Day 8—-Back to home

Dec31, 2014

Good morning, good morning guys, if you don’t want to have your New Year Eve dinner on the road, you better get up. Said by Mom.

Thanks guys.
Let’s says goodbye to this very friendly hotel in Mont Tremblant, especially the wonderful breakfast, the funny receptionist and the great staff. We are not sure if we will come back, so we tripled our tips.

And Bye bye Tremblant resort, thanks for your icy bumpy base and the crazy snow makers on the opening trails; Thanks for the crowds both on the trails and in the cafeteria; Thanks for your unexpected snow pass holiday restriction; And plus the extremely cold weather. It greatly helped us to decide this will be our family last skiing trip by the majority. 😀😄😄

Good news guys, we started our back journey 15 minutes earlier than our target of 10 am! As soon as our car moved, we are all happy. It will be closer to our sweet home minute by minute. 💃

I know I won’t be the driver for this trip. However I am still the most valuable passenger.

The well selected music playing list beautifully sounds out from our phones to the car Handsfreelink, which made our driving full of my favorite songs and symphonies. All the songs are in my native languages which I can sing all of them. Sorry, there is no English pop music, but feel free using your own headset if needed, teenager. 😉

For the entire trip, I didn’t waste any time on singing.🎤
I sang on the long way driving to our destination, it shortened the distance somehow; 😊
I song right after coming down from the mountain, it much helped to reduce my and others tiredness;☺️
I sang once the arguments between brothers came up, it could stop it easily; 😄
I sang no matter how frustrated they were on finding the resort while the gas level was pretty low;😑
The only thing bothers my singing is, a lot of times, when I was emotionally singing the meaningful songs, the driver talked: is this the exit? Turn left or right? 😒

Listen, anybody feel it? 2 hours is gone, only 5 hours left. And Onroute is very near. 😀

Ok, we came at Christmas Eve, now we are back at New Year Eve, it’s also a very important day. We know it’s a great year, but I believe everyone should have something that wasn’t done. There is no time for us to regret for the 2014, but grateful for what we have, so let’s think about our New Year resolution. And I already know mine. 😊

–So, Where do we go for our next year winter vacation? Asked manager.
=silence
–Whistler?
=Not Christmas time, said little boy.
–Then family day or March Break.
=Not for me, big brother said.

I think I might come up with a summer vacation manager next year and let the kids vote! 😊

Listen, we left on a very nice weather in Toronto, but it might be a snowy day today with 5cm snow on the ground according to the forecast.

Wow, then we go straight to the BM! Said the manager.
Everyone laugh out loud without answer. 😳😀😃😄

Day 7— Tremblant resort (south side), QC

Dec30, 2014

Today is a super sunny day. It’s even colder than yesterday. But if you think you won’t get burnt in winter like today, you are wrong. So you really need to put sunscreen before rushing into the cold.

It is normal that we got on the gondola at 12 noon. But the cold starts to attack us from the moment we got on the gondola. Due to the extremely cold weather, frost covered all sides of the gondola windows, so you couldn’t see the beautiful view when climbing up.😞

We were still surprised when we reached on the mountain top and saw the digital thermometer showing -19 C. So if you don’t have a mask and a goggle, you will be in big trouble, man.

I didn’t feel a little bit better snow than yesterday, what I need is to deal with the extremely cold. I immediately felt pain on my face when I started to slide down. The trail was still very crowded and complicated. I absolutely need to focus on the 2 yellow skiers and one blue snowboarder in front of me. Thanks guys!

I think it’s a great idea that I chose the 2 same bright colour suits for my 2 boys which greatly helped me a lot to easily find them among the crowd. But all the time when I finally find them after many successful challenges, I haven’t got a chance to explain to them. Once they saw the little blue skier appears, they quickly skied down to the next intersection. So basically I never got rest, I worked much harder than anyone else😕

Ok, this is our last skiing day, everyone feel free to make your own trail choice after done our together opening run. Our manager chose to stay with his snowboarding, so no problem, he will be my partner; My little boy says he chose to stay with mom in order to teach her more, how sweet you are, baby; Our CSIA instructor decided to finish all the black trails. Be safe and have fun, boy!

It seems I don’t mind about the icy and bumpy trail anymore. My speed even significant increased. But I really couldn’t handle the cold. My feet and hands are getting numb.😩

A few runs after, my sweetheart wants to have a rest. Thanks baby, let’s go! 😀😄

After some hot treats and drinks, by looking around the beautiful village, we didn’t want to go back to the terrible mountain. We spent the last hour by touring around the lovely village. What a smart idea. 😄

Being free from a green trail wife, the tenacious husband immediately tried blue and black trails. He was well done with his snowboarding. 😊

CSIA came back by shaking his head: There is no double back trails open today!  So he finished all the black trails on both south and north sides. However he encountered a super tough condition on a blue trail at his 2nd last run. On the whole trail, there were snow makers making snow on one side,but the other side was full of sharp sunshine. So the skiers couldn’t see anything. All their goggles were covered by snow.

Some of them took out the goggles to slide down, like our CSIA. Can be colder without goggles? Can’t imagine! Sorry boy. There is no way to see the trail signs as well, so when he reached the base, he found out that it wasn’t the base where he can meet us. So he had to climb to the mountain top and skied down again from other trail.

His mask and goggles were full of snow and ice, his feet were numb for long even after changing. It’s the coldest and worst situation ever in his skiing history. But when I asked what is your comment for today’s skiing?
Horrible? Crazy? Tough?
His answer is INTERESTING!😳

So our trip closing celebration is set a dinner in a restaurant. Beautiful room, nice service and tasty food. But it served in French, kids, please order food for your parents.

Thanks kids, a wonderful dinner in Quebec!

Emergency Incident

1,A wonderful breakfast is done, all set. But our car couldn’t start. How can it happen on a 8 months brand new Honda CRV?

The hotel stuff came and kindly helped with his booster under freezing weather.
What a nice man!👍

2. Somehow our today’s driver left the car window fully opened in the resort parking lot. After 5 hours, no one touched the GPS and iPhone on the dashboard.
What nice Mont Tremblant people. 👌

I said: we are lucky.
My honeydew said: I do exactly the same as the nice people do.😐

Day 6— Tremblant resort (north side), QC

Dec29, 2014

The wonderful free breakfast totally is beyond our expectation. They will prepare for you based on your order. Bacon, ham, sausage, eggs, potato are all fresh cook, plus plenty of cereal, milk and juices made us simply like the hotel. Our little boy even likes to have breakfast there everyday if it’s near us. 😋

But when his brother announced that today will be cold as -11, he decided not to ski. Oh my sweetheart, no problem, I will stay with you. 😀😃😄

I thought we can tour around the cute village like yesterday in the south side. But except the icy boring and more difficult mountains, there is nothing interesting in the Tremblant north side. There isn’t water park, no hot tub and sauna either.

It is super cold, we can’t do anything outside, but stay in the cafeteria which is full of skiing experts.

After ordering food several times and ran out of battery by gaming on his phone. My sweetheart came to me, he was wondering what mommy is doing beside the fireplace.

When he found out that I am writing journal for them, he couldn’t stop reading them with smile. He told me that some of them are interesting and funny.😑

Baby, all the journals are written for you, I didn’t think you will be interested at this time, I expect that you will read them when you grow up. But if you start it, you are the exact reader that I wrote for. And I know you will tell the secret to your brother and daddy. 😐

I have been writing journals for years. At beginning, it was written for myself and my honeydew. Even though he has never read them yet. I wrote in my beautiful and confident native language. I am sure he will like them when someday he reads it. It’s a surprise.😋

Since we have 2 babies, my life is full filled with you . Along with your growth, there are so many moments that touched me, which brought out me to write it down. When I found out that both of you are getting worse with our native language, as part of your growing record, I would like to give to you as a mom’s gift for their children. That’s why I have to use my limited English.😓

But regardless my poor and embarrassing English, no matter when you read it now or in the future, as long as the words can bring you to the real memory for the past; as long as a mom can be well understood by her children and honeydew, all is worth it.

Look, a day in the world famous skiing resort can be also happy without skiing. 😊

But good job, 2 great skiers. And no more excuse for us tomorrow, sweetheart . 😏

Day 5— Tremblant resort (south side), QC

Dec28, 2014

Even though it was 6 years ago, everybody remembers our family’s first Montreal skiing trip. Our little boy didn’t ski, but he played with a lot of snow in our friend’s backyard; he also played street hockey with the neighborhood kids there. This year, he skied a lot, he also had fun playing table tennis in our same friend’s house.

The breakfast was as rich as our last night’s dinner. We left our gratitude, carries our friendship with us, that will increase through years.

Tremblant is our trip destination. We expected better snow, better services and more fun.

After one hour drive, followed another one hour dealing with the G4 & G5 snow pass, we still didn’t get the free ticket due to the Tremblant holiday restriction. 😩

When we finally got on the gondola, it was 1:30pm, but it’s not our fault, manager.

The mountain is high and huge as everyone knows. But the snow shouldn’t be this poor: very icy and hard base with some uneven man made snow on the top. 😠

I was already frustrated after the first run. But to be respectful for our manager, and try to reduce the cost for each run, I still skied at least 5 times from the mountain top.0

Yeah, 4 o’clock, no night ski, let’s go to our new hotel.

Interesting Sidelights

Since we have 3 white similar helmets, in order to pick easily and save time on each changing time, our manager wrote all of our FULL name on each helmets.

So many times, people warmly greeted to me: Hi Lucy, how is your skiing today?
Then I was able to get contact with some skiers who came from US and Europe; some young as 4 and some old as 63.

So I think, writing names on helmet really isn’t an bad idea, but first name only might be good enough. Buddy 😐

Day 4, Bromont resort, QC

Dec27, 2014

Our today’s journey starts from our check out at this friendly motel.

3 days ago, when we checked in, we found out that the owner of this quite big Motel is a friend of our manager’s ski friend in Toronto. It was such a great coincidence, it definitely made our first motel experience nice and warm. The owner who is also a skiing fan then invited his ski friend, set an appointment to ski together with us this afternoon. 😊

I always like our family opening ski every day when we ski together, but not today.

I didn’t notice that the 2 boys brought us to the mountain top right away. Even though they tried to find green trail to come down, but a lot of areas was steep, narrow and even moguls. Come on kids, I don’t think this trail is green. I consider this is misleading. But it’s too late, I had to manage it myself.

Surprisingly I seemed finding a little bit fun when dealing with the moguls at the end. So they took me up once more, on purpose.

It was so long, I know I can manage it, but my progress might not be as quick as your guys expect. I feel happy that in my 5 years skiing experiences, except fell once in BM at the first year, I never fell in any other higher and famous mountains afterwards. However, according to you, I should be a black trail skier by now. 😥

I can’t imagine how cool it was when the 4 super skier skiing together on the double black trail in the afternoon, everyone were very cheerful at the last run. Well, I appreciate my little instructor who was volunteering to stay with me.

Bromont resort is the biggest night ski resort in North America. It was so beautiful and spectacular when you saw the whole giant mountain was lighting up. It was hard to say goodbye to the 2 kind friends who came to ski with us. However, another friend family is waiting for us to visit. We have to leave. 😪

Bye bye Waterloo, bye bye Bromont, bye bye friends.😂

After 1.5 hours drive, when you meet your kind family friends as 20 years ago; when you taste the over sumptuous Hot Pot food; when having a dinner with more than 10 people; when drinking and laughing mixed together, wouldn’t be a happier day ever.

Thanks for our manager who made these happen. 😋

Interesting Sidelights

No matter what kind of effort our manager did, it seems we still couldn’t ski in the morning. The comfortable time that we can reach the resorts is always close to the noon time.

I then come up an idea to skip the lunches in the resorts, so that we can ski straight the whole afternoon. However I will bring some chocolate bars as snack instead. It went pretty smooth for the past a couple of days.

Somehow our manager didn’t get the share yesterday. To be more organize and fair. I prepared an equal amount today for every one, only specially put one big package mixing with other chocolate bars. In my mind, it should be for our manager who did both snowboarding and skiing without single chocolate bar yesterday.

But as I announced in the morning when we start to drive, our little boy complained, he said he taught mom a lot of skiing skills and made her improve significantly yesterday. That was true, thanks baby; 😊

How about our big boy, he said he deserves that one. 😮 Because he safely supervised his younger brother on many black trails, he always let his brother ski first, in case his brother falls, he can help. One time yesterday, his brother left behind, he looked back while skiing down, so he fell, all because the brother. You are right our big boy, thanks a lot.😊

So I suggested to vote, but everyone will vote for themselves as per our little boy. Then I added, so everyone vote for 2 different people. And I won’t vote for myself.😋

I think everybody is busy on thinking their decisions, it’s pretty hard than my initial idea. Suddenly our little sweetheart broke the silence:

Ok, I would like to give a speech right now:
😳😳😳
If your guys vote for me, for the rest of the trip:
I will be nice to my brother;
I will listen to my mom;
I won’t bother my daddy.

What an useful speech!
I don’t know about others. My decision was made immediately.

However before we reached the resort. The promises had already been broken few times. So when I handed the biggest chocolate to him, he shared to all of us, maybe he realized that he isn’t the only one who deserve it; Maybe it is too big. 😑

Good thing is I don’t have any bigger bar, so no more chocolate issue.

Day 3—-Jay Peak resort, US

Boxing Day, 2014

We all know that we will pass the boarder and go to Jay Peak resort in US today, we didn’t want to give you hard time in the morning. But sorry manager, we are all young, we love sleep and we need good breakfast as well. So when we rush to the lift, it was exact 12 noon, half value of the ticket is gone. 😏

To be honest, I never like wasting time. However, I only don’t mind to waste some time on skiing, although I never speak out 😐. But when I got down from the first trail, I have to admit, I was wrong.

The Interstate is a perfect Green Trail in Jay Peak. It is long, wide, straight, challenging but not tough. I immediately love it, especially ski with my honeydew.

Due to the freezing rain condition last year, I didn’t ski in this resort, while 3 of them enjoyed a lot on a black trail which is called The Jet. This is the reason why our manager decided to come back this year. Thank you buddy, and I won’t bother you to go to the Water Park anymore, where I enjoyed the most last year. I will just ski every single minutes today until it closes.😐

I so enjoyed watching my honeydew snowboarding in front of me, it was cool!
We changed several lifts, skied many green trails. There was nothing in my mind, but fun.

As I remember, just in the last weekend when my honeydew decided to do grocery shopping with me, it surprised both me and my little boy. The little boy said: ” I’ve never seen your guys going out together since your company Gala party”.

Yes, you are right baby. Due to our family busy schedule, dad is always in charge your sports activities, while I am responsible for your music. So normally we seldom have free time together. But today, we had a precious 4 hours together being outside😋. Don’t worry baby, we all good. 😑

We didn’t relay on our Walki-Talki, no one wasted any minutes today. Boys enjoyed the huge tram, which I would like to describe as a train that can travel to the sky. It can carry 60 skiers at once, however there is always long waiting for the crowd. But it must be super cool. Ok, after your 3 times The Jet, 4 times the other black trails, we all came down exactly the same time @ 4pm. Give me a High Five sweetheart. 😋

Now, Boxing Day is almost gone, so my little boy, you like to go shopping or vacation at Boxing Day?
100% vacation, your guys are cheap, my names is Rich, Boxing Day is not for me 😳😃；

How about you, our young man?
Oh,I prefer on-line shopping not line up shopping😊.

And what does Boxing Day mean to you buddy?
It means our first skiing trip begins. (Thanks for reminding us)
That was on Dec 26, 2007, a father brought their young boy to Glen Eden ski resort in Toronto, from then skiing never left from their family.

5 years after, the same boy got CSIA skiing instructor license. The father, although never took the exam, but his skiing skill is not lower than CSIA. The little brother is also ensured to be a future CSIA when he reaches 16.

Regardless my shopping habbit as a lady, I have no chance for this holiday. 😏

So I would like to say:
Happy our 7th Skiing Anniversary!😑
I love you, Family! 😘

Day 2—-Orford Resort, QC

Christmas Day, 2014

Even though dad keeps greeting Merry Christmas! And mom gets ready a sumptuous breakfast. Both kids still don’t want to get up. This might because we had a long drive yesterday and followed a long Christmas Eve celebration dinner. As a result, our manager has to change his plan. Instead of going to Jaypeak resort in US, we will have to choose a nearest one .

Montreal really is a perfect place for skiing fans. You can easily find an awesome ski resort in one hour driving distance or even less. Our manager chose Orford today. One reason is, it’s one of the highest ski mountain in Quebec, and it’s near us. My measurement is always based on the comparison with the biggest mountain in Ontario, which is Blue Mountain. The Vertical Drop in BM is 750 fts while Orford is 1900 fts. Moreover, due to pretty high temperature today, a lot of trails are closed in some other resorts, however there are more trails open in Orford today.😄

Although it only took us 20 mins drive. However it’s already 11am when we reached there. 😉

Nice weather @ 5 degree, less people, real snow without ice. We were all excited when getting on the gondola. However, it’s different story when we reached on the top mountain.
It was so so windy.😠

We had to quickly came down and chose the trails very carefully with Green Trail for me.😂

Surprisingly when I hear the sound from the skis chafing the snow, the skiing joy easily came to me again after one year. I skied quite few times with my snowboarding buddy. We chatting, chasing, taking pictures and videos while skiing. Then we met our 2 sweethearts who came down from other challenging trails.

It was a short and quiet skiing day. At the end, our Santa Claus believer missed our home Christmas tree and chimney. After he received a best Christmas gift ever 4 years ago, he and Mr. Santa became good friends. He wondered what his dear Santa had brought to him this year. He also recommended that we have to stay home and wait for Santa from next year.

Sure sweetheart, nothing will be better to make their kids happy for parents. Let me hug and kiss you more and more, I wish you a very Merry Christmas in Montreal!🎄🎉🎊🎁

 

Day 1—-On the way to Montreal

Christmas Eve, 2014

It’s not the first time driving for 7 hours.
It’s not the first time driving in light rain.
It’s not the first time driving at the Christmas Eve either.

Our vacation goal is relax and enjoy, so we start our joys during our driving.

I would like to promote my suggestion to upload some classical music and famous symphony to our devices is one of the best idea, So the Christmas carols and classical music alternately sounds in our lovely car. It seems we carried our awesome grand piano and the beautiful violin with us. 😊

Drive in the Christmas Eve isn’t a bad idea either. So before the big dinner, you are able to enjoy the splendid Christmas lights along the way, from Toronto to Oshawa, Kingston and Montreal.🎼🎵🎶

Even though I had a proud record for driving 6 hours straight in dark icy road last Christmas, however, since we had a young driver, that record became a history. I wasn’t considered as a valuable drive in our family anymore.

So thanks guys, and here comes our Christmas dinner. 🍲

2014 Christmas Skiing Trip

Dec22, 2014

Snow means a lot of SHOVELING to our super man😅;
Snow means TOUGHER walking between buildings in campus to our big boy 😎;
To me, Snow means sitting beside the fireplace, warm and ROMANTIC 😑;
To our little boy, Snow means SKIING😀!

Yeah! Let’s go! Go skiing! Lots of fun!

It has been the 7th year for our family’s skiing trip, so nothing new. Except added a new ski and a snowboard, all other equipments remain the same. Our packing list even has been being a great general file for years. So I can start my packing at any time. But where to ski this year? I think this is the hardest part for this trip.

In these 7 years, we had 3 years Blue Mount season pass, skied tens of times there;
We skied 9 days at Big White in BC, enjoyed the wonderful weather with great snow condition.
We skied 9 days in Colorado, experienced the world famous skiing resorts.
We skied 9 days in North of Vermont last year. Felt a lifetime crystal Christmas in US!
Our 2 big guys skied 9 days in Salt Lake City in US, immensely enjoyed skiing fun.

In addition,we had quite few 4 days trips in New York State; South of Vermont in US; Tremblant, Mont Sainte-Anne and Le Massif in Quebec.

Basically we almost skied all the well known ski mountains in North America. Some of the places we even skied more than twice. So if we still want to leave our dream resort Whistler in the future, then we have to pick some resorts that we have visited.

Even though Tremblant will be the 3rd time for our 2 big guys to visit, however it will be the first time for our little skier. In order to benefit his Grade 4 & 5 Canada ski pass, he definitely doesn’t want to miss this famous mountain which contains the most challenging trail in Canada.

Internet wastes lots of people’s precious time, however it also do the powerful help to our life. All our 7 nights hotel and 5 resorts lift tickets booking can be done in one afternoon or even shorter in few minutes if you have pretty strong financial situation, so you don’t need to search the location vs. price, and you won’t mind to buy all the life tickets at its regular price either. Unfortunately our manager has to do some research work.

As a skiing fan, our manager has some skiing friends in different cities, with their help, we got promotion price at some of the resorts tickets. It makes us happy before the trip starts. 😊

The next is to wait for snow coming.⛄️

Interesting Sidelights

There are quite few different types of ski for various ski purpose, like for alpine ski, mogul and powder ski.

Our manager always uses alpine & mogul ski for powder skiing. This year he decided to add one powder ski which is esteemed the coolest ski by the skiing fans. According to them, you will be happy only by looking at the ski even if not using it😁. So after getting the shipment from US, the ski was kept in our living room instead of garage, and he really looking at them adoringly everyday.

Hey buddy, leave the ski alone, it’s time for dinner, 😏