arrived to our home at about 10:30pm... 10 1/2 hours after we left and just in time to welcome the New Year with a hot chocolate!

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas from the frozen North

This might be pretty blurry but, oh well... you get the gist! Here's the summary of the Hamiltons Christmas day.

The kids were so hopeful this morning that they might get an i-Pod touch for Christmas... We had told them that they had a snowball's chance in Australia of getting that. Yet still, they remained optimistic.

Santa was clever though, all the presents were given out and had been opened, no i-pods! The final gift handed to them was a box of chocolates, one each... what do you think was wrapped up inside the box? Yep... an i-pod touch each! We were so shocked!

They were both overjoyed and we hope that the 8 hour trip to Kimberley BC will be uneventful and the kids will be thoroughly entertained.

We celebrated Christmas with friends on Christmas eve and on our own on Christmas day. We have been thinking of our family and friends a lot over this very special time of year and hope that you were able to spend the day in a relaxing way.

Merry Christmas one and all Love from the Hamiltons xo

Our blog summarised by wordle

Halloween

We had a MOST excellent party for Halloween! Sam's friends came over, they carved pumpkins and dressed in costumes to go trick-or-treating and the parents all came over and we had a wonderful dinner together.

We met the neighbours from our area as they came to the door with their children with sacks open ready for candy.

We still have loads left as we just didn't know how much to buy!











We really didn't know the first thing about Halloween protocol, so we asked some natives to give us a few tips :-)

Sammy's birthday

Sam made her own birthday cake tonight (Saturday 25th October), she chose the recipe and made it and iced it with some help from Mum. T'was fun :-) Mum wanted to help more but Sam enjoyed being the creator (and having the control!).

Tomorrow we will celebrate her 12th birthday with 12 friends at Galaxyland (at the West Edmonton Mall). Just think, Sam has been 3 ages while in Canada, she arrived aged 10, turned 11 three weeks later and is now turning 12!

Sam has made lolly bags for her friends, with loads of candy (some contributions from our recent Aussie trip) Redskins and Cherry ripes. Hope the kids appreciate this offering.

Here are some photos from blowing out candles at Galaxyland.







On her actual birthday Sam went to school and we had another little celebration with home made lemon meringue pie... this photo is of Sam blowing out her candles with Scott, Clare and Suzanne on Skype. They LOVED the lemon meringue pie!

Happy Birthday Sammy xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Thanksgiving in Canada

In Canada Thanksgiving is the second Monday in October. We arrived on Thanksgiving weekend last year and therefore did not participate in this cultural festival. This year was completely different.
We came to understand the significance of this very important family day where Canadians take time to eat together and be thankful for the bounty of the harvest. These days the harvest is not the focus but people recognize that it has become more about taking time out of your busy schedule to spend time with family and friends.

For us the lead up to the day was very similar to Christmas, with everyone setting this time aside to be with family and wishing each other a "Happy Thanksgiving". Students returned home to their families across Canada. We were treated to a beautiful meal with our friends David and Lois around the corner from us. Turkey and home made cranberry sauce, mashed potato, roast sweet potato (in maple syrup), turnips, brussel sprouts and Dessert was Pumpkin Pie.

Lake Louise and Lake Moraine

Rocky Mountain therapy

This weekend we ventured back to the Rocky Mountains as Anita needed to be there for a conference presentation and well... all work and no play makes us sad... so we decided to play a bit while there :-)

Paddling on Lake Louise, a visit to Lake Moraine to climb a small rocky mountain to gaze over another beautiful glacial lake and then back to Banff to ride the Gondola. See slideshow above this post for pictures of our spectacular day. It was sunny and about 23 degrees Celsius. Hmmm, heaven!


We think we might have a busy schedule planned for our visitors next Summer!!! :-)

Grand Final devastation!

On Friday 26th September (Edmonton time) we watched our hopes and dreams for back to back premierships collapse before us like a pack of cards. We kept saying "this can't be real, where's the forward structure??? Everyone else is doing their job!" Including the Hawks defense... let's rush another behind!

For Will and Anita, the only word for losing the premiership we were supposed to win was “gutted”.

Fortunately we had a small party here for Aussies and Canadians who love footy and we decked out the lounge and dining rooms with posters, streamers, balloons and Cats memorabilia. Anita even made Aussie meat “poys”.

Three days have now passed and a trip to the Rocky Mountains couldn't have been timed better! On reflection we're wondering that maybe the Cats and the Cats fans (that's us included) were waiting for the mission to be completed as it was last year, and that it would somehow just magically happen! With only one loss for the season, who would have though any differently (well, other than Caroline Wilson!).

But if we really think about it... on finals form Hawks were performing better than we were, our forward structure was suspect in the Western Bulldogs game and in the Grandfinal it was poor! Two crucial missed goals by Mooney in very quick succession was probably the turning point in the game, not that Will wanted to hear that when I thought that out loud in the third quarter! You need to score goals in order to win!!! That was the difference between the two sides.

Alec digs into a pie

The table is ready for the celebration

David and Al raise their glasses to the Cats!!!

Marg, Lois and Dave watch the game from level 2 of the Pleasantview Stadium

We know a few Hawks fans and they have politely kept quiet, thank you...we are very grateful! If you keep your distance for a year or two we might be civil when we meet again.

So, in all, we are terribly disappointed (and a bit angry) because we know that Geelong SHOULD have won the grand final in 2008. It will be an interesting test to see how we come back from this in 2009. Is Geelong still a champion team? We think so!

Trip to OZ August '08

We had a wonderful trip to Australia during August. We were busy every day and relished the opportunity to eat fish 'n' chips, drive on the familiar side of the road and not feel the need to translate our own English!

We spent time with family and friends, catching up on people's news and constantly saying to all the kids... "oh you've grown so much!" Of course, that's what Sam and Will got at every new place we visited! The hardest thing about visiting such special people was that every "hello" is another "good-bye" and it just hurts! It was really special to see the cousins in real life (not just on Skype) and get to know their personalities more... particularly Jack and Clare who were just babies when we left!

Visiting the beach was a real highlight for us, and no matter how cold it was, it was FANTASTIC to hear the crashing waves and feel the soft golden sand between your toes. Our wonderful friends Jane and Craig Goddard lent us their house in Torquay and it was really like returning home, just being able to hear the waves at night, being able to walk along the beach front and smell the salt-laden air. Thanks Craig and Jane!!!!!

We met Duncan and Monika's baby, Alicia, for the first time! She was just adorable and enjoyed the antics of Will and Sam. It's great to see how much everyone is moving along in their lives... especially after becoming parents (and loving it!). We saw the Hutleys and managed to hear about Gemma's life at Timbertop and also saw the new well-being centre at Grammar! Wow that place is b-e-a-utiful!

We caught up with our camping crew a few times (thanks to Gayle-organize-anyone Narita) and it was just great to take the conversations from where we'd left them. We had a great dinner with Vonnie, Maddie and Jack and as usual, the conversations were free flowing!

Alec's name-sake Alec Jamieson, died shortly befopre we arrived back, but we were fortunate that they decided to hava second memorial service to allow those from out of town a chance to also reflect on Alec Jamieson's incredible life! We are so grateful that we had this chance and also for the wonderful dinner we shared in Port Melbourne afterwards! Thanks!

Geelong finally warmed up near the end of our stay and we had some chances to catch some great pictures of the bay.

Sam and Will also caught up with their very special Geelong College friends. Sam managed to go to school for three days and play a game of netball!Will attended the year 8 Social. We hear that he enjoyed this evening VERY much!

After Alec and the kids headed back to Canada, for school and University to start Anita went to South Australia to catch up with Ann and Bruce Heywood. Their new place in Normanville is just spectaular and the view is just brilliant! One could get pretty used to that!!!

Anita's sister Pip celebrated her 40th on September 6th (Happy Birthday Pip) and she had a brilliant party to celebrate! Pip invited family and fiends for a meal at one her favourte restaurants and asked that people not bring her a wrapp-able gift but instead gave the gift of education for child birth assistants in developing nations. Thats' Pip! Always sticking up for the little guy, always advocating on the behalf of someone else. Her eight year old daughter Daisy (my niece) gave the speech that stopped a crowd, she knew what to say, how to deliver it, when to pause for humourous chuckles and how to keep it about Mum and sincere! What a job you've done there Pip and Andrew! She's just wonderful!

Anita attended the OTAustralia conference and caught up with so many OT friends, it was just fantastic! It is so reassuring to know that people still want to catch up and hear your stories and so on... It was great to catch up with OT colleagues and friends from around Australia and New Zealand! :-)
So, the trip was a success, despite the sadness of leaving, it was nice to just spend time, in familiar places, with familiar people, doing familiar things.