Well, department ski trip weekend is now over, and I'm in a pleasant but kind of guilty stage of tired non-workness. I didn't get a lot of sleep this weekened, but I think I may have got a heck of a lot more than I might've got had I stayed up for all the parties that went on. Diane and I left Edmonton around 4:00 or so, and made our way into Jasper around 9:00 with a stop in Edson for dinner. It was a nice calm drive, and we didn't see any reason to get there in a big hurry. When we did arrive we checked into the hotel and packed our gear into the hotel. Mike and company were so anxiously awaiting the arrival of guitar hero that they had already left a message for us that we were given when we arrived at the hotel.

We got our stuff into our room and brought guitar hero up to Mike's room where it got hooked up to Nolan's projector and the party started! It went until about 12:30-1:00 when hotel security came by and told use we were too loud. Darn. Oh well, we needed the sleep anyways. Jeff S and Jess were our roommates, so we trundled down to our room and settled in. Slept until 8:00 when Diane and I got up and went to Marmot to spend the day skiing.

We didn't actually get out there until after 11:00 since we stopped in town to rent skis. As fate would have it, a guy needed to sell some extra lift tickets, so we saved the GST on those (they're $40 + GST normally in January). So we got to the hill with our tickets in hand and went skiing for a few hours. My knees weren't incredibly happy with me - does anyone know if there are any ski tips out there to reduce stress on your knees?

After the hill we returned back to the hotel to shower and clean up for the dinner at L&W with almost everyone in the department. It was fun, the food wasn't bad and we enjoyed. Afterwards, the party was in a big room that we booked for the department. It was really fun. Guitar hero was set up against one of the walls, and games were played by all. Much fun to be had.

There was an after party which Diane and I joined for a bit. It was loud and lots of drinking happened. I was tired so both Diane and I left the party early. Didn't get a ton of sleep as we had to get up to go on the Maligne canyon hike the next day.

As part of the tradition, the department goes to Maligne canyon and does a hike down in the canyon every year. It was a lot of fun last year ... and it was similar this year. Check my photo gallery (gallery.heraldk.ca) for some pictures.

After the hike, we stopped in Hinton's BPs for lunch/dinner and then we returned to Edmonton tired but happy with a good weekend. Its pretty incredible to spend a weekend with Diane ... she's pretty special, and I really can't describe how wonderful it is to spend so much time with her :)

Heraldk