farewell canadia...

so its been a hugely busy weekend but an amazing one....
i had some amazing friends come to visit like laura, brooke, sarah, mel, josh and preston and some of the locals came round to hang. so it was really good to get to see people again before i leave.
i went to my fav resturant in town- one99 on saturday night with the ladies and it was a truly awesome night. we got totaly spoilt thanks to cassidy (the manager) getting our very own private room overlooking the resturant, complimentary patte, lamb and duck as specials for von and me and dessert platter on him with a sparkler cos it was my final weekend in canada. was very very cool night and so so so much fun!
weekend activities also included hiking up teh hill and snowboarding down, a walk to the swimming pond, singing and sharing my testimony at young adults sunday night, playing ice hockey and getting to ride the zamboni (thats the thing that makes the ice smooth again for all you non canadians out there!) with jaime, and lovely teen ranch family dinner and generally getting to spend time with people i love!!!!
and then to top it off ontario decided to make today a public holiday called family day which i enjoyed having lunch with stacey, JVD and preston, follwed by snowboarding at blue mountain with steve, rachel, and sarah with yvonne, ash, and priscilla coming along to hang out. was a great afternoon/nigth with lots of sweet boarding, some scary rides too! lots of falls, a huge bruise an dlump coming out on one of my knees, a very sore tailbone from the ice, a sore finger from getting it stuck in the car door and scary trip home complete with whiteouts (where the snow is blowing so thick taht you literally can not see anything and have to stop cos you have no idea where the road is!!!)
so all in all its been a great weekend. its now 4:47am and i leave at 6:45am to go to the airport in the morninga dn im always packed- yes still leave everything to the last minute. so here i leave you as i head to new york, willmington, calgary, new zealand an dthen finally home march 10th!!!
see you soon!

day 8......?????

so i have the priveledge of having 4 of mjy lovely friends- laura, brooke, sarah, and josh come visit me this weekend. and one of the lovely exciting things that we decided to do was take a nice trek up the hill to seee teh view of teh ranch and orangeville covered in snow.
so turns out its quite a trek.....so so tiring and my legs still hating me from making them walk the hill so many times this week were so mad at me!
but we made it and i lugged my snowboard up with me to make the trip back down so much easier! So i hads a sweet ride back down the hill. was so good to have a ride that lasted longer than 30secs before having to walk back up to go again! and was really fun doing some bigger turns n stuff.
so turns out my 7 days turned into 8....lets see if i can keep this going!

Day 7...

so the final day of my experiment to see if i could board everyday for a week....and i am happy to report i was successful!!!
My trip to hockley with jacob fell through but i powered on again on the apartment hill. the snoww has packed better over the days and provided a nice base to board on. i headed out about 6pm and fit in quite a few runs in teh half hour i was out there. was very enjoyable!!!! but my legs were starting to hate me for making them walk up the hill after every run!!!
day 7 COMPLETE!!!

Day 6...

well the week is almost over and today i was particularly pressed for time, and so 20mins before i had to be up for dinner i kitted up and ran out to the hill, put in a few runs then ran home to change for dinner.....all in all a very quick visit to boarding land but a visit none the less.
snow was a bit better packed than the last few days, but still thick when off the path created over the last few days....
i have 1 day left of my snowboarding week and so il hopefully be heading out to hockley valley with jacob tomoro to get some better runs in with a ski lift- cos im sick of walking up the hill!!!!
day 6 complete...

Day 5...

so today was a beautiful day. the sun was shining and the temperature was cold but not coooooooold....so i set out after work, into the loevly fresh power, but as the last few days have shown. this lovely fresh powder is nice to look at and fall inot but produces less than successful snowboarding.
but non-the less as planned i boarded. got in a few runs and then headed back inside as i wasnt realy getting anywhere fast!!!
but still another day of snowboarding complete....

this the hill outside the apartment ive been snowboarding on everyday!

Day 4...

well the day went almost totally by without me hitting the hill and so at 11:35pm i quickly slipped out to do my daily agenda. accompanied by the lovely yvonne i took my newly fixed snowboard thanks to moguels-my favourite people in the world- to the apt hill and pushed my way through about 2-3 foot of snow, strapped in and went down the hill.....very slowly on teh first run. but after some snow was cleared and tracks began to forn the runs became faster and more useful!!!
stayed out for about half an hour and headed in cos it was too cold an too late for anymore!!!
and as unhelpful for snowboarding as teh snow was it was perfect for falling in, and as i sat in the soft powder looking over the frozen pond and out across the snow covered field with fresh glitter falling softly on my face kkt really really was spectacular. nothing has ever been more still and silent than that which fell across adventure island as i sat alone at the bottom of the hill. God is amazing in the things he has allowed me to experience while ive been here, and this one is pretty close to the top of the list!
day 4 complete...

Day 3...

so day three of snowboarding week.....my bindings broke yesterday and i didnt make it into town to get it fixed this afternoon so i borrowed my room-mates board. headed out about 7:30pm with leah to the apartment hill. was soooooo cold, i think it was sittiing about -15 plus windchill. there was heaps of wind last night and so the snow has drifted soooo much. the result??? really thick snow thats still good for packing but this means its light and fluffy until pressure is applied and it sticks in big clumps......what does that mean for snowboarding??? it was even harder than yesterday! i finally got my bindings done up in the dark- harder than you think with black bindings....and turn to head down the hilll get about a metre and fall over becasue your board has a foot and a half of snow caked to it. really good for snowboarding eh!

so needless to say the attempt didnt last long i think 2 runs in all and neither even all the way down the hill and teh snowboard would physically go no further!. but still day 3 completed!

Day 2....

Sunday.....its really really cold out, and the wind is nasty! but as planned i headed out. time was short which was a good thing with the weather, and i headed just outside the apartment again.

this time i fit in 4 runs or so and headed back in within about half an hour. the snow was still pretty sticky and thick so i kept getting stuck again. but im getting better with my turns and making it all teh way down without falling.....day 2 complete.

Day 1...

saturday.....hit the hill outside the apartment about 3pm. we'd had a great freash snowfall so the snow was imense....was doing well but facing problems getting stuck half way down the hill in teh snow as its so thick and its good packing snow so the board gets stuck and wont go any further once there is about a foot or so of snow atop my board!

i attempted the jump set up by the stevens boys. id done it a few days earlier, however as so mcuh fresh snow had packed up on it i got stuck halfway up and did afront flip over it...less than comfortable!

i then moved on to the hill outside the kitchen, and the hill next to the hotel- all were good hoever after goiing down the hill by the hotel i headed out onto the road nicely....until i slipped and felll ncie and hard on the solid road....painful

and so after an hour and a half of boarding i headed in....day 1 complete.

last week...

ok so...the internet has been down for a week ish so hence the delay on the posting....but to your delight you'll get plenty more before i leave here.

i have one week left here at the ranch before i head off to New York, North Carolina, Calgary, Christchurch and then eventually home on march 10th! so this week will undoubtedly be a full one....i have a big list of things to do an dthe time is running shorter and shorter to get it all done!!!

so one of my plans for the week is to go snowboarding everyday....i starte dthis on saturday and ill put a daily report on so make sure you check it out!

and so till then....

long day????

so today has been a long long day...sarted at 8:30am got an hour or 2 off in the afternoon and then worked until 12:30am the next day! so i think that ends up being about 14 hours without the break.....why you ask???? WELL!!!

today was the NHL hockey gala at the ranch. and i had the pleasure of wokring the VIP room. so we spent all day preparing for said gala and also lunch for staff, then...this fine evening we got to serve food and all that jazz to the players and they're families. the way it all works is that we have a bunch of old awesome NHL hockey players come and people pay a whole bunch of money to play on teams with them to raise money for the ranch. so after the game there were a whole bunch of the most famous canadian hockey players in one room, and boy were people excited to see them! people were getting autographs every which way and tv cameras were all around....but my favourite thing was that i had no idea who any of them actually were! i dont know the difference between them and the other guys in the room!

was a pretty sweet evening all round, i got some free stuff, met some very famous people (Paul henderson was there, the goalie from slapshot, mike gartner, daryl sittler, laurie boschman to name a few) got to eat some lovely lovely lamb!! and pretty much had a sweet but busy time....and needless to say at 2:15am im ready to sleep.....

off to niagra falls tomorrow....