We're bad bloggers

Sorry we haven't posted in a while. It's been about....5 days since our last post and really not much has happened. We had a great Christmas and the days following that we worked were ridiculously busy. It made for quite a tiring day. Agata has lineups that go out to the parking lot and the occasional stupid people that come to her office.
We have gotten a lot of snow and this week we have snow every day this week, including a big dumper Thursday/Friday/Saturday.....unfortunately I work Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon so I won't be able to get much of that sweet sweet powder. Oh well, more will come.

There are a lot of dogs here and we really miss our Cody. He would love it here and would have many friends. They actually have a $5 season pass for your dog. There are big dogs....little dogs....Agata buys doggie biscuits for the dogs that come in to visit.

They got their other winch-groomer fixed on Friday so there are more black/double/black diamond runs being groomed which makes the skiing more fun on the back side. I think I'm going to see if I can get a ride in the winch-cats as I think it'll be one heck of a ride.

As for New Years, Agata and I going to our local pub for the night. Well.....me, I'm going to be there for 4pm to watch Canada vs. US in the World Junior Hockey Championships. Yes......there will be beer. I don't work on the 1st so I can sleep in and then ski.

We finally went night skiing yesterday and it was really eerie since it was windy, cloudy, and no other light pollution. The night-ski lights made it look like a desolate planet.

Pictures! This is a great picture from the top of Alpine Meadows

and this is a great picture of Santa Claus after a hard night of delivery presents. He can really shred!
Sorry this post was short but really not much has happened. There will be more cool-ness after New Years!

Ta-Ta!
Agata and Mike

Remy R Shristmac everyone!

Merry Christmas everyone from Agata and I in Silverstar, British Columbia!!!

Today I skied possibly the best day of skiing ever. I've never skied thigh to waist deep powder before. I got some videos but they aren't the best....I didn't get batteries for my helmet camera until the runs were fairly tracked out. None the less, I'll post the good ones on YouTube!

We received many greats Christmas gifts that helped make it feel a bit more like home.

The pictures below illustrates what we got from everyone for ChristmasThe mittens from Oma and Opa, the beautiful hats from Erin and Tasha, my new shirt, fleecy pants, Boxers (can't see them), and socks I got from my parents, and the awesome shirt Agata got from my parents (an exclusive Erin Dittmann product).
In this picture you see the books we got from my sister and Randy, they fit our personalities perfectly, the book Agata got from Joanna and John - Agata definately thinks a bad day on adventure is better then a good day at the office by the way, and the set of speakers I got from Joanna and John (they didn't fully make the picture....they're on my knees).

It was a great Christmas here in BC. Although, we did miss our families. We hope everyone had as good a Christmas as we did!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (Wesołych Świąt i Szczęśliwego Nowego Roku)!
Love Agata and Michael

Sometimes you just can't help giggling like a schoolgirl

Yep, it was one of those days today. We got a good dump of snow and Agata and I found the glades over in the Silverwoods side of the mountain. The result? Knee-deep powder and fantastic skiing. It was a great Christmas Eve.

It's been a few days since we posted anything so I'll catch up. A few days ago we went Caroling with the Aussie's, anyone else staying at Silverstar, and the Vernon Community Singers. It was actually a lot of fun, ending up at our Auditorium for a Concert put on by the Vernon Community Singers. It did well to put us into the Christmas spirit!
Today (Christmas Eve), we went skiing the whole day. It was so much fun. There was lots of powder, Agata and I had great fun skiing in the fluffy snow and in the trees. It is so great when you go to hit a jump beside a tree and it turns out that it's not a jump but powder up to your thighs. Hence......me giggling like a schoolgirl. Ask Agata, I giggled a lot.
Agata is really improving with her skiing. I have pictures. She really enjoyed the powder and glade skiing today.
After skiing we had a gathering here in the Staff Accommodations where there was more Christmas treats than you can shake a stick at. Cupcakes, macaroons, fudge, cookies, cakes, tarts.....we almost didn't need dinner afterwards. Agata and I then had a really healthy dinner to offset the Christmas treats and relaxed. At 8pm we went to a Christmas eve service here on the mountain which was very nice. It had songs and readings just like the service I would be going to back in Temiskaming Shores. Afterwards we opened some of our presents. We have to take pictures and we'll post a full summary of what we got tomorrow (Christmas Day)!.

I have a lot more pictures to post here. Lets see.....

Here is the bottom of my lift, the detachable quad, Powder Gulch
Here is the bottom of my other lift, the T-Bar, Home Run TeeHere is me, just relaxing.

Here is Agata shredding the hill

Here is Agata again, shredding

And here is Agata relaxing in the Champagne Powder

We'll have plenty of more pictures tomorrow! Merry Christmas everyone!

Love Agata and Mike

Silverstar: My Mountain

"Silver star: My Mountain" is the slogan for the resort.

And it couldn't be more appropriate then on an idle Wednesday morning before the christmas rush.

There was absolutely no other person or signs of civilization by Powder Gulch the other day. Nothing. NOTHING. No lifts, no other skiiers, no noise, no patrol. Just freshly groomed trail down the path. For the 10 minutes that it took me to ski down to the lift, it was, indeed, my very own, personal mountain.

I have to go stuff myself with Ginger bread and home made cookies now. Still can't believe this is my life.
-Agata

Feels a bit more like home

Yes, it does indeed feel a bit more like Christmas at home. We just received two packages: one from my parents and one from Oma and Opa. They both contained fantastically tasty cookies and Christmas snacks, which everyone who has tried them really have enjoyed. The Kievelings and Gingerbread cookies are the favorites and people are wanting to mail Oma, Opa, and my mom money in exchange for more cookies. So if either of you recieve $20 in the mail from some random Aussie, the hope is that you'll mail back a bunch of home-baked treats.
In the package from Oma and Opa there was this:

It made both Agata and I feel so good! We had so much fun decorating the Martineau Bay tree with the decorations and lights. I'm really not good at putting on the icicles.... Regardless it looks great in our room and is very much appreciated. Our roommates really love having a Christmas tree as well.
Thank you Oma and Opa for the Christmas tree, decorations, treats and gifts (no we haven't opened them yet!) and thank you Mom and Dad for the treats, gifts, and our stockings (also haven't been opened yet!).

It's quite cold here, about -26C˚ and that makes the snow here very dry. Very dry snow is actually very slow. This results in us having to do more skating on the runs instead of skiing.

Oh, I'm finally driving the snowmobiles around the resort. It took a while for my driving record to get here from Ontario (insurance requirement) but I'm all set. First time driving to my lift.......I ditch the friggin' thing. Well it was hard sitting on top of my skis, boots, and poles with another person riding behind me with their snowboard. The left ski hit some soft snow and I couldn't turn quick enough (crammed forward because of the 2nd person), and couldn't lean because of all the gear. Took 10 minutes and a lot of lifting/pulling to get it out. I felt better after learning that a ski patroller rolled the new 2008 Tundra down the hill.....

As for more pictures......here they are!

This is the view from the top of the Comet Chair while we had an "inversion" (clouds get pushed into the lower valleys).

This is Agata having a rest on the slopes.

This is me and one of our roommates, Tom, he's from England.


That's about it for now because it's late and I'm planning on getting up early to go skiing.

Cheers,
Mike

I can't find my knees

I can't find my knees because I'm buried in snow! In the last 24 hours we have received 46cm of snow. Our base is now 115cm. It has been a fantastic opening week.

It started on Tuesday, opening day, when we got another 24cm and we only had 2 lifts and 10 runs open. Then two days later on Thursday the Comet, the 6 person high speed lift, opened along with more terrain. Basically at this point the main, front side of the mountain was open. Then along came more snow and today we opened up the whole backside of the mountain, including my lift the Powder Gultch and all of its ridiculous powder and advanced terrain. Tomorrow we open the Silver Woods express to access the lower part of the mountain and all the great glade skiing, then Tuesday we will be fully operational when the Alpine Meadows opens to access Attridge. So within a week we went from 65cm base and 10 runs to 115cm+ base and all runs open. I love Okanagan weather.

The only downside of the 46cm we just received........I didn't get to ski it. I was working today. Booooo. Oh well, more snow will come that I can ski. Although, yesterday I wasn't working and I got to ski about 15cm of powder that was absolutely fantastic. So smooth.

Oh, we have new roommates. There was another room with 2 couples and one couple snored like a rusty bulldozer, and the other was sick. So they really didn't get along when the sick couple couldn't sleep at all because of the snorers. So our roommates, one of them snores like a chainsaw, moved in with the loud snoring people and we got the other roommates. One is from Chile and the other is from England. They are great people who are friendly and easy to get along with. They are also both ski instructors....and I'm getting free lessons. I'm going to get some Freestyle lessons so I can keep up with Mark :)

I have some fantastic pictures from the top of the hill when it's sunny and clear. But.....I don't have my camera on me so I'll get it later and post them.

I love snow.

Talk to y'all later.

Mike

It's me!

Hi!
So this is the "Agata" portion of the Blog... sorry it took so long to type:

So.

I was introduced to powder yesterday. I think we'll get along, I've just never actually seen it before so we took it slow. I just stayed with the circles for now. No need to get crazy.

No broken bones as of yet.

But I am out of shape. Only half of the mountain was open yesterday. And I could only ski half of that before I sat down to rest. This means... 1/4 of the way down I had to sit down. This hill certainly isn't blue...

Yay! We're Open!

Yes, we finally opened yesterday (December 9th) with 10 runs and two lifts. We had the Silver Queen (quad, non-detachable accessing beginner runs) and the Summit Chair (double, old-school, non-detachable accessing the main part of the mountain) running for opening day and today (10th). I worked both yesterday and today working the bottom of the summit chair, where all the traffic was, and the top of the summit chair. It is really fun meeting everyone who comes through the lift line. Being a fixed grip chair I had to stall the chair for everyone and I'm pretty good at it now.

Oh ya, I've only skied once when I skied down after working today. It was awesome, I felt so good. I got the custom molded foot beds for my boots and I can really see the difference they make. Basically, they ensure that your foot is properly seated in the boot and there is no slippage or unnecessary movement. The result is a more responsive ski since your foot doesn't move around in your boot.

I am off work tomorrow and the next day and I plan on skiing it all. Agata is off as well so we're going skiing together. It will be fantastic. The view from up there is so very very beautiful.

Tomorrow the big, 6-person high speed detachable opens up and so does more of the mountain. We're getting more snow tomorrow and Friday so the back side of the mountain may be open by the weekend! The back side is my lift, the Powder Gultch and Home-Run T-Bar as well as the advanced runs. I am quite excited.

Overall, it's so very nice to be skiing and working. Agata and I have been reminded why we're here......

Ta Ta for now.

Agata and Mike

Almost.....

We're almost there. We got a lot of snow the past 5 days and we should finally be open this Thursday (11th).
I just hiked up the hill and tried my ski legs and skis out for the first time for the year. My skis really really need a waxing etc.... a whole tune-up. I've gone X-C skiing too and that's pretty fun. Well, not as fun as downhill but I don't have much of a choice. There really isn't much to do when there is no work.

Oh, I actually worked as a ticket checker for the nordic skiing. That was pretty fun but I didn't get to slap (figuratively speaking) anyone around for not having their ticket, trying to cheat the mountain, etc...

Hm. Not that much to talk about really as nothing has happened since the last post. I went through Technological withdrawal recently since I haven't done anything techie for a long time. Everytime I see an ad for Gears of War 2, or some other great Xbox game I twitch. Luckily someone brought their Xbox 360 and I satisfied my craving. They have Guitar Hero for the Wii that's great fun and the funny thing is that I'm one of the best here. I also ended up fixing someone's computer which really helped.

I have to say both Agata and I are very very excited for everyone to come here in February. It's going to be fantastic. Jasmine says she wants to meet everyone since she has spoken to them all so much. She also mentioned that my family are an absolute pleasure to talk to. She talks to dumb people all day and when she talks to anyone from my family, it's a breath of fresh air. She loves you guys....

We have more pictures but they haven't been compiled yet.

Well, that's it for now. Post any questions, requests etc... in the comments section below.

Bye for now.

Mike and Agata