White Christmas Round 2

The first year was just a practice round, this/last year was the real deal. This Christmas we again congregated at Kelly and Paul’s house for an Australian Invasion. The main course… a Turducken!! For those that don’t know, a Turducken is a turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken. The turkey is a whole bird and the duck and chicken are de-boned. It was absolutely freaking delicious. As is the Canadian thing to do, the whole thing was chucked in a turkey fryer. These miraculous contraptions are the easiest way to cook a turkey. Rather than waiting around the over for hours, a bird can be done in about 45min! As the outside skin of the bird is the only part in contact with the oil, it’s also not nearly as bad for you as you would expect.

 

I made Christmas ham! All by myself! I think that's why O'Hara wore the jumper again.

The most delicious birds you've ever seen, and Master Chef.

I ate myself stupid and suffered from the turkey sleeping power for a good hour after dinner.

On Boxing Day, Kamloops was the lucky recipient of freezing rain. Australians, this is rain that is super chilled so as soon as it hits any surface it freezes. It also happens to turn every flat surface into a skating rink. We were planning on leaving early and driving to Whistler to meet a friend from high school, but this mess and black ice on the road meant we delayed until after lunch. Luckily for us it warmed up and the roads were clear and we got to see Sarah and Shaun. Unfortunately we could only stay for one night as we had booked Silver Star for the next 5 nights.

 

Friend! High school friend!

Silver Star was a great success for the period between Christmas and New Year. The Wilsons, Ouimets and Greg and Lil were all there to ski with, drink with, eat with and play games with. We managed to get 4 solid days of snowboarding in, though I’m unsure if my skills progressed at all. O’Hara and I have taken it upon ourselves to learn how to do jumps on our snowboard. I think this should be quite easy, as children seem to have no problem doing it. Sadly for us this isn’t the case.

 

I look casual, but really fell about 5 times trying to get this pic.

With views like this, why wouldn't you get a pic in the snow in your bikini? 

We went on a snowshoeing adventure while we were there. That was a good time! A guide took us on all these paths you'd never see by yourself. Or if you did, you'd likely get lost and die. We had one near miss where we had our own adventure, but everyone made it back safely. New Year’s Eve ended up being a slight fail. The boys made the mistake of going way too hard, way too early in the hot tub. As O’Hara has found in the past, this can and will end badly. 

A Christmas Letter

This is our second Christmas in Canada. We've never been organised enough to send out Christmas cards, let along write a Christmas letter. We love receiving them, bring them on please! So here is our attempt.

The O'Hara's Christmas Letter 2013

Well, haven't the last 20 months just flown by! We've had too many good times to count since we've been here. We've eaten great food, made great friends and travelled to some amazing places. As we keep telling our bank, we're here for a good time, not a long time. Some highlights of our Canadian time include;

• Meeting my brother in New York;
• Travelling with our Canadian and Australian friends to Vegas;
• Going to Taco parties in LA;
• Going to Chicago with our friends from Mexico;
• Going to weddings in Wisconsin and California; and
• Visiting the Niagara Falls on the American side.

We've been doing our best to integrate ourselves into Canadian life. I'd say around 50% of the time it's been a success. Sometimes lost in translation gets us confused, sometimes it's our skills. Here's some things that we haven't quite gotten right:

• O'Hara has been fishing around 10 times. Not even a nibble. He has seen them swimming past his line on an underwater camera. They're just not interested.
• I can't shovel the snow from the driveway with any success.
• O'Hara ran the car into a snow bank, because he was distracted by an excavator.
• I spend too long talking to border security, in the hopes they are distracted and give us extra passport stamps.
• O'Hara's toenail has left a scar on someones ankle.
• I will be the only one in the room laughing at beaver jokes. Other times I make beaver jokes in inappropriate company or at inappropriate times.
• O'Hara is maintaining the Ugg boots are appropriate to be worn by men. No one agrees.
• I still think that east is towards the coast. I get people lost when giving directions.
• O'Hara is a retardant for wildlife. He's down about 15-1 for bear sightings with me.
• I thought that the large bins that appeared around Halloween were for waste pumpkins. O'Hara carried mouldy carved pumpkins up our driveway to the street, only to find them full of sand. For the ice. Obviously.
• O'Hara bought one set of warm, one set of cold lights for the Christmas decorations outside. Two-toned is not trendy.
• I make fun of Canadians too much. It's too easy. #sorrynotsorry.
• O'Hara asked two girls if they wanted to dink with him on his bike to the pub. That means something different here.

We've had some great successes. We've travelled to places we never saw in our future and seen things most people only see on TV or in postcards. Some of our best successes include:

• Living in Canada for nearly 2 years and not ending every sentence with 'eh!";
• Instead referring to everything as "brutal";
• Doing fully sick "jumps" on our snowboards;
• Conveying sarcasm;
• Using our "Canadian" accents to translate from Australian. "Oh Heeirra";
• Fly kicking Christmas trees;
• Loving the shit out of poutine; and
• Travelling further east in Canada than most of the Canadians we've met. 

We love having guests and have had some wonderful times with our friends and family. More of you are welcome. Have I not made this clear enough?! We've explored, hiked, fished, kayaked, camped, swam, drank, eaten, played candy crush, snowboarded, sledded, skated and talked with some of our favourite people in the world. Our most favourite guest of all? ...... Gilly! I managed to win her back over after two nights and a few walks up Kenna Cartwright. I thought that friendship was over, so what a relief when she loved me again!

As my Christmas gift to every one, O'Hara and I got out the cheese and created some wonderful "traditional" Christmas photos. I am taking a huge risk putting these online guys. These photos will probably end up on that "AFP" website (I'm not saying the full name, otherwise it might come up in a search). Y'all are welcome! Merry Christmas xxx

Oh my GOODNESS! Gifts xxx

Cringey, cringe, cringe!

You can probably tell, we're basically Canadian now. I'm surprised they haven't handed us new passports yet.

A Christmas Preparation Weekend

Christmas preparation has began at the O'Hara household! Last year we were out on the east side for the few weeks before Christmas so we didn't get too involved with decorations. We didn't even have a tree, it was depressing.

This year is different. We have no holidays planned until next year *sob*, so we had to get a tree. And put up some decorations. And drink eggnog. And make a Christmas wreath. It's been a fun weekend.

Crazy wreath ladies!

On Saturday we got up semi early to get our second day up the hill in. One of my favourite things about Sun Peaks is we get some random inversions happening. It means it will be freezing cold and raining in town, but then sunny and wonderful up the hill. There has been record snow for this time of year, which means our boards haven't suffered the rock death that they normally would for his early.

Saturday snow day!

Saturday night I had a girly night, with some Canadian friends attempting to teach me how to be crafty. I needed a lot of assistance. A lot. Luckily Alexis is super nice and stopped my wreath from becoming a Jersey Shore disaster. There was still bulk glitter, even with assistance.

The process!

On Sunday we went out to Woodward Christmas Trees. It's a Christmas tree farm just outside of Kamloops. They also have a wine tasting room. Amazing. We went out there on Sunday morning with Alexis and Hal. There is already snow, and it was a winter wonderland.

Tractor ride! Clearly I can't pull of the half shaved head look. 

We mastered the Canadian experiences this weekend. The weekend was perhaps only topped by O'Hara's last weekend. That weekend involved snow boarding, ice skating and hunting deer.

Canadian Happy Holidays

Well it's all over. The period that I was most excited for and dreading all at the same time. Excited because I was maybe going to experience a white Christmas and terrified because I knew I was going to miss everything going on at home.

So, we got the white Christmas! Kamloops generally doesn't get a lot of snow and December is a bit early but the snow Gods were happy with us and while we were on holidays Kamloops got snow. Quite a bit of snow really, enough that when we got home we had to shovel the driveway and scrape the car off!

Christmas didn't actually feel like Christmas at all, not because of the lack of decorations or snow or carols. Purely because Canada is almost a full day behind Australia at the moment. This meant I'd already spoken to my parents multiple times the day before and had a nice dinner because O'Hara was working Christmas day (no one feel bad for him, he only worked like 5 days in December).

I did however have a very fun day. I spent the day hanging out with the Wilsons and Greg and Lil. All Australians which I'd like to think meant we cracked the champas early. We spent the morning making Christmas food and sledding. Sledding for my first EVER time. It turns out it's actually quite fun. Especially when sled wars or trains occur. I'm clearly a giant kid at heart.

The sled train and my scared face!

For Christmas arvo we went to Kelly and Paul's house (American and Canadian) where they hosted 11 Australians for Christmas dinner, 2 deep-fried turkeys. Yep! This was obviously very kind of them. We drank and ate and drank and ate which is standard for Christmas.

Wii Just Dance and Christmas Love

Boxing Day I managed to be hungover enough that cleaning the house took around 5 hours. We were very lucky and got a cheeky visit from Daniel (O'Hara's brother) and Leonie. They were on the way through to Niagara for a wedding and stopped through.

Thursday we took Daniel and Leonie out to Lac du Bois with the Wilsons for more sledding and skating. Sadly the lakes were still too sloppy, so skating would likely to have ended in death or at a minimum soaked with ice water.

O'Hara will catch me, but not Daniel

O'Hara cooks a BBQ while we watch

The day ended with a beautiful sunset and moon. Perfection!

We managed a day at Sun Peaks in between Christmas and New Year, there was a bunch of snow which meant it was many soft landings for me. Winner!

For New Years Eve we made a late minute decision to head to Silver Star to visit the Wilsons and Burtons. More snow, beautiful ski village, tubing, skating and snowboarding. All in less than 24 hours!

It's important to hang on... sorry boys but this one is too good 

Ice-skating in the snow, and O'Hara learning how to play ice hockey

Above the clouds and me being a fail at snowboarding

Sadly my January 1st ended with a nasty stack, tears at the t-bar and a snow graze on my chin. Onwards and upwards I hope!

Thanks Wilsons for entertaining us for the holidays!