Christmas 2009 - Part 2

On Christmas eve at Apex there is always a celebration in the evening.

While waiting for the main event Natalie was climbing partway up the ski run and then sliding down it on her butt. I tried it but apparently my ass is not as slippery.

The event involves skiers going down the mountain single file in many S shapes carrying torches. They then stop in two lines at the bottom of the hill and light up the area...

...for Santa Claus who arrives via ski runner groomer machine thing. He then sits by the Christmas tree and gives out gifts to good girls and boys.

There's also a giant bonfire that they lit with a blowtorch and some free hot chocolate.

The next morning was Christmas morning and we woke up extra early because Natalie, Ben and I were going skiing again.

We opened presents before hitting the slopes again.
Emily and mom did some tubing down the hill in the afternoon.

Farley and dad joined us in the afternoon for a half day of skiing. We had skied most of the runs on the mountain but I wasn't bored of it. It was great to figure out what the best runs were by trial and error.


That evening we went in the hot tub a bunch more times and played some more family games. The next day we packed up and drove off to Kelowna. We got to my aunt's house but only my grandpa was there so we went out to do some grocery shopping and a few other chores. It was boxing day so any parking lot in front of a store was jam packed. We parked in front of a Save-On foods and went to the food court of a nearby mall for lunch while mom went in to get groceries. When we returned we found out the grocery store was actually closed for the day.

Back at my aunt's, she gave us directions to a place we were going to house sit. It was a pretty nice place with some bunnies in the backyard that the girls got to feed. We had dinner at my aunt's and then watched a movie before returning to the house for the night.

The next day my aunt and grandpa came over and we went for a walk in a nearby park.

One of the trees in the park must have been attacked by some very festive squirrels or some of the birds that forgot to fly south because it was all decorated.

My brothers and sisters were walking on the ice of a pond and looking at all the fish swimming underneath. After the walk my family went to the new pool in town for a swim. They had a circular channel with a pretty strong current, a wave pool, three water slides and a wave simulator where you could practice surfing of boogie boarding.

The next day my family went up to Big White for some skiing but not before dropping me off at the Greyhound for my trip home. I came back to town a couple days early to play a lot of board games with my friends. We had a 24 hour board game marathon!