Mon, 07 Feb 2005 00:54:11 GMT

Hello everyone! No, we have not been abducted by aliens, attacked by wolves nor swallowed by a giant snake genetically engineered by a mad scientist living at the North Pole! We've simply experienced some (major) technical challenges. Sorry for the long delay, but we're back! It'll take me a little while to get all the news onto the website, so bear with me...

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:49:36 GMT

Jason and Michelle have arrived!!!

Saturday 18 December:

Michelle and Jason arrived in Kelowna on an unusually windy Saturday. They were a little jet-lagged but otherwise in remarkably good shape! We explored some of the town, went for dinner at Ed's and went straight to bed!

Sunday 19 December:

We drove to Rossland via Osoyoos and managed to visit a few wine farms on the way: Mission Hill (where they saw their first bit of "snow"), the fabulous wine shop in Penticton and the very interesting farm of Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards. We even had A&W for lunch - probably similar to Wimpy in South Africa. After having told Jason and Michelle that the wind almost never blows in Rossland we arrived in Rossland and guess what - (almost) gale force winds! We went straight to dinner at Paula and Kieren Gaul where we enjoyed some excellent wine (Pinotage), delicious lamb and real Peppermint Crisp tart! Yum! We then did some airboarding which was a lot of fun!

Monday 20 December: We woke up to a gorgeous bright sunny day. We had a good breakfast at the Cornerstone Café, walked through Rossland and showed Jason and Michelle the ski hill. Jason, Michelle and Frank built a magnificent snow man called Snowy. See some pictures of the masterpiece being created...

and voila! Frank's trying to protect poor Snowy from the big bad man...(yes, Snowy is sporting a Springbok scarf!)

We then did some toboganning, had a lovely salmon dinner, went to Steve and Anita's for dessert and went to bed.

Tuesday 21 December:

Woke up bright and early, packed the car and headed to the Rockies. Had breakfast at an interesting breakfast spot in Creston, stopped for a bite to eat and to see Hans in Kimberley and drove through Golden to Emerald Lake Lodge. What a gorgeous setting - check out some of the stunning pictures on their website. Had a good game of billiards and an excellent dinner at the superb Lodge Dining Room.

Wednesday 22 December:

We started the day with a brisk snow walk/march (depending on whether Jason or Michelle was leading) in balmy -11C weather, stopped at Lake Louise to and headed for Banff. Banff was an even colder -18C! We saw a big elk bull grazing on someone's lawn just before we went up the Banff gondola. We then enjoyed another excellent dinner at Buffalo Mountain Lodge (although walking home in -23C with a breeze is not to be recommended!).

Thursday 23 December:

We went to check out the Banff Springs Hotel and headed to Revelstoke - drove through the magnificent Roger’s Pass and enjoyed McDonalds in Revelstoke (this was the highlight of Michelle’s trip!) Our B&B for the night, McPherson Lodge, was in another stunning setting, although the main part of the house was VERY COLD. Frank and I went for a cross country ski after which we enjoyed (yet another) superb dinner at Woolsey Creek Cafe.

Friday 24 December:

We took the ferry across and headed home. Christmas Eve we enjoyed a French Canadian Tortiere and opened some presents.

Saturday 25 December:

A Real White Christmas! We started Christmas Day by opening our stockings, went for a few good toboggan runs and spent the rest of the day visiting with friends. We all pitched in to cook a beautiful turkey which, unfortunately, took too long to cook and we ended up eating all the side dishes since everyone was way too tired to wait for the turkey.

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