Life is always more hectic around the holidays, and this holiday season was no exception! Both Peter and I welcomed the end of the semester with open arms, and took advantage of every minute of the break from work.
This holiday season began with some exciting news: I will be getting a new sister! And, no, mom's not having a baby... rather, Ben is engaged to the magnificent Lindsey Kurland. She is smart, witty, beautiful, and adores my brother (hmmm, wait a minute... maybe she's not as smart as I thought?). We couldn't be happier, and look forward to the celebrations to come! Congrats, you two.
This year, the Westport Methots (along with a Miami Methot and a New Mexico Clement) joined us for a New Jersey Christmas, and we had a blast. Many gifts exchanged (some thoughtful and functional, some more humorous - see "back of the Armadillo Milk can," below), tons of food eaten, and too many drinks consumed - would we have it any other way?
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| Our lovely tree |
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| Photo courtesy of Diane Methot - wish you could have been in it! |
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| Back of the Armadillo Milk can... hmmm... |
We actually celebrated a day early, because our flight to Whistler departed from Newark at 7:40am on Christmas day. After a 4 hour flight to Calgary, a 1 hour layover, a 45 minute hop over to Vancouver airport, and a 2 hour drive, we made it to our ski-in/ski-out condo at Woodrun Lodge in Whistler, British Columbia! And so the week of skiing, relaxing, and enjoying family began (and went by too quickly!). I would say it was incredible, but that doesn't quite do it justice. We got great dumps of snow, skied longer runs than I could have ever imagined (45 minutes for one run? Really?!), ate our way through Whistler village, celebrated Paul and Diane's 40th wedding anniversary at Bearfoot Bistro, and Peter and Luke lived a long-time dream by... going heliskiing! Yes, they flew in a helicopter to the mountain peaks and skied fresh tracks for a day.
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| Woodrun Lodge |
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| Me, Peter, and Paul |
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| Luke, Peter, and their heliskiing guide, Helene |
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| Even the best ones fall... Luke doing a face plant! |
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Of course, because we can never tire of skiing or spending time with good friends, only 3 days after returning to NJ, Peter and I drove up to Lee, MA to spend a long weekend with my best friend, Jennifer Valentine, her husband, Jason, and two other friends (Sarah and Chris), who all flew up from Florida to try their hands at skiing for the first time. A family-friend of Jen's graciously allowed us to stay in her 5000 sqft, 5 bedroom home, and we took full advantage! The Friday of that week, we all drove the 40 minutes to Jiminy Peak, where Jen, Jason, Sarah, and Chris took a beginner ski lesson, and kicked butt! They then seamlessly applied their learned skills to skiing at Butternut the following day. We closed the trip that Sunday by visiting a charming Creperie, the Starving Artist Cafe (http://www.starvingartistcreperie.com/).
To round things out, the following weekend, Peter's best friend, Ryan Rivard, came with his girlfriend, Melissa, to stay with us for the long weekend. We went into the city on Saturday and toured all of our favorite spots: Spitzer's for lunch, Eataly and Birreria for drinks and cheeses, "Spin" so Peter could win a few games of ping pong, and finally Pony Bar for more drinks and to watch the Pats beat up on the Broncos (sorry, Tebow!). Then on Sunday we showed them Princeton, where we stocked up on truffle olive oil from Carter & Cavero (http://carterandcavero.com/), picked up some cheese from a cute little market, and tasted the new brews at Triumph Brewery. They headed home this past Monday, and we RELAXED.
This week we went back to work - necessary evil, I guess! But, with the arrival of the weekend is another opportunity to ski: tomorrow (Sunday) we are going with Matt and Lindsay to Mountain Creek, a NJ ski resort. It will be our first time visiting this mountain, but it's really convenient to have a place so close. We also finally got our first snow of the winter this morning (Brodie helped shovel), so the weather is certainly cooperating. Loving being up north!
