Thursday 10 January 2013

This weather is not endearing me to winter.  Yes, I guess if you are a skier you are over the moon with this.  Geoff and his buddies headed up to Lake Louise this morning.  Hope the highway drivers were better than the city drivers.  I heard a guy on the radio say this morning "What is it about a snowfall that makes everyone forget how to drive?"  How true.  We were out and about this morning and could not believe how many people could not stay in their lane.  One woman actually veered into our lane and we had to pull over and hit the drift on the side of John Laurier.  I don't even think she knew what she had done but if we hadn't of moved she would have most certainly have hit us!

Did a little running around and then hit the Winter Club for my version of a "workout".  Thirty-five minutes on the stationary bike and 30 minutes in the steam room!  A far cry from what a workout used to be but still has the same endorphin effect on me!  Felt great to sweat and puff a little!  Bill had his workout then came home to tackle the shovelling.  Now he's off to shovel his Mom and Dad's sidewalks so he's certainly getting his share of exercise today.  Both of us are looking at this and thinking some beach time in Mexico is going to be great!  Had an email from my friend Maureen this morning.  They have had two baby whales born right off Kamole Beach in the past couple of days!  How cool is that!?


You can see the mother whale between the white buoy and the palm tree.  Apparently the coast guard has been out keeping curious people at bay who are too anxious to get too close.  I ask myself where in heaven's name is their common sense on this one!

I have had so many people laughing in disbelief at some of my "career highlights" I just have to share one more with you.  Actually this one is a little more current and happened at Ranchlands a few years back.  Our staff meetings happened on Friday afternoons.  I was planning to head up to the lake to spend the weekend with my Dad and in order to speed up my exit from the city I decided to pick Boomer up over the noon hour and bring him back to the school.  I snuck him through the gym and into my office where I left him while I went to the meeting.  He's not a barker so I wasn't too worried about him being discovered.  Hmmmm......what I did forget about was the fact that our caretaking staff would be cleaning.  Michael, one of my favourite caretakers opened my office to get the garbage and was shocked when a big black dog came streaking out the door.  Michael I might add is terrified of dogs so this was not a good thing!  I am forever grateful he did not have a heart attack!  Boomer could hear voices in the library, so being the social boy he is he literally frolicked into the meeting and proceeded to bound around the room greeting everyone with the unbridled enthusiasm he always greets people with.  Kevin, our principal was stunned.  He said, or I maybe should say yelled "Where did that dog come from?"  I was sitting in the back row doing what I normally did at staff meetings.....(visiting my happy place) when I realized what was happening.  At first I wanted to just sit there and pretend I had no idea where THAT DOG came from but many of the staff knew who Boomer was and there was no escaping this one.  Jumped out of my chair apologizing profusely but definitely was in the dog house along with my dog that day!  No attagirls for me that day, that's for sure!

Hoping all of you who braved the highways to get to the ski hills today had awesome snow conditions!!!  For me.....just a little too chilly I'm afraid!  I'm a spring skier! So if you are a skier or a boarder you have to watch the youtube video I posted on Facebook.   It is pretty funny!  I tried to add it to this blog but don't have a lot of luck with videos so apologies to those of you who can't access Facebook.



3 comments:

  1. So funny you told the Boomer story as I just told that story to Walter 2 days ago!!! The other funny one I love is when you dressed him up in Santa clothes and then we all sang '6 White Boomers'!! Good times!!

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  2. Love the Boomer story -for many reasons and I'm sure you know what they are!!!
    My friend Kezia and I went up to Lake Louise today for our first of 6 Ladies Ski days (didn't see Geoff!)- the snow was fabulous and it was only about -10 and much nicer weather wise than Calgary! I'm so excited to be skiing and you are again the inspiration that got me to the place where I would even consider going to ladies ski day! A year ago I would not have done it because I felt like I wouldn't be able to keep up physically. Thankfully I got my priorities straight this year and I am able to kick ass on the slopes!!! The great thing about today was my ski instructor knew my brother Darin and my parents really well as his son, Jeff Durrand, raced with Darin when they were both on the National team. The funny thing is whenever someone knows my brother was an elite skier they always expect that the whole family are great skiers - so my instructor looks at me and says, why on earth are you in the blue lessons!!! I gave him my standard response of how much skiing talent can really occur in one family - my brother definitely got the lion's share! After my instructor watched me ski down for the first time, he told me that I was at the perfect level and that my poles weren't just for decoration - I've got some things to work on for sure!!! Hopefully getting out on the slopes is in your near future Leslie!!!

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  3. Ha ha ha... I TOTALLY remembber that staff meeting!!! The look on Kevin's face was priceless!!!

    Robb and I braved it out tonight for a big long walk!! He said the snow was our sand....ya I guess...kinda!!! Love the picture of the whale!! Gonna have to google it now!!

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