Hi All,
Hope everyone is happy.

we havn't done too much in the last month so we havn't written for a while. There are a few updates though!!!

We have managed to scrape together our loonies and toonies n bought a car!! its a Ford Ranger (1998) it drives smoothly and is comfortable to sit in, it will get us around this mountainous place and be very useful for our travels in Ocatober and November.
this a pic of one i found on google images:

http://www.kintzelmotors.com/00%20fd%20rngr%20green.jpg

we have been doning the usual working and snowboarding.
I had a great birthday, snowboarding in the day, fire fighting in the evening followed by pub!!

In canada fire fighters work voluntarily in small villiages such as lake louise. We are both doing a weekly training course for it and at the end of training you get a pager and then can go out to fire calls. apparently there are usually only 12 a year. They also act as the ambulance service of lake louise, the nearest hospital is Banff and it would take an ambulance from Banff an hour to arrive at the scene!

We have learned radio comunication, dressing in the fire gear properly, how to put on and use the oxygen tank, its a littlke clostraphobic though. Yesterday we were walking around a dark container where they had set off a smoke bomb and we had to drag things like a weighted dummy and wood out of the dark container, it was hard work.
the physical test we'll have to do at the end sounds very tough. Thwere will also be a written test so we have to do some reading each week for it from a large text book, but it is interesting and something wit do on a wednesday night!!

We are very much lookinjg forward to the Arrival of Jules, mike, Chris, Worral and louis on Wednesday, exciting will be nice to see some familiar faces from UK.

Last night was paddys day and they love it over here they put green colouring in all the beers they served and everryone went out wearing green (i didnt have any green so turquoys it was!!)

I should be finally starting to massage at the lake louise inn next week its been over a month I have been planning it but waiting for others to help me set it up and give me the go ahead to it all. Its much more fun and i earn more than in housekeeping!!!

We keep haaving sstrange snowstorms at the moment hoping to get some really decent snow this week the hill is getting quite sludgey but i can still ride it ok. The icey patches on the hill are not nice though!!

Rich is no longer living with the Jamacan guy, he has changed flats to live with a guy called John, this arrangement is working out much better!!
My flat has 6 people, me, Emilie, Amilie, Juliana, Cam and Nate. Its a good crowd and a good mix of personalities. There are flats for 4 and flats for 2 people, but I love how there are always people about in my 6 person flat.

ME Rich, and our friend Matt and Olivia went to see Alice in Wonderland (lordy calls it stevie in stevieland!) we loved the film, it was a shame banff didnt show it in 3D it would have been way better. The story line was different but we loved the effects and the querkyness!! recomend seeing just for that!!

look at the photos i uploaded (2 weeks ago) you can see our various activies of january and febuary!!!

Loads of love. Take care XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX