Ontario Visit! (so far...)

Amy and Janet's growing bellies: Due dates= Apr 12th and July 12th--guess which is which?... (Amy actually looks much bigger than this in person!)...

Beth is in Ontario this week, visiting with friends and family (and keeping her fingers crossed that our soon-to-be niece or nephew will arrive sooner rather than later!). Here are a few photos from the family visit on Sunday...

Spring Break!

We will be on a bit of a hiatus for the next week or so: Dave is off to Moab Utah to get some mountain biking out of his system, while I'm off to visit friends and family in Ontario for Easter. We will have plenty of photos to post when we get back I'm sure. Happy Easter!

Congratulations Ines and Jamie!

Welcome to the new addition to the "Millucci" family: our friends Ines and Jamie are the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl: Gabriela Lucia. We are so happy for them and wish them all the best!! :)

Last bit of winter...

It has been interesting weather here lately: warm most days (10-15c), but still snow overnight every now and then, that melts through the day. After a few weekends in the city, and Beth attending a workshop for work yesterday (Saturday), we decided on a last little stab at winter this afternoon--a few hours in the snow at Sunshine Village Resort in Banff. We met a couple on the gondola who were from Manchester, England, and just raved about what a wonderful place this is to vacation. We realized again that we can't take for granted the fact that we can sleep in on a Sunday, drive out to Banff for a half day of skiing, and then be back in time to have BBQ for dinner! On the days when we're feeling homesick for Ontario, we have to remind myself how lucky we are to be living here! Spring is on the way, so it's likely we are done with our snowboarding updates; hopefully we will have some spring flowers to show you soon!

Our new Fussball table!

Thanks to our good friend Sean Brennan, we have a new addition to our household--a fussball table! Luckily, we have lots of room in our downstairs room, so this is the perfect way to fill some space with something fun! Unfortunately, my (Beth) fussball skills leave much to be desired--Dave is having a really hard time finding ways to let me win, despite a fairly significant handicap and extremely modified playing tactics...I guess practice makes perfect! I will have to keep practising! Thanks Sean!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

We celebrated St. Patty's day with a few green beer with our friends Chris and Marla, Di, and Marc. Hope you had a good day too!

Weekends in Calgary...

I (Beth) have spent the last few weeks (and weekends!) in town: it's been nice to have some relaxing "down time", and to spend some time around the house.
Saturday March 3rd was our annual Providence "Dine and Deals" Gala Fundraiser: I volunteered to oversee the Silent Auction, so got to mix and mingle with colleagues, parents, and a few of the rich (but not so famous) in this city. It was a nice night out, and a great way to feel a part of my work "family".
I was also lucky enough to catch up with a great friend, Effie Gatsinos on her return trip to Calgary--sharing our great experiences at Guelph with some prospective students, and then catching up over some great food and drinks. She is such a wonderful person, and always a delight to spend time with!
This past weekend, my good friend Skye Gorven was in town for a visit. We spent a fun "girls weekend" visiting the shops on 17th Ave, looking for ideas for bridesmaids dresses for her upcoming wedding. After a night out with the boys on Saturday, we drove up to Banff on Sunday in hopes of a short hike in the mountains, only to leave the 17c sunny weather in Calgary and arrive to cool and rainy in Banff. We still enjoyed a day at the spa at the Rimrock Hotel up by Banff Springs, and were lucky enough to have Dave making great meals for us all weekend. It was great to see Skye, and to have her share in this amazing place we now call home. We're looking forward to seeing more of her home in Vancouver for her August 31st wedding.
We have a few more low key weeks planned, before I'm off to Ontario on March 31st, and Dave heads to Moab, Utah for a mountain biking trip.

Dave's backcountry Wapta Traverse

In March, I (Dave) embarked on a 4 day back country expedition called the Wapta Traverse up into the Rockies and onto the Glaciers with 3 others (Ryan, Tracy and Michele). A trek that many have done before and also many have attempted and not been able to complete.

There were a number of firsts for me on the trip in that I was on skis for the first time in about 10 years, the first time on touring skis and then add a big heavy backpack and just wait for something good to happen. Each day consisted of slogging along for 4-8 hours, with a lot of uphill climbing (until the last day which was mostly downhill) and following our GPS coordinates to find our accommodations for the night. The back country huts have beds, propane stoves and dishes so it was nice not to have to carry all of that along. Each hut is perched along the mountains with perfect panorama views of the area surrounding. 3 of the 4 were blue bird days and the scenery was spectacular. The non-sunny day (whiteout conditions) was extremely sketchy as we made our way along some areas of the glacier that were host to large crevasses. We spent that day tied together in case someone fell in and followed the GPS very closely. Just before dusk the GPS led us to a large cliff and it turned out that the hut was on top of the cliff....so after about 8 hours of trekking we strapped the skis to our packs and climbed to shelter. Now that's a day where you finish really feeling alive! (mostly due to the number of near misses throughout the day)

It was a great experience and the people I went with were gladly very experienced back country skiers and excellent company. Maybe we will go again next year?

Fernie Trip: with the Ontario crew!

Hopefully you are not getting bored yet of hearing about our ski trip weekends: it looks like this might be one of the last big ones for the season. We were extremely lucky to spend another "long" weekend with friends at Fernie's "Alpine Resort". There were 24 of us in total, including many of our Ontario friends: Jim & Andrea and Jacob, Karen and Blair, Rob Budianto, Mike Cleghorn, Chad Tranter, Andy Tulshi, Glen and Rachael, Darren and Christine, as well as friends from home who are now living here too: Shandra and Dave Harman, Sean and Lauren and a few of their friends (Colleen, Amy and Barry), and Darren's brother Kevin and Ann. All in all, a great group of people, where there were enough of us to feel like everyone was helping, so no one was really doing too much work in terms of food preparation, cleaning, etc.

We did a big Costco trip beforehand, and coordinated some baking and lunch/dinner prep the week before, so that all went smoothly ... The chalet was well equipped obviously, and included a hot tub, ping pong table and fussball table, so there was lots of "apres ski" to be had.

Snow and ski conditions were amazing yet again (not sure how we have lucked out this season by having incredible snow every time we have a planned ski trip!), and most of us skiied 3 days: Friday and Saturday for almost all, and some "hard core" groups skiied Thurs and/or Sunday too. It was nice to be able to visit with different people while on the hill, and I think most were happy to split off into smaller groups of 4-6 people to stick with for the day so that we didn't have to worry about "losing" anyone with such a large group.

The highlight of the weekend (other than the skiing of course!) was probably our "Old School Ski Sweater Party" on Saturday night: Value Village must have been busy as almost everyone was sporting some pretty entertaining "authentic" ski sweaters; although most of us just felt like we were wearing our typical high school gear!

We have tons of pictures and video footage from the weekend, so we will try to share just the highlights, but feel free to email if you want us to send more. Not sure if/when we will be back on the slopes--we have our month of March pretty booked up already, but if the snow keeps up, we will likely do a few spring ski days.

Dave is heading into the mountains this coming weekend for his first big overnight hike/backcountry adventure: hiking and skiing the Wapta traverse near Lake Louise for 4 days. We are looking forward to seeing Skye here in Calgary next weekend to visit and talk about wedding plans--she are Chris are engaged and planning their Vancouver wedding for August 31st.

Then it won't be long before I (Beth) will be back in Ontario for Easter. We are so excited about the nieces and/or nephews on the way, and looking forward to helping out with those preparations in April. Looks like there will be a lot more baby photos on our blog and a lot fewer ski trip photos in the months to come!

Hope everyone is doing well--feel free to drop us a line or give us a call any time!
:)
B&D

More photos from our Fernie weekend...

More photos from our Fernie weekend...

More photos from our Fernie weekend

Invermere: Panorama! (Part 1)

We spent this past weekend (Alberta's "Family Day") in Invermere with a big group of Guelph Alumni currently living in Calgary. We spent two great days on the hill, enjoying Panorama's diverse ski runs, and also enjoyed a fun game of hockey out on the lake. It is a beautiful area: surrounded by a panoramic view of the mountains (I guess hence the name "Panorama"), and it is always great to spend time with friends--new and old. We were lucky enough to celebrate with Mike and Mel Wrigglesworth as Lucy had her first birthday on Saturday--she is such a charmer!! Jim and Andrea arrived in town Saturday night with Jim's son Jake--who is enjoying his first visit to the Rockies. We have a few short days back at work before heading back to the mountains for a trip to Fernie with the Ontario crew. Happy Family Day to all of you--one of the great perks of living here in Alberta!




Here's Lucy being cute!

Happy Birthday Lucy!!

Invermere: Panorama!

Here's Jake showing off his skills...

Such a beautiful spot...