Date: 23rd of December 2007

Hi Everyone,

Sleep, sleep and more sleep was in order this morning as the group enjoyed their first full day off for the camp. Breakfast was between 8.30 and 9.00 but many chose sleep over food and this set the feel of the morning  as most spent it relaxing and not doing too much at all. Some watched a DVD and were on the computer while some of the more motivated decided that it was clothes washing day and hit the laundry.

After lunch it was operation ‘clean and disinfect’ a special operation aimed at being able to see the floor in some of the bedrooms and rid others of that oh so familiar ‘boy smell’. After a ½ hour mad frenzy the place was whipped into shape and looking and smelling muuuuuch better!

We ran 3 shuttles down to Vernon for the afternoon so everyone could finalise their Kris Kringle prezzies and for anyone who needed to pick up supplies. The vans headed out around 2.00pm and returned back to Silver Star at 5.15pm. Vernon is crazy at the moment with everyone getting their last minute Christmas shopping in and with the snow falls the car parks resemble a smash up derbies.

Tonight’s activity was snowtubing. For those who have not done or seen it before it’s basically a big tyre inner tube that you slide down the hill on.  Here in Silver Star they have Tube Town, a dedicated snow tubing centre with two rope/handle lifts and 5 tubing lanes – quite a piece of work. Beggsy and Chris took 20 or so of the crew over for a two hour tubing session. Before they headed out we made everyone head back to their rooms and put on few extra layers plus grab some gloves and a hat as most were dressed for a day at the beach! Anyway once they were arrived everyone grabbed their tubes and headed up the lift to the top for their first ride. Once completed I’m sure they were thankful for the gloves and extra clothing as they were covered in snow (and straw – used to slow the tubes down). They spent the next couple of hours over there having a blast…. I’m sure everyone will be there for the next tubing session in January.

Thai vegi and coconut soup, toasted ham and cheese sandwiches plus the regulation sandwich buffet was for lunch. Dinner was a good old North American favorite of spaghetti and meatballs with a salad followed by…you guessed it, ice cream.

With Christmas now only a couple of days away the crew has been scrambling to get their KK presents organized. I’ve seen a couple of KK’s and am amazed at the imagination of some people. I can’t really give much away other than there is going to a few embarrassed people on Christmas night when we open them. Everyone was wrapping like crazy tonight as we wanted to have all the prezzies under the tree by tonight. There were some pretty ordinary efforts, obviously no one had watched mum or dad wrap birthday or Christmas presents in the past.

Pinky has taken a holiday, believe it or not there were no acts of silliness today, a little strange after the abundance we’ve had lately. He’ll be back tomorrow I’m sure.

Only a short update today as it was a day off and nothing to report from training – will be back to normal tomorrow.

Finally the first of our weekly awards will be held tomorrow night, stay tuned to see the recipients of the fabulous Helly Hansen, Bolle and XTM prizes.

So until then.

Stowie