How to Build a Snow Cave : Part One

Another first for the Conibear family here I think. I am (with help from Juris hah ha aha ) making a snowcave up on Cypress mountain above Vancouver to be used for overnight stays and easy access to early morning starts on the ski hill.

First you must find a quiet spot away from the main trail but not too far from the parking lot. Then you start to dig . Start piling snow in a big mound.

 
 

 

  

Have your helper cut snow blocks to be used for filling in later on.

Keep digging!!!!

 
 
  

Stop for lunch. Hot chocolate and almond and pan au chocolat croissants !!! Yum!!!!

 
 
  

 


Once the form is made you must dig down to the deepest layer of wet snow and add this to the form to make a think crust. This will form the outermost wall of the cave once you have hollowed out the middle.

All this took about 3 hours on Saturday afternoon.

To be continued. 

Xmas Day Vancouver Style

Got up early ..... well 8 ish.. to put the turkey in the oven . It was a cook from frozen ready stuffed jobbie .... 7 hours to cook!!!

Minka managed to untangle her legs eventually and got up to help prepare the dinner.

 
 
 
  

...ok ..cut to 7 hours later

and Juris manages to wrestle the bird out of the pan onto the carving dish. (yes Mum .. those were brand new rubber gloves out of the packet...didn't want to burn his hands ya know!) Almost ended on the floor so the blogger had to drop the camera to help.

 
 
 
 

The table was set and the lights lookig festive . We even had our own fireplace ! (check out the TV in the background tuned into the Xmas Fireplace Channel on TV !!!) 

After dinner we walked down to English Bay to look at the big tree with the lights that the city does evey year. This year they changed the lights from plain gold to mutlti blues red and orange..... made for some interesting shots

 
 
 
  

Empress Minka of Rexonia

Hello everyone! Sorry it has been a LOOOONNG time since I blogged . There are many reasons why I have been delinquent in my blogging almost too many to mention( work.... ug..... Xmas .. uugggg.....more work ...... running..yay ... Xmas ....gggrrr)

BUT the main reason is that ....Horror of horrors my computer broke!!!! This has never happened to me before in my pc ownership so it has been quite a sad week without my beloved friend. I tried many things to fix it and fianlly had to call in reinforcements(thanks Jason) but the concensus is that the motherboard is fried. So .... the only good news from this is that Jason is upgrading his pc in the New Year so I will get his 'old' stuff. So 'old' to him is in fact a new super duper 64 bit dual core Opteron(sp?) AMD cpu and a good motherboard to so my new system will be lightening fast !!!!! Yay AND I will be investing in a good surge protector.....

The other major reason I have been away from my desk is that I have my new kitten finally! Yes after months of humming and hawing and changing my mind back and forth i really decided to go ahead and commit to buying a kitten . So here she is below. Her name is Minka. She is a Cornish Rex (see link on RHS of page ) I have had her one week now and I think we're adjusting well to each other. I will try to take LOTS of pics over Xmas.

Oh .. and the other reason is I have a BF now so i suppose i should give him a mention too ;) his name is Juris ....... but more on that later .....(poor Juris playing second to the cat already !!!! )