Sun!

It finally has stopped snowing and it's a perfect, cold, blue sky day out.


Mt. Washington bathed in the morning glow.

We should be getting the snow plowed out of our drive way today! The Cats have been so swamped that they did not have time to come and plow us out last week. Thankfully, the groups that are booked in this week had only a few cars and we were able to squeeze them in between the 3m banks.

The view looking southwest

Again, some photos for Christolla to show that snow can be piled higher than a person's head.

Coconut Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

These are just too good not to share. This recipe my take on the one found in "Vegan with a Vengeance" (one of the best cook books out there, highly recommend for Vegans and Non-vegans alike). They are dangerously good and no where near healthy as cupcakes always are! You can make them vegan, or not - which ever you like, however I know they are great vegan and I cant say what they would taste like with animal things in it. Hope you like them!

Lemon Frosting:

1/4cup margarine (Vegan or not)
1/4cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (soy, rice or regular milk would do as well)
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

This makes a lot of frosting. When making just 12 cupcakes I would recommend halving the recipe... that or just make 24 of 'em instead.

Whisk margarine till fluffy, then stir in milk and the lemon juice and mix. Then add in the confectioners sugar and mix till smooth. Put it in the fridge till you need it!


For the cupcakes:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2cup coconut oil, melted (or any mild tasting oil like canola)
1 1/2cups coconut milk
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 and line a 12-muffin tin with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. In a separate bowl combine melted coconut oil, coconut milk, sugar and vanilla. Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix together until smooth. Fold in the shredded coconut. Fill each of the muffin tin about 2/3full and bake for 20-22min; the cupcakes should be slightly browned around the edges and spring back when touched. Remove from tin and allow to cool completely before frosting them.

Easy, eh? Almost too easy...

Coconut Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

I have to put this recipe up... these are the most amazing cupcakes!! I have been making these more then is probably good for me. This is a bit a variation of Isa Moskowitz recipe from her book "Vegan with a Vengeance" (one of the best cook books out there... highly recommended). I hope you like them!

For Cupcakes (makes 12):

1 cup all -purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 coconut oil (melted) or 1/4 canola oil
1 cup coconut milk
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut


Lemon Frosting:

1/4 cup nonhydrogenated margarine, soften
1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or soy, or rice)
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

Roof Avalanche!

With a bit of jumping, sawing and a lot of shoveling Paul managed to bring down the massive cornice! The roof is now free from its load and our door is almost completely filled in. Now there is really no escaping out that way!

Buried!!!!

I have to admit, I am overwhelmed!!! I can't keep up with the snow. We are buried. We have had 2.5 meters since Monday, 60cm overnight last night, 95cm in the last 24hrs and our snow base jumped to 480cm; That means that we are already half way to reaching the annual snowfall and the hill has only been open 21 days.

The snow today is heavy, wet and you sink waist deep, if not deeper, when you are trying to swim through it. There are massive cornices hanging over doorways and walkways dangerously that need to be brought down. Sadly as soon as they avalanche the snow gets into packed heavy piles that then need to be shoveled away.
I am hesitant to leave the house through the door because the "serac" off the roof is extremely unstable and slowly dropping mounds of snow down on to the doorway. The door way itself is under a balcony which, instead of protecting the area, creates a really bad trap if the serac was to slide fully when someone was standing there. Unfortunately, our alternative exit (a trap door into the Elkhorn breeze way), is practically useless until I can manage to dig out the Elkhorn Entrance way. I have already spent 2 hours shoveling this morning and I easily have another 2 hours to go on that alone.

This was the dig-out fun on Wednesday morning. Got all the vehicles out, had the cat clear the parking lot completely (down to the gravel) and the new guest showed up that afternoon.

We warned them that we WOULD be digging out cars and that they needed to park in tight rows 2 or 3 cars deep so that we could do as little digging to get as many vehicles out... they told me today they they didn't actually believe us...

Then, it snowed and snowed and snowed...

They believe us now!
The arrows point to the guest vehicles in our parking lot!
I am standing on the snow pile beside the front door of the Golden Hinde and you can faintly see the pathway leading to the road.

One of the guest dug to the back of the his vehicle. You can see that the drift is much taller then the car itself.

From on the pathway, looking back towards the chalet. A bit of window and car exposed. You can see the path is sitting at just over door handle height on the buried car and when your one the path the snow around you is still waist deep



This is the "serac" on the Elkhorn roof that is threatening to come down and bury our doorway! This photo is taken standing on the snow bank, level with the second floor balcony.


Here, you can see the same balcony and that rabbit hole down underneath it is the way to our entrance way. Needless to say, the guest are letting me go through there suite to get outside.

Stop Sign
I remember having a conversation with my Dad about how funny we thought it was that all the signs were up so high on posts... well, they are not up high enough.

The road is progressively getting narrower and the banks are getting deeper.

The camera was pretty foggy at this point (its super wet snow), however if you really look carefully you can see that the height clearance on this parking lot door says 7.5'.

This ended up taking me 3.5 hours to dig out! The snow had filled in the stairway completely and was about 1.5m deep on the top stair. The bank is too high (about 2.5 -3m) for me to throw the snow up and over it, so I actually had to haul the snow to behind where this was taken from. To keep that bank small enough I was actually climbing up on top of the bank and shoveling it level.

The State of the Nation

The past week and a half here at the chalet seems to have been very busy. To begin,we arrived on the 9th of December and the first order of business for me was to find a job on the ski hill. I was pretty worried after talking with the human resources guy on the first day; he told me that there were currently no job openings at the hill, and that my best chance for a job would be in January when the "house cleaning" of the different departments usually occurs. As luck would have it I got a call that same afternoon asking if I would be willing to begin work the next day in the "Public Services" department.

I can't honestly say that working in "Public Services" is my dream job, as the department is the result of the amalgamation of the custodial and security staff. Security guards with mops, wonderful. The weird and wonderful reality of this marriage of departments is that the supervisor is the only one there who deals with security issues, and most of my day is spent shoveling snow and replacing empty rolls of paper towel in the bathrooms. So I really have nothing to do with security, and I have to do very little actual cleaning. Bizarre, but I'm not complaining. Working on the hill has some perks too; I get a seasons lift pass, I get discounts on any thing I buy at the hill (food, clothes, etc.), and I get three day weekends too.

Once I had the full time employment thing figured out it was time for Ashley and I to get the chalet ready for the first guests. This all went pretty smoothly, but between working away in the chalet and working at the hill the days seemed to fly by.

Yesterday we finally got the chance to go snowboarding. The conditions were really good, certainly one of the best day of resort skiing that I've had in a long time. The snow was falling quite heavily, so there were fresh tracks to be had all over the place.

Today It was back to work again though, one set of guests left and some new ones came in. Of course there was more snow to shovel as well. The next week and a half will be the busiest time of the season for both of the jobs here, but we seem to be settling in and figuring out what we have to do. It looks like we'll have a great winter out here though, with many more days like yesterday!

After a great snowy day of riding.
(I had Paul stand outside while I got the camera so that I could get this photo without his beard melting first!)

This photo and the next one were taken for Christolla, who could not believe that snow could pile up taller than a person. However, outside of our lodge it most certainly has!

Shoveling in the snow; It's a game that cant be won.

Baby bump...

This is the "before" picture... taken just shortly after we got home from Strathcona Park Lodge, so I would of been only about 5 weeks pregnant and still in good shape from the summer of playing outdoors!

Then all of a sudden....

Bam! Its a baby bump starting!!
Not much yet... but the difference is certainly noticeable to me! I have only gained a about 7 pounds so far (and I am pretty sure most of that went straight to my breasts) but i am also far less active then I was 2 months ago (plus I have been cooking these coconut cupcakes with lemon frosting - vegan, an sooooooo good!!). I am having to unzip the second lower zipper on some of my sweaters and my jeans are not comfortable for sitting without undoing the button.

That's all for the baby update for now! Going for an ultrasound Jan 20th.

Photos

A few pictures of our winter home up at Mt.Washington on Vancouver Island...

Pauls truck in front of the Chalet.
Its been snowing here steadily making shoveling a losing battle... We got about 20cm overnight when this photo was taken and since then we have had equal or more amounts of snow (last night we got 26cm). There is now a base of 230cm on the hill, the snow banks around the lodge are taller then I am and the forecast is call for much, much more in the next few days!

At least we have a really nice snowcat driver that comes and plows our driveway for us (when there are no cars in the way)! The snowcats seem to run 24hrs clearing roads and grooming the hill. Mt. Washington gets an average annual snowfall of 1050cm (the record was in 98/99 when they got 1848cm - it was an La Nina year like this year!).

The view off of the Elkhorn balcony.

Although the first picture makes the chalet seem pretty small it rambles down the hill for 5 floors (and 2 lofts) and we can sleep 24 people between the two suites! Each suite comes with a full kitchen, a sauna (one suite has a hot tub as well), and gas fireplace.

The summit of Mt.Washington is 1588m and our Chalet is at the base of the Green Chair and the Hawk Chair at about 1100m. There is 1600 skiable acres, with over 60 runs and glade skiing. Plus 55km of total cross country skiing trails.

Mt. Washington!

Just a quick post this time!

Paul and I arrived save and sound to the Chalet on Mt. Washington a few nights ago and have been busy getting settled in and getting a feel for the Chalet. Paul was able to get a job with the Mt. Washington resort and has already worked a few shifts and I have been starting to figure out what all needs to be done before the guest show up on Thursday.

The weather here has been a bit everywhere, but in general pleasant and sunny! Yesterday was a bit of windy white out and this morning there was rain and then a hot (+8) day on the hill (ew!). There is lots of snow already (hopefully it doesn't get washed away with the rain they are calling for tomorrow) and it looks like there is more on the way later this week (we're going to dip down to -1 for a few days!!). Its perfect. I have always dreamed of a warm but snowy winter....

We are off to see the midwifes here in Courtney tomorrow morning. I am going to have to get them to weigh me as I have certainly been gaining weight lately - I even have started to need to utilize the bottom up second zipper on some of my hoodies and let the baby bulge poke out.

We are going to be taking lots of photos (probably tomorrow) and will post those so that you can see what are new home and surroundings are like! If you have free long distance we can receive called on our land line (250.334.8161) and it would be really great to hear from you!

Peace and Love,
Ashley and Paul