Mountain Therapy

I love winter....for the most part, because of all the fun activities that are possible in the snow. On saturday my friend nicole and I decided to take advantage of the snow, head down to Banff, and go snowshoeing. It was an early morning for a saturday...but me and "timmy" got through it. Our first trail of the day started with a barracade, but there was no stopping us, we walked to the parking area and started up the mountain. At this point NOT yet wearing the rented snowshoes.....

The going got quite steep as we went on and less and less snowy as we got into more dense forest, at one point we came to a place where we had to climb using ropes, that happened to be there, up a frozen stream that we could see flowing under the ice! So Cool! We kept climbing and then came to these huge frozen waterfalls that were so amazing! At this point i wished i was an ice climber ready with gear..... :(

Still not wearing snowshoes we trudged on...and up...and up....until finally we decided we were not going to find acceptable snowshoe snow and decided to head down and drive to lake lousie where there might be some good trails around the lake. Instead we found an ice carving competition, a pretty neat ice castle on the lake, and TONS of tourists. (Notice the snowshoes stacked in the snow, and not on our feet) We left lake louise determined to find a good trail, so we headed back towards banff to a spot we saw on the way to louise. Here we found what we were looking for. Nice powdery soft snow and a decent trail to follow.

Finally! The snowshoes on our feet. So fun! We met a few cross country skiiers on the way, causing one to see us, get scared and ski directly into the trees. haha..oops.

I guess Nicole got our just reward. Hehe. It WAS her first day in new shoes, and not the snow kind.

We finished the day with the Banff hot springs and some good eats. All in all the exact therapy i needed. We returned home tired but happy. Since we are born with a finite number of breaths, why not use them wisely.

Christmas # 2

No, No, its not that i had a second Christmas, i just really needed to add a few more churchill pics to get the full effect of the FUN had whilst there!! This head massager became the hit gift....here's my dad giving the usual reaction..........hehe. We did A LOT of snowmobiling while in the great tundra which was so much fun! I've decided i like any type of fast machine with power. Does anything look out of place in this picture...? Wait, is that a couch? The "sled" as it was called was super comfy too.

OK so i haven't figured out how to turn pictures around...yet, but this one had to make it in here. The lovely hula man is my dear grandpa. he was such a good sport for letting us dress him up, he even did a dance for us...ha, love it.
One day we went out to a Fort Merry, which was some kind of English stronghold in the 1700's? i forget exactly, but there was cool old cannons and huge snow drifts that became landing sites for jumping off the walls, then wrestling arenas.

And here's the whole gang (minus auntie Joanne who, while we were bundling up was probably sweating like crazy in shorts in paraguay) What a great looking family AND an awesome bunch of people to share good times.

OK so this is the last time i'll talk about Christmas....i think i am catching up on life now, but my January has been so busy i dont even know where the month has gone. Cheers to all and i'll leave you with a thought....

"whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right"

The infamous christmas

Our trip to churchill was fantastic! I wasn't looking forward to the long drive, 16 hours to be exact, but it went by pretty fast and was broken by a stay at the super 8 in The Pas. This was our hotel buddy there....a very friendly kitty who we tried to take out of our room when we left and he just kept jumping onto the bed, so we figured when the cleaners came in they would save him and until then he could forage for left over soap.
Finally we got to Thompson and the train station. i was still excited about the train at this point and stayed excited until we had been on the train for about 10 minutes. Shelley you're right about keeping an eye on the bags. despite cramped seats and waking up to feet in my face i slept reasonably well and woke up in churchill!
This is our family in the train station, that pile of luggage in the middle...yup all ours.
Once in Churchill it became a frenzy of FOOD! Christmas dinner was fabulous and then out came the chocolate and candy...somehow it was all my favorite kinds too.hmmmm.

Good thing we had activites to keep the pounds from piling on! This was my first ever attempt at curling. Us canadians so inventful with our games, i got pretty into it and even managed to keep a rock in the house??
One of the main things i wanted to do while in churchill is build and igloo! This was so fun, we got saws and learnt how to cut the blocks and stack them winding around until you have space for three to touch on top and seal it off. I didn't sleep in it :( maybe next time.
One thing i can say about the martens family is we are competitive! It started with our gift exchange where there was lots of stealing from eachother. Then we got into two teams and played survivor...brutally voting eachother off. He he those are my feet in the picture, my cousin kyle was very brave...or maybe i was the brave one!

Another survivor challenge! this one got a bit painfull.

Another martens family tradition is games games games! Here are my wonderful cousins in the middle of a cutthroat game of cranium. I will remember Settlers, Rook, and the half day long Risk game for years to come.....

And who could forget Elvis....this cat got held and kissed and played with more in that week than he will in the next ten years i'm sure. he was so snuggly, especially when you sort of stuck him belly up in your arms and held him so he couldn't get away.

But wait...theres more, churchill installment 2 is coming up!