Visit to NB or the Plan B visit

I'm still sitting in New Brunswick, I should be at the airport but my flight got cancelled due to a winter/freezing rain storm. This visit was a typical maritime visit, festive, food, friends, family, fishing and freezing. Maybe not in that order but we did it all in 5 days. Here is the rough schedule.
Thursday: Get up early and fly to Moncton. That it inself takes most of the day. We drop by my friends place for the grand tour of his new house and a large glass of wine.
Friday: Took a drive to SHediac and me and Stacey take a nice walk on the beach. Its -20 with a windchill of -32. Then we head back home to have a supper with all the Bourque family.


Saturday: Still cold, we managed to convince my parents to go XC skiing in Kouchibouguac. Dan comes along for added entertainement. We stop by Bayou in Shediac for some Led Z'epelan and Fish and Chips.



Sunday: Stacey leaves Moncton and goes to Ottawa to visit Jesse. I go ice fishing with my dad in Bouctouche at my uncle ice fishing shack. We spear fished some smelts and caught 3 dozen fish in 1.5 hours. Not bad for a bunch of beginners. See pictures below for detailed fishing pictures. Mat goes for supper at his Bourgeois family and Stacey goes for Mexican with Jesse (foreshadowing...).




Monday:

Plan A: Jesse and Stacey spend a day in Ottawa visiting museum and other cultural places. Mat goes to Shediac for a dinner with Grandparents and then goes to Fredericton to visit old friends.

Plan B: Stacey and Jesse encounter problems (i'll let stacey explain).
Snow storm starts dumping over 30cm of snow in Moncton and we can't even make it to the grandparents (less than 20km away). It takes us 1hr to travel from my sister's place to my parents place (usually less than 10min). Roads are bad, schools are closed, buses are pulled off the road, offices/mall are shut down. I spend the afternoon snowblowing the driveway. For supper, Smelts, deer and potatos, a true NB meal.



Tuesday:

Plan A: Get to airport for 11hr30 AM flight, meet Stacey in Toronto and get on the same flight back to Calgary then pick up the car together and be home for supper.

Plan B: Mat's flight is cancelled. Luckily gets on a 5PM flight, get home at 10pm. At least we aren't missing the flames game (I hope).


Ice fishing montage:

Distance from Car to shack 50m.


The shack:

Patiently waiting. The snow is cleared on the south side of the shack, thus allowing the sun to illuminate the ice and provide a clear view of smelts swimming underneath.







Hope I don't have to finish this story with a plan C.
Nice to see the family and friends.
Later
Mathieu and Stacey.

Ice Review

In early 2008, we went to the Alpine Club annual Ice Review weekend. Basically very similar to the rock review (See http://mathieuandstacey.blogspot.com/2007/06/acc-rock-review_17.html) but you guessed it, Ice climbing. On Saturday we took a walk and did a very fun climb called "This House Of Skye". Probably done it five times but still a pleasant day. It was Nick's second or first time out ever so we lent him a helping hand and showed him the ropes. We got slowed down by a party of 4 people but they kindly let us pass them and we zipped up the rest of the climb.











Typical pitches on THOS










More typical short pitches.




And more short pitches.





Mathieu getting tired of all that climbing.

On day 2 we lazily woke up after a night of chile, beer, bonfire and general mischief. We set our sights for a climb with a short approach. We settled for Wicked Wanda which is way too hard for us but the bottom would offer a nice afternoon of climbing.



Approaching our climb, Wicked Wanda



Stacey enjoying a warm day in Big Blue. Interesting fact #4322: Big Blue creates its own micro climate where its always warm and balmy despite the cold.




Shannon cleaning Mat's mess of Ice screws.

Again Good times had by all,
Mathieu

Jasper New Years

Skiing Near Athabasca Falls


Self Portrait at Athabasca Falls


Exploring the bottom of Maligne Canyon


Going back down the Canyon after encountering some scary open pools of water.


Maligne Canyon is a spectacular place in winter.


Yeah!! Ice climbing. Amazing fact #4321 Mathieu likes to Ice climb.


So for New Years we decided to spend a few days in Jasper, we haven't been there in winter so we figured we could find fun stuff to do. I guess we were right cause we had non stop fun. We drove down on Saturday and stopped by Tangle Falls which is an ice climb that is literally 5 steps from the parking lot. We met a nice dog there. Then we went up to Jasper and checking in our hotel room where we sneaked in a third guest, George Foreman. We cooked 2 nice suppers on George. The following day we went cross country skiing at Athabasca falls which was fun despite the 2 km of walking due to insufficient snow. The day after that we went to explore the small and narrow Maligne Canyon and spent the afternoon climbing . We had dinner reservcation for the 31st and had a wonderfull meal as we watched people put on a firework display on the top of Signal Mtn. On the last day Mat did some reminising of days gone by when we X-country skied in the Whistler campground, he found his old home where he had spent a few weeks back in the summer of '97 living in a van down by the river.

Good times
Mathieu

Sweet Sixteen

For Stacey's neice's 16th birthday in October, Mat and I brought her a ticket to Calgary for the weekend. She came in early January, and tried her hand at ice climbing. She did very well with climbing, and we tried to convince her to stay in Calgary with us for good! But she decided to return to her home in Saskatoon instead :(, oh well!!! We really enjoyed her visit!

Christmas 2008 in Saskatoon

This holiday season we spent a few days in Saskatoon with Stacey's family. We had a great visit, with lots of Ukranian food and presents. We spent some time tobogganing with Stacey's neices, getting some bumps and bruises, but spectacular air-time! Our plans are to visit Mat's family and friends in New Brunswick in January. I know that he is really looking forward to it!

Shoulder Season Fun

We also spent some time this fall refinishing Mat's antique typewriter desk (a huge effort by Mat!) which is pictures in the background. As well, Stacey and Mat finished a coffee table. Not to mention 3 peices of bedroom furniture, and we consider ourselves practically experts in furniture restoration :)

Again, the eternal debate wages on about whether or not there is such a thing as shoulder season in the Canadian Rockies! I did catch Mat mentioning "the S-word" once or twice on his own... though! We kepy busy in October by visiting the badlands of Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell Dinosaur Museum. Impressive!

Stacey's Mom comes to visit

In late September, my mom came out for her second annual fall visit to Calgary. We did some shopping, some cooking, and even made it out to the mountains for some beautiful fall hiking in Bragg Creek area and Elbow Falls.