I know I know, its been a while and I'm sorry. But we have just been so busy since we hit the USA and we just haven't stopped! But we are in Canada now, so it's the perfect time for an update!

So last time we left you we were luggage-less and had just arrived in Breckenridge, Colorado. Without any warm clothes we decided the best bet was to set out to purchase our ski gear on our first morning while we waited for our bags. Unfortunately we were slightly delayed, as the dreaded altitude sickness kicked in as soon as we woke up. Being something neither of us had ever experienced before, the symptoms were such that we could only relate them to having a really really bad hangover - dizzy, extremely nauseous, clumsy, splitting headaches, lethargic - it was horrible! But the best remedy was to drink a million litres of water, so we did, and finally we got used to being 3500m high, but it sure was weird initially!

Anyway, our bags arrived, we got our ski gear, and we had a great week skiing in fabulous Breckenridge. Colorado really is just beautiful, and it's hard not to fall in love with the place when you have clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine every day, yet you're skiing in great snow. The town of Breck itself was just gorgeous, with a really nice community and local feel about it, heaps of good restaurants and lovely people. As an added bonus, the 'Dew Tour' was also on while we were in Breck, so we were privy to some awesome snowboarding and skiing by the best in the wold, on the biggest half pipe in the world! We also managed to spend a day skiing in Vail as well, a picture perfect ski town with some good skiing, and some great people watching!

We left Breck after 10 days and headed for the Big Apple....NYC! Arriving to hot apple cider and a room upgrade to a room with a great view of the NY skyline (it helps dropping the 'honeymoon' phrase in there!), we were excited for a great week. We happened to bump into a disoriented and wide eyed group of travelers on the street on our first morning there, and liked them so much we ended up spending a lot of time with them! They weren't exactly strangers, it was Ness and Sean and co, and it didn't exactly 'just happen', it was planned, but it sure was nice to have some new company over the festive season! New York was filled with sightseeing, Christmas festivities, lots of eating, and heaps of people. We ticked off the big items - The Rock, Bike riding, horse and cart riding, and ice skating in Central Park (ice skating just isn't as easy as it looks!), Greenwich, Lion King on Broadway, Times Square, Carrie's House (!), Brooklyn, Bryant Park, Staten Island Ferry and statue of Liberty, Empire State, Etc, and it was all amazing. It's New York though, how can it not be fabulous? It was cold, but according to New Yorkers, was very mild for that time of year, and it really was completely bearable and a fair bit warmer than we were prepared for coming from Denver!

We were also lucky enough to catch the opening game of the NBA season on Christmas Day, which was just awesome. It was the Knicks against the Boston Celtics, and the Knicks won by 2 points in the last second. Atmosphere was just electric and something that was really special to experience. James also managed to get out to the NFL to see the 'derby' between the NY Jets and the NY Giants. I don't think he will ever forget it, or again experience the atmosphere outside a sporting ground that he saw that day, or get over the number of new ways he learnt that profanities could be used! We spent our first Christmas night away from family (well mine anyway) in great company at Buddakahn with our very own KK, and plenty of beverages to get in the festive spirit!

However a week just wasnt long enough in NYC, so we extended our stay for a few extra days to ensure we saw everything. We also found some time to fit in a day of outlet shopping in Jersey (and consequently boxed up and sent home 20kg worth of clothes!), and continued to make the most of the fabulous tradition that is the New York street food vendors! All in all NYC was just a great 10 days, it really is one of the best places in the world to visit, and for my second time there and James' first time there, it was awesome.

We got out of New York before New Year (thank goodness!), and took the train to our next stop, Boston. Bowwwwston, to locals. Only having a couple of nights there, we hit the tourist route and headed out on the 'freedom trail', a walking trail through Boston and up to Bunker Hill taking in a heap of historic and important Boston sights. It was just great! Boston is a great city with a really nice 'small-town' feeling about it, gorgeous character filled streets, and lovely people. We also visited Fenway Park, home of the hugely famous Boston Red Sox, and full of history, and of course, the famous 'Green Monsta'! The tour we took was really enjoyable, made even better by the local Bostonians and their humor, and love for the game, and their great accent! We spent NYE pretty quietly as we had a 6am start the next morning for a flight, but we did manage to see the 'family' fireworks at 7pm which were a great show, as well as the local festival parade, if you've ever been to Port Fairy on NYE it was kind of similar.....on a bigger scale. The city was packed with families and it was a really nice (cold!) way to spend NYE and see in 2012.

We flew out on the first day of 2012 to Las Vegas, a small (unexpected) stopover of 2 nights, mainly because of the way flights worked out in order for us to get a reasonable, direct flight to Calgary, but partly it helped to give us a bit of respite from the cold as well! It was a quick and relaxed trip to Vegas, we didn't really do a whole lot, but boy it was nice to walk around in a tshirt and jeans, not having to think about rugging up in boots, gloves, beanie, scarf and coat!

But we are back into that now and more than happy to be, as we are in Canada! We arrived in Banff last night and have spent today organizing our 4 days here. So we are off for a full day of snowmobiling tomorrow, then we have dogsledding, sightseeing at Lake Louise, an ice hockey game, a canyon ice walk, and maybe some ice skating / snow shoeing in there too. What a busy 4 days!

And on that note it's time for me to head to sleep to make sure I'm at my snowmobiling best for tomorrow! Hope all is well wherever you are, and that you all had a safe and happy Christmas and New Year. We will write again before we leave Canada, but we will be home in a month! Time is flying now!!

Much love,
Nic and Jimmy xx