Skiing in Engelberg

Last Sunday I went to Engelberg for a day of skiing. There had been lots of snow during the week and Saturday night, meaning snow conditions were excellent for Sunday. More than excellent, amazing!!! (Is that better than excellent?)

Richard, Evan, Devon, Lindsey, Kevin, Mike and I took the train up early Sunday morning and were on the hill by 9:30ish. Tommy came too, but he made poor decisions and stayed out in Zurich late the night before, and didn't quite make the train the rest of us took. Shane and Adrienn were there too, they had boarded Saturday too and then renegade camped overnight near the hill. Kudos for being hardcore guys!

I skied with Richard and Lindsey all morning, and I'll add here that all pics are courtesy of Richard (thanks!) since I didn't bring my camera. We started out by going right up to the highest peak, which involved a series of gondola (aka, cable car...I just call them all gondolas) rides....European resorts really love their gondolas. The gondola to the very top was some fancy rotating one...the idea was that you could get a nice view, but I thought it was dumb since a) the windows were all frosted over and scratched so you couldn't see anything anyways, and b) only the floor rotated, so you couldn't lean yourself or skis against the wall and had to stand careful not to snag anything on a non-rotating part. Anyways, waste of money...sorry Adrienn ;) (she thought it was cool).






One of the gondola's to the top of the mountain (not the rotating one)














And so ends the gondola rant.....and so beings the wicked morning of powder skiing. I discovered quite quickly that I am severely lacking in the powder skiing mad skillz. My skillz are more moderately angry...or perhaps just a bit annoyed. Anyways, I was falling all over the place, which wasn't so bad since there was a thick cushion of snow to land on (and fill my jacket with). I slowly got the hang of things and by later in the morning I was tearing up some of the runs.



Look at that beautiful snow














Me and Lindsey at the top of the mountain












View from the top...there was an ocean of clouds below us that looked amazing












Another pic from the top...you really feel far away from the rest of the world














Me and Lindsey on the chair lift













Giving my legs a break












Beautiful...
















If you look carefully you can see Mike. It's hard because he's wearing a camouflage jacket.










We tried out a few different runs, and all were even better than the last. By the time it was time to meet for lunch I was feeling happily tired from the morning. We met up with Kevin, Devon and Adrienn (just by chance... I am amazed with how often that happens) and had lunch with them. Devon bought some new poles, since he had broken one during the morning, too bad.




Lindsey and Devon eating lunch. Past the railing is a giant vertical drop, it overlooks a glacier that we watched some (skilled) people ski













Adrienn, Richard and Lindsey at lunch. We're rocking the Nalgene's, lol.











I approve of Kevin's massive sandwich














This pic looks oddly posed...nice group shot though














I should add that the weather was amazing all day, nice clear skis. Every now and then there would be a random fog cloud, but they passed quickly. The only coldish spots were where the wind was gusting at the top of the mountain, but even that wasn't that bad.




Perfect day for skiing










After lunch we ran into Evan and Shane and the group of us (minus Adrienn) (and minus Mike and Tommy) started off on a run through some nice deep powder. The first mentionable event was when Evan dropped a big rock and bailed, losing his skis in the snow. We were looking through the snow, and eventually Shane found it waaay down from where we were looking. It was a pretty lucky find, wow, can you imagine how long we would have been looking for that?!?! (P. S. this is foreshadowing).

So we continued on the run, I was having a great time floating through the powder and then I made a bad turn and fell face-first into the snow. One ski fell off, which had been happening all day...it occurred to me that I haven't adjusted my bindings in years, and they were definiatly not tight enough for the snow were on that day. Only Richard and Lindsey were behind me, so I asked Richard to pass my my one ski which had fallen off....."sure, where is it?" he replied. Hmmm.....where DID that thing go?

The three of us started looking (everyone one else was up ahead, they didn't know what had happened). We dug all around where I fell and found nothing. After about 45min I insisted that they go and get a few runs in, no point in all 3 of us wasting our afternoon of skiing and I obviously had nothing better to do, lol. I started making the search a bit more systematic, starting about 8m down from where I fell and working my way up digging half a meter down sweeping back and forth. At least I had my ipod to keep me company with inspirational digging tunes, lol.

On ski-less hour later, I was happy to look up and see the other guys (Evan, Shane, Devon, Kevin) had come back. They couldn't believe my story that I had been there since the first run and...when we didn't end up at the lift with them they had assumed we had gone somewhere else (they felt bad about not returning right away, even though there was no way they could have known). Everyone spread out to help, and Evan and Shane broke out their shovels.....dig, dig....

Kevin was the hero of the day (though, everyone helped so they are all heroes, thanks guys!!!!), he uncovered my ski slightly further up from where we thought I fell. I was so happy, I had pretty much assumed by that point that it was gone and I would be forced to either find a way to afford new skis or sacrifice the rest of the season.

Only then did I realize how exhausted I was...during the digging I was motivated by the mission to find the ski, but once it was found all I wanted was to get off the mountain. Plus I was paranoid about falling again and ending up skiless again so I was taking things verrry easy. Everything was closing anyways, it was already 4:30 (woot for getting in 1 run after lunch....) so we just took a cruising run down to the base to collect our gear.




Where is my ski?!?!?!?!?!?!?!













Adrienn, me and Lindsey with everyone's gear













Dramatic pic of Richard











Anyways, the awesomeness of the morning almost made up for the crappyness of the afternoon, so I declare the day a success! No skiing next weekend becasue I'm going to Milan to see a football (soccer) game! The weekend after I'll be in Zermatt, so stay tuned for posts about both those things :)

Music Shows

Last weekend I got a chance to check out some live music in Baden and Zurich, it was pretty sweet. It's amazing how much more exciting and intense music is when you are watching the artist perform, you get way more involved in the whole show even if it's not a style of music that you would normally love.

On Friday a bunch of us headed down to a bar in Baden called Merkker, where there were 3 rock bands playing throughout the evening. They were all decent, but the acts definitly got better as the night went on (either that or we just got so drunk that they seemed to get better). The last band was really amazing, they put on a really great show. Here's a couple pics:




Richard, me, Vance and Lindsey rockin out to the music












Lindsey and ninja Devon. Hmm, did you buy that drink at the bar Lindsey?











On Saturday night, some of use went into Zurich to see a Lyrics Born concert. It was a hip hop show, and pretty similar in style to the De La Soul concertI saw in Baden back in September. First Mike Relm (the DJ who spun for Lyrics Born) did a set, it was really sweet. He had some video going along with his mixes and scratched that too for a really cool effect. After a short break, Lyrics Born came out and the energy really started flowing. What amazes me about hip hop concerts is how well the performers interact with the crowd to keep things really exciting. Even though I'm not usually a huge hip hop fan I totally appreciate the ability to put on a great show.

That's my overview of the night....I didn't bother writing more since Travis posted a really detailed description on his blog. There was no way I could outdo a passionate account of the concert by a dedicated Lyrics Born fan, so check out the link for pics as well as a way more indepth description/analysis of the show (nice post Travis)!

D&D Painting

We had our first 2006 D&D adventure last week, things are really starting to heat up! I will refrain from giving an exciting description of the progress of our mission, since most of you probably don't care anyways... Anyway, my character has reached level 4 so I get all sorts of new skills and spells and stuff. Hooray!

The real reason for this post: here's a pic that Warren created with a program called ArtRage. The picture shows us batteling some Ogres outside a cave (where we eventually fought and annihilated a Hydra, oooooo). It's pretty amazing, I think Warren missed his true calling of being an artist and is wasting his time getting a useful degree in Software Engineering.

Skiing in Laax

(I'll add more pics to this post as soon as collect them from Devon)

Last weekend a group of us went skiing for 2 days in Laax: Me, Adrienn, Evan, Shane, Richard, Devon, Travis, Tommy and Lindsey (and Mike came for Sat). We all got ski & rail deals from SBB, which gives you a discounted price for the train and lift ticket. I was expecting that it wouldn't be a very good deal for me, since I have a GA (everywhere train pass), but I was still able to get a discouted lift ticket (go SBB!!!). 46CHF for a day of skiing? Not too crappy!

We woke up bright and early on Saturday morning and took the train/bus up to Laax, about a 2.5 hour journey. I was pretty tired, since the night before we had a rousing game of pictionary over at Kehl (wooooo!!!!). It was awesome, we had Team Girl (Adrienn, Lindsey and me), Team Asian (Richard, Henry, Bernard and ....Tyler (the honary asian) ), and team White Male (Vance, Travis, Warren and Kevin). Talk about non PC team division, lol. Team Girl won the first game, and Team Asian suprised everyone by winning the second game, a nice improvement from the first match. Humerous highlights: Vance misreading the card and drawing Hamlet instead of Helmet (though, he had a nice Shakspearian dude started in the time the rest of us had sucessfully guessed helmet), Adrienn being so excited that we guessed her eyes-closed drawing that she forgot to open them and hit her head on the couch, the realization that the 2-drawing of "seam" and tunnel" was a hilarious combination, *somebody* thinking that Mt. Everest is in Japan, Henry's unidentifiable drawing of Italy....and of course, every turn at least one person guessing "jackal, jackal, it's a jackal!!!".

So back to Laax....we arrived and decided to go by the hotel to drop off our bags. When we finally got there (we got off the bus too early and had to walk a bit) we discovered that the place wasn't even open yet.....Switzerland, you have let us down again. So we just got ready outside, locked our bags together and left them on the porch. By the time we had gotten the bus back to the gondola and picked our our lift passes, it was after 10...good thing we got up so early!!




Trekking to the hotel after we got off the bus a stop early













Travis, the human ski rack
















First impression of Swiss skiing: the terrain just goes on forever in all directions. Every time we would take a lift and ski to a new area, there was another lift waiting to take us further. We made it over to the highest peak at Laax, then went around exploring the rest of the mountains. I skiied mainly with Richard, Tommy and Lindsey, since they liked doing the same sort of stuff as me.




Hmmm, where should we go first?











Second impression of Swiss skiing: you hardly ever ski in the trees. Most of the runs are above the tree line, and when there are trees they are so dense that it's hard to find a good line. It was kinda strange, but also meant that we had an awesome view of the mountain (see pics below, I brought out my camera on the second day). We had really nice weather for the whole weekend, blue, cloudless sky, and not very cold.



Check out the beautiful Alps












That first day wasn't too exciting (this may have been partly due to the fact that there had been no new snow in the past while)...it was mostly spent checking out the hill and trying to find some good runs. I was a bit dissapointed to find that most of the runs are groomed, though, you can sometimes find mogals and other fun things on the sides (this combo is actually pretty good for skiing in a group of mixed ski levels). Towards the end of the day though, I began to find some fun runs, with a good mix of cruising, mogals and little jumps. My last run of the day was the best by far, always a nice way to end off the day.



On another gondola...this hill goes on forever!















Richard on one of many gondola rides












"This is awesome!!!"













"I agree, but am too cool to show it"











At one point Tommy, Richard and I emerged onto a face that was almost entirely lacking snow. We tried to get around it by skiing past into the trees, but the trees were so dense, and the snow so deep (and heavy, it was all melted from the sun) that it was really hard. At one point I was pretty much caught in 2 trees, trying desperatly not to fall between them since my skis were all stuck. Richard managed to lose a ski, and spent a good 20min looking for it before finally finding it. We vowed to never ever go down that run again, haha.





Adrienn, me, Tommy, Lindsey and Richard ready to break for lunch










We met up back at the hotel at the end of the day, to discover that it was freaking amazing. We each got our own rooms, there was a couple common areas with cozy chairs and a piano (yay!), rooms for skis and boots, it was really clean and the staff was friendly. Unfortunatly, the awesomeness was reflected in the price (60CHF eep!) but I think we'll just have to get used to that when staying in a ski resport area. We spent the evening hanging out, having a few drinks and playing cards. At one point we had planned to go into town to check out some bars, but since that would mean walking back (the busses don't run very late) nobody really had the energy. So we made the good decision of staying in, and ended up getting a decently long sleep (in the most awesome bed ever....I wish I could have brough it back to Kehl, haha).



Chilling at the hotel playing some cards














Playing an intense game of asshole










The next day we had an awesome breakfast provided by the hotel, including what Adrienn informed us was bread to dip in hot chocolate, it was strange.

My second day of skiing was way better than the first, mostly because by then we had figured out the hill and had an idea of where the good runs were. I skiied at the top of one of the peaks all morning (beautiful view), there was a nice steeper run that turned into a long straightaway with some wicked rollers. Tommy and I went on a bit of an adventure and tried out a run we saw from the lift, which was mostly not great, but we hit a patch of really nice snow at one point, yay.




Adrienn and Lindsey getting ready to start off the day













Taking a break on the hill













Lindsey, me and Tommy on the chair lift













Treeless...













Tommy being thoughtful













Lindsey on the chairlift (I'm sure she was being thoughtful too)













Tommy up on a peak













Hot air ballons! I love this picture.













Mwah ha ha, we went left














My hands are so cold...I took off my gloves to get out the camera








In the afternoon we tried out a run that was so filled with little jumps and bumps that I wanted to go back through to explore more. I ended up skiing this all afternoon on my own, since Tommy and Lindsey had dissapered (and were apparenly having a giant trek through the trees that would take them all afternoon, haha). It was really fun, but tiring. The highlight was when I tried out a kicker that somebody had built and didn't quite make the landing...causing everyone on the chair lift to laugh and yell at me, awwww, lol.



Me, Tommy and Lindsey about to try out the run













Not too shabby...













Shane, looking like he just stepped out of a snowboard ad










The journey home was fairly smooth in terms of train connections (we never had to wait!) but one of the trains was so full that we had to all squish on the stairs (which was actually pretty comfortable). Also, Richard somehow managed to lose his ticket and spent one of the trains skillfully dodging the ticket checker, haha.

What a wicked weekend! And it only cost me ~170CHF, including food and the hotel. Hopefully I'll be able to get lots more skiing in this year, I'd like to check out some of the other hills in Switzerland. Cross your fingers for lots of snow!!

White Trash Party

Ziegelhau had a White Trash party last week in honour of everyone being back in Baden. There were some awesome costumes....I think we pretty much covered all the differend forms of white trash. We started out the night by watching Fubar and then just gav'er. Here's some pics:

NEW: video of the fireworks incident





Who's the father Adrienn?











Oh ya, rocking the Fubar shirt. We thought we should return Ziegelhau's chair in an appropriate manner ;)



















Lookin good boys











Vance, are those pj's tied on your head?















Evan looking super classy















Me and Piotr! He was visiting for the week



















Nice belt Travis

















Keegan looking hardcore













Devon with his beer holder and XXX liquor


















I don't think anybody was happy about this picture being taken










"Tyler, I swear this is alright to drink"
















Tommy, Lindsey, Tyler and Travil rockin the white trash (and/or 50 cent) look













No party is complete without a rifle! (Don't worry, it's fake)













Check out the awesome Trogdor tatoo I gave Richard
















Yes to what?

Who let Devon have those?!?!?












Mmm, you know what goes well in oranges? Rye!!!













Shane (the pirate, wtf?!?!) doesn't agree













And the night winds down...

Farewell faithful Pentax

If you have read the New Year’s post, you will know about my camera’s run in with a rye and coke. After leaving it overnight to dry out, I discovered that it’s not a good idea to leave sticky coke to “dry out”. The whole lens section was stuck together, and when I tried to turn it on all that happened was an unhealthy whining noise as the gears struggled against the coke stuckage.

Realizing that this was probably the end of my camera, I unscrewed the case to try and fix it, and ended up with a last effort fix attempt of soaking it for an hour in water. This worked like a charm against the mechanical sticking, however, greatly worsened the electrical problems (as could have been predicted). I admitted defeat, and mourned the lost of my faithful camera, that had survived so many European adventures, as well as being smashed in a Fairmount sledding disaster and repaired (at great expense).

My brother took a pic of me "fixing" my camera, but as of yet I haven't been able to get it from him (lazy guy.....ya that's right, you heard me Alex!!!!!), so maybe one day I will post it.

There's no way I can survive without a camera, so I went to future shop to buy a new one (after scouting out Costco and some other places for prices/selection). I ended up getting a Canon Powershot SD300 which I really like. It has pretty much the same features as my old camera, but 4.0MegaPixels (since that is pretty much the smallest you can get....why te hell to people think they need such a high resolution?!!? I take medium quality pics with my 3.2 and they look fine even printed full page. It's a scam...). Anyways, the new camera is smaller too, which is nice, and it takes the same memory card, yay. I found out the Devon and Tommy have the same camera (cept the 5MegaPixel version, sigh...), so we are the Canon Powershot team of awesomeness.

Happy New Year!

That last couple New Year's we've had a crazy house party (complete with The New Year's Cheese/Ham, stair suprises and Kevin-related diasters, lol) and gone to the party at Eau Claire. Last year I was out of town and missed out on the group party...though, I was on a beach in Thailand so I'm really not complaining! This year Christine found out about a party at the Vicious Circle (a martini bar downtown) so she arranged getting tickets for us all to that (thanks!!).

We were supposed to meet at Christine and Sketchy’s place downtown around 6, so I took the c-train with Mark and Erin. While I was waiting at Anderson station I found a (pretty decent) digital camera on the ground. After a bit of panicking and trying to decide what to do, I took the camera with me, figuring it would just get stolen if I left it. I was frantically looking for a pen (so I could leave a note in case somebody came back to look for it) and never found one, but managed to lost my toque somewhere in the process (I only noticed this later, booerns).

On the train, we looked through the pics on the camera (you know you would have too…) and discovered one of a guy that looked a lot like Mark, except he had a kid on his lap. This spun into wild theories about the camera being from the future, especially since it is the exact camera model that Erin has! Creepy… they joked that I should just keep it, and I pointed out that that would mess up the camera karma, and would result in me losing my camera tonight to set things back into balance. Little did I know…. (ooo, foreshadowing!!!)

We got to Christine’s place, which is a pretty nice apartment, even if it is in a shady part of town (right near 1^st street club area). There was already some people there, and when more arrived we ordered pizza and watched the start of the flames game (which we won, woot!). There were New Year’s stickers and we decorated ourselves, yay!! Sketchy had a bunch of people over as well (a different party technically, they weren’t going to the Vicious Circle with us) and they were cooking dinner.

Mike (with his "Happy" sticker), Mark, Erin and Chris on New Year's Eve

Mark, Chris (creepily peering over Mark's shoulder), me and Aimee...there seems to be a lot going on in this picture

Mark, proving that he's so good at self pictures that he can do it with his eyes closed (Bernard, you have competition!). After looking at the picture he yelled that Mike wasn't supposed to close his eyes too, since now it just looks like a pic of them napping together (haha, reminds me of that friends episode)

Jared, Scott, Steph and Sketchy at the apartment

Duncan, showing his lack of chest hair to go with his stick-on moustache (that he bought with a 50% off coupon at a costume shop)

Doug, Keith, Dave, Jane and Sketchy cooking dinner (hopefully not with play doh)

It was the pizza that caused it... the boxes on the table, combined with drinks resulted in a rye and coke (mine actually, how did I lose out doubly on this?!?!) being knocked over onto my camera. I quickly wiped it off, and tested it out….seemed to be working alright, hooray! During the night it degraded however, seeming to have some sort of electrical problems. I figured I would let it dry out (After all, if Devon and Kevin’s cameras could recover after being submerged in a fountain mine should be able to survive a minor drink spill. ) so I put it away, for the night. Further details of the aftermath on the way.

The aftermath of the camera-killing drink spill....also one of the last pictures ever to be taken with my old camera *eyes start to tear up*

So where was I….we headed over to the Vicious Circle, which is a martin bar that had some bands playing for New Years. We got a table and adorned ourselves with party favours and tested out the noisemakers. We discovered that bellinis were on sale, hooray, that determined my (and many other people’s, lots of guys sacrificed their masculinity for the sake of cheapness, haha) main drink for the rest of the night! I also had a couple martini’s (luckily they were nothing like the one’s on my birthday, *shudder*), since the Vicious Circle has an awesome selection that are all rated on a scale of 1 (dry) to 5 (sweet). I stuck to 5’s, haha. Oh ya, and the menus are metal, how cool is that (especially since they work as a good flaming match shield)!

Part of our group at the Vicious Circle...not sure what Sean is either amused or distraught by on the far left

Duncan, Steph and Jodi enjoying some martinis

Erin, Mark and Aimee at the Vicious Circle

Me and Amit decked out in our New Year's gear

Since we got there at about 9:30 we had lots of time to party before midnight. I got a chance to visit with lots of people that I hadn’t seen in awhile, which was awesome. Various shenanigans went down, including a typical Mark-invented drinking game involving a coin and a noisemaker, and playing with fire.

"Are all these for me!?!?"

The first of many match-related games... (you know that's gonna end well, haha)

Haha, I just like this pics because at first glance it looks like I have a giant hairy arm (for the record, I don't)

Mike using the noisemaker incorrectly (he claims it worked as a straw though)

More inappropriate things in Mike's drink

Duncan and Colin dancing intimately

Steve strikes a pose

5…4…3…2…1…1’ (since Scott informed us that they were adding one second to 2005)… Happy New Year! Let’s drink some awesome budget “Champagne”!

The bands were pretty sweet (Vailhalen, The Dudes and another one I can't remember), so we went and danced a bit and then some of us decided to relocate to Bottlescrew Bill’s for a couple drinks. Best thing about that plan: new set of party favours, I got a wicked purple hat!

Duncan, Mike and Chris ride the saddle outside Bottlescrew's (I think I have a very similar pic of Mike doing this on my birthday last year)

Rob, Sean, Mike, Steph, Christine, Scott and me at Bottlescew Bills

The result of Duncan saying "make a scary face"

Chris, Christine and Rob checking out Christine's beer passport

By then most people had headed home or to other parties, but the rest of us went back to Christine’s to find the house party in full swing. We wanted to finish our pizza, but it had all been eaten so Rob and Chris went out for more, yay. We stayed up for awhile and then somehow ended up playing Truth or Dare jenga that had no positive results, and pretty much ended off the night. Caught a couple hours of sleep, and then said farewell to Sketchy in the morning as he caught his early flight to Ontario for Congress, mwah ha ha, sucker! Caught a ride home with Steph, gotta love the old-school Woodlands connection.

Me and Mike having fun with hats

That's a crowded couch...

Christmas Party at Christine's

Christine had a big Christmas party on Dec 23, which was the first chance I had to see lots of my friends, it was awesome! We had a giant gift exchange (40+ people, yipes, that's a lot of stealing!) and I ended up with a Poker set (unfortunatly, I didn't have space to bring it to Baden, so we're still stuck using ceramic washers guys). Fun times were had by all, not much more needs to be said. Here's some pics:





Me and Andrea at Christine's party
















Nobody knows how Sketchy ended up walking around with an axe, but we all feared for our lives.


















Erin looks highly interested in Mike and Mark's conversation














Ummm... ya......














Song unwraps a present, I think it was trivia deely of some sort













Duncan finally ends up with his beloved chicken hat and sais
















Love the fashion statement Rob















Nice pick Jared


















Kiran immediatly sets to work blowing up the gift that he brought to the party (and poor Caroline ended up with)











Don't you want to enjoy your gift Caroline?













And more hilarity ensues















Nice, ummm "hat" Mike












Glass enjoyment














Scott and Andrea share the bean bag chair














"I'm still bored from being in Saskatchewen"













Here's to Jordan...



















Steph and Aimee enjoy the party













Dave and his "disciples"












Somebody's gonna clean up at the bottle depot














We give this party 2 thumbs up














Mike takes a short nap













Ewwww, Hot 100...... *shudder*












"I'm watching you..."














Peer pressure at it's best (haha, that's Christine's younger brother)













Something amuses Steve










Duncan continues his bad influencs by leading the making of a brew-ha-ha (drink containing some of what everyone at the party is drinking)













Me and Mike are excited














Another pic for the shocker wall at Kehl, mwah ha ha










Let's throw things at the passed out guy!

Christmas!

Time to catch my blog up on all my Christmastime activities!!!

I came home to Calgary for Christmas, arriving on Dec 21. It was a pretty good flight, except that it was so early in the morning that there were no busses running yet and I had to walk down to the Baden train station, weighed down with various luggage. It was a nice 4:30am stroll, especially after staying up all night packing and such. Before the first flight I took some cold medication that Richard had picked up that completly messed me up, I couldn't even sleep. So after that I opted for dealing with the cold symptoms instead. The highlight of the second flight was seeing Fantastic Four, it was pretty sweet.

I was showered with hugs and kisses from my parents and brother (not so many kisses from him) and was excited to see the house all decorated for Christmas. The next few days were filled with tree decorating, seeing friends, and various parties (and a vicious cold that I managed to kick pretty quickly, yay).

Look at our beautiful tree! Though I miss the bird-of-prey angel that's on our tree at Kehl

On Dec 22 we had our annual Christmas carolling party with some family friends. My brother and dad played the piano and guitar, and I joined in a bit to show off some of my new guitar skills. As usual my dad got completely carried away with being the center of attention and singing with over-the-top enthusiasm, haha. It was a great night, always one of my favourite holiday events. Here are some pics:

Judy singing while Alex plays the piano

Rae and Elizabeth singing carols

David and my mom enjoying the carol singing

The singers that actually have talent doing some harmonizing (it sounded awesome)

Here are some pics from Christmas day:

Christmas morning in Calgary (Fish Creek Park behind my house). Gotta love those chinooks, it was warm for my whole visit

My family being goofy with their new flashlights (Alex started it of course)

My dad, with his annual Toblerone (probably the main reason he supported me going to Switzerland, lol)

Brought my mom back an assortment of dark chocolate (her favorite)

Candy, music and duct tape, what more could you ask for in a stocking!?

Alex liked the swiss card and Checkpoint Charlie shirt I got him

Finally, my own pictonary game! If only Aimee was here in Switzerland so we could rule as champions!

Alex testing out his new amp

Daddy carving the turkey with surgical precision

Now THAT'S what gravy is supposed to look like (are you taking notes Shane?)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas again!

My dad makes a toast

On Dec 27 my grandparents (from my mom’s side) arrived from Victoria, and we had a nice secondary Christmas with them:

Yummy post-Christmas brunch!

Me with my grandparents, they loved the clock I got them from Krakow

On Dec 29 Devon had a party for all the old and current praktikants, which had a great turnout and was fun. Evan and his friend Paul brought over their music gear and played, it was kickass. I didn’t take any pics that night, but hopefully I can get some from Devon.

All in all it was a really good vacation, I won’t go into huge detail about what else I did but here are some highlights:
-Went to a Flames Game, and rocked some wicked seats (thanks Chris!). Too bad we lost that one :(
-Played music with my brother and my dad, Alex taught me how to play Float On and a bunch of other stuff
-Watched way too much TV, including a couple seasons of Arrested Development (finally!), ER, Scrubs, and a couple Buffy marathons
-Had a hardcore Mad Gab (and shuffleboard, haha) night over at Erin’s
-Went too Christine’s Christmas party (see separate post)
-Went to Vicious Circle for New Year’s (see separate post)
-Did lots of shopping
-Went skiing at Sunshine with Aimee and Alex (my brother)
-Hit up the Back Alley with Chris, Aimee and Mark
-Saw the new Harry Potter movie (again) with my family
-Finally wrote my super-late internship report #2
-Caught up on all the food I missed while being in Switzerland: steak, sushi, Thai, Viet, Mexican, slurpees, cheddar cheese, Tim Horton’s, late night Wendy’s JBC, and more importantly: my mom’s cooking

Playing some guitar with Alex